Confessions of a Fat Beauty Queen - So much cake, so little time. (Part 1)

The last few weeks were amongst the strangest in my life. I did so many things I have never done before. I performed by myself on a stage. I made Lisa Stansfield a cake (and she ate it). I let the BBC film me wearing nothing on top but a bra. And now I officially carry the title Burger Queen 2011.

I met Paloma at Burger Queen and she was eating, she was eating.

How did all of this happen? I am still not quite sure. When I first decided to enter this little contest, I did it because the whole thing seemed fun and camp. Like RuPaul's drag race, but with more fat people and less cameras. I also alternated between loving and hating London, and I decided this contest was a good way to find out how London actually felt about me. Well, at least the part of London that matters: Drag queens and celebrities, and people wearing funny hats.

The contest consisted of 3 parts: fat fashion, fat talent and fat food. I had to present an outfit, perform something and make a dish. Out of the three, the dish was the least problematic challenge - sure, I don't posess a (kitchen, or any) scale, or a oven I can actually operate, but I just did it Nigella Lawson's way: Throw lots of sugary, fatty things together in a bowl, crumble some cookies in and hope for the best.

Fashion was a bit more worrying: Most of the people that were competing against me in the first round I already knew from the club scene, and they always look amazing, much better than I ever could. For the first round, I decided to go with lots of colour and got a bit of help from my friend Naddy Sane, who is a cross between a fairy, a rainbow and 21st century Edie Sedgewick.

Miss Naddy Sane

What worried me most, though, was the talent bit. Stages are in their nature generally pretty inaccessible to me. Not many people in my life have offered me to build a ramp onto a stage. Only my favourite fatty Scottee did. While I like to write, I never actually performed something I wrote on a stage, so I never actually performed voluntarily. However, I do see every-day interaction as something very performative, and in that sense I had all my life to study in which roles people like me best. If all of this sounds a bit weird to you, read some Judith Butler. Or don't. Maybe just ignore the confusing bit and read on, ok? I'll post a picture of the cake I did for the first round, everyone likes cake.

The lady in the picture is the ravishing Marawa Cup, who is a burlesque hula hoop artist and was on Britain's got talent. She was one of the celebrity judges in the first round, along with Cocknbullkid, Tatty Devine, The Broken Hearts DJs, Timberlina and Miss Paloma Faith, squeeeeeal!!
All the judges turned out to be really lovely, although Paloma Faith is quite a cheeky rascal in person, much different (but even more charming and gorgeous) to her sweet, ladylike stage persona.

My fellow contestants in the first round were Roberto, a gorgeous bear who likes to be naked and can sing and dance like the best of them, Angel Rose, a performance artist and gothic queen of the London clubbing scene, and Oozing Gloop, who actually was super skinny, but is some sort of big fat crazy genius. Most of the night he wore gummy bears stuck in his face.

Roberto, Oozing Gloop, Angel Rose and yours truly.

As was expected, Angel Rose blew everyone's mind in the fashion round. She's got great style and stage presence.
In the talent round, Roberto and Oozy both performed a song, while Angel Rose and I both did a monologue. Everyone was really friendly and lovely. For me it was an honour to share the stage with such talented, creative and sexy people.
I took inspiration from the deeply moving classic film 10 things I hate about you.  And Lady Gaga. As a result, I did 10 things I love about my chair, because
I am the spirit of my chair,
It's all the glory that I bear,
I am my chair, I am my chair,
I am as free as my ch-a-a-air. 
(If you don't know much about Lady Gaga, just ignore this bit, but if you don't know about Judith Butler AND Lady Gaga, at least tell me you like unicorns, drag queens or Buffy the Vampire Slayer).

The 10 things I love about my chair included that it faciliates such fun activities as shoplifting, lapdances and getting drunk. Here's a bit of it, me talking about my fat hips:

Weirdly enough, even though I had very strong competition in that round, I won and went through to the final. The cake did it, I guess. Orange chocolate cheesecake? Yum. I am hungry now.
I will tell you about the final in the sequel, because every Lindsay Lohan film blog post about a beauty pageant for fat people deserves a sequel.

PS: Yes, I titled that video "Nina Neon Burger Queen 2011". It flatters my vanity and makes me feel like I live in a Kirstie Alley film. Eat it.