(posted by Mike, in response to Melodrama)

Two posts below, Melodrama describes an encounter with a Hindu “God-man” (viewers of the popular Asian-British comedy series Goodness Gracious Me probably have some idea of the type of person she describes), and reminds me that I might once have met a Thai Buddhist equivalent.

We were changing planes at a smallish airport, on the way back from Koh Samui to Bangkok. The God-man entered the departure area with an entourage of maybe twenty or so acolytes, his entrance met by a general fluttering of awed recognition from all the other passengers and airport staff.

He was dressed in the orange robes of a Buddhist monk – except that these immaculately arranged robes were clearly of a far superior quality than the norm. I placed him in his mid-to-late forties – quite possibly a decade older, but carefully preserved. His hair was neatly groomed; his facial features were dark and pronounced, exquisitely chiselled, softly masculine, old-school matinee-idol handsome, and curiously untypical for a Thai. His one facial expression - a sort of beatific half-smile - never wavered for a second. His whole demeanour was one of calm, authoritative wisdom, of the sort that required no further outward manifestation; it was tacitly assumed. Without saying or doing anything, his whole being radiated the most extraordinary charisma. True star quality. I had no idea who he was, but I could feel it just as strongly as everyone else around me.

Oh-so-humbly, the God-man eschewed the dangerously materialistic luxuries of airport seating, placing himself instead on the floor, against a wall, facing out towards a large open section of the building. His acolytes immediately arranged themselves around him, in a semi-circular clump, all facing towards him. Gradually, more and more passengers added themselves to the outside of the group, which fanned itself further and further out into the hall. Nobody seemed to be doing anything much. They simply looked at him - or at the ground in front of him - in a suitably supplicating fashion, and he smiled back. This seemed to be enough for all concerned. To my secular European eyes, the scene was intriguing, mystifying, baffling. Who was this guy, anyway?

A year or two later, as I was browsing a copy of Esquire magazine (yeah, me neither), I came across a long article on a recent series of sex scandals involving various highly regarded Thai monks, who had been systematically abusing their power and influence over some of their female followers. Apparently, these discoveries were rocking the foundations of the religious establishment over there. (Does this sound at all familiar?) A lengthy mention was made of one particularly well-known tarnished guru, and his spectacular fall from grace. A small photo accompanied the relevant paragraphs.

It was him.

(Posted by Buni)

“I don’t ask for much in a man. He only has to be tall, rich, funny, sexy, single, strong, good-looking, smart, romantic, charming, warm, sweet, sensitive, athletic, warm, kind, generous, punctual, sincere, and of course he has to feed me ice-cream in bed every night for the rest of my life.”

As a younger man, I have to admit that the above was pretty much the case; I would have all these criteria about men and if they didn’t match those criteria then they were history, or didn’t even get a look in. There are young guys that I know at the moment and they are exactly the same, so idealised. They have there own criteria and standards, some are similar to the above and some are not, but there is the general gist of having this ideal man in their life that they think is going to bring eternal happiness. If they have found the above, good luck to them.

As I’ve become older, I’ve become more relaxed with myself as a person, I’ve noticed that I’m not such a fascist about these things. Don’t get me wrong, I still have my standards and high standards they are too, but the men who come into my life don’t have to have all of the above criteria.

There are many guys that I like a lot; guys that I’ve met over the years that I find are likeable, respected, admired, and having maturity and good judgement. As I said these are guys that I like a lot and where I’ve thought about taking things a step further. However, something has held me back. In my analysis of ‘taking things further’, I’ve thought to myself about attachment, “Would it be hard for me to get along without……..?”, a sense of caring for the other person, “Could I do almost anything for……?.”, and in my eyes, the most important aspect of a sense of trust, “Do I feel I can confide in >>place name here<< about virtually everything?”

I’ve been carrying on carrying on, doing my thing and getting on with life; not particularly looking about for anything serious where men are concerned. This has gone on for about 2 or 3 years (I’ve been single for 5) and I’ve recently, finally met a guy where I have found myself thinking long and hard about the attachment, sense of caring and trust and I have to admit that he has met all of the above criterion and standards, and more. I felt love again. However, the feelings are unrequited, it’s a shame but I’ll get over it. He is a cracking guy with a good head on his shoulders, and, he is likeable, respected, admired, mature and possesses good judgement. However, he’s a lot younger than me and so his criterion is that the guy he’d like would be tall, funny, sexy, single, strong, good-looking, smart, romantic, charming, warm, sweet, sensitive, athletic, warm, kind, generous, punctual, sincere, and of course they have to feed him ice-cream in bed every night for the rest of his life.”

Maybe it's all down to timing or something? I have no idea. You just can't win them all can you?

This entry may be revised in two or three years time.

(Posted by Melodrama)

I'm posting from my parents' home today. After working half-day, I rushed to the railway station and settled in my seat for a hopefully peaceful two hour ride to my parents'. Ten minutes after I settled in, I heard an announcement that all trains were delayed due to a minor derailment. How could I expect otherwise with my luck this week? When finally the train started, I looked around and noticed I had a God-man and a subdued looking fellow, apparently his disciple in the next seat.

I mostly ignore my co-passengers, and I buried my nose in the magazines I carry solely for the purpose of avoiding co-passengers. When the train finally started, the God-man started making conversation with everyone and I purposely tried my best to avoid conversation.

Finally, the God-man asked me where I was headed and I muttered something inaudible and looked away. The Gm (God Man) finally started making conversation with people sitting across the aisle and started lecturing about the virtues of Hinduism. Then he started a flirtatious conversation on his cellphone with someone. Well! Things were getting interesting. I don't know whether any reader on this blog has ever seen an Indian Gm or not. Most dress in orange or white robes, have sandalwood paste smeared on their foreheads, wear loads of long rudraksha beads or gems and spout pseudo Hindu philosophy while subtly mentioning their ashrams anywhere outside India. This guy was pretty much like that and very curious about everyone else and flashy to boot.

If being a God-man is anything like what this fellow was, its not such a bad idea being a God-woman. I just need to work on getting some rich, decadent disciples first!

(Posted by Mark)

Whatever you think you know, however well you believe something corresponds to another, the promises or hearts you've broken, the games you're playing, your timing, what you want or what you worry about, the gifts you give and the ideas and motivations you've been trying to second-guess, the one common thread through them all is that you will make mistakes.

We all make a mess of our lives from time to time,
It's part of the process that you stumble as you climb.

We can't help it because to err is human. With every intention of being accurate, honest, responsible, caring or diligent, we will nevertheless make mistakes because we are intrinsically imperfect creatures. It is how our mistakes are made, the consequences of them, their frequency and their nature which are the real issues rather than any debate over whether they are made. Because, and it's really simple, we all make them.

Making mistakes
Mistakes are made for many different reasons. We may not know exactly what we are doing or what was expected of us in a particular job or function, we may be unwell or tired and thus less able to concentrate fully on the task set to us, we may have been attempting to do too much, resulting in many jobs done less well than a few tasks completed successfully, we may even have introduced deliberate mistakes in an attempt to test or discredit someone else. All these are recognised, if not exactly acceptable, ways of explaining why our mistakes have been made.

One of the most frustrating occasions is when you are challenged as to your mistakes with the question, "Well, why did you do that?". If you explain that you are overworked or ill or unsure of your task and they accept this, then you can get on with correcting the error and all will be well, only in a slightly longer amount of time than anticipated. It is when the other person refuses to accept your explanation that matters get irritating. "I don't want your excuses" has been a line used on me, which is guaranteed to annoy: asking why and then not listening or refusing the answer is a colossal waste of time which could be better used in remedying whatever is deficient. Suffice to say, I have tried to avoid doing work for that person ever again.

Other, more personal mistakes can be made because we have blinded ourselves as to what we want, where are heading in life, or simply because we don't want to know what the real situation is. We make these mistakes in the belief that we are doing what is for the best or at least what we want to believe is the best, and then allow ourselves to be drawn deeper and deeper into confirming that mistake, which in turn deepens the hurt we feel and which we cause others.

Admitting mistakes
"I'm sorry, but you must be mistaken" is the polite way of telling someone that they are plain wrong. What they claim to know or have understood is somehow faulty. This can be accidental misunderstanding: a difficulty with an accent, two words which sound similar to each other, a bad telephone line, a concept not quite fully grasped; or it can be a deliberate misunderstanding, in order to be humorous, heighten tension, intentionally mislead or twist words and meanings to suit the respondent's own purposes. This is the first mistake and leads most often to an immediate second mistake, which is denying that any such misunderstanding went on.

Some people really hate having to say they are sorry, don't they? Admitting your mistake and acknowledging this to someone else is very, very easy but for some it seems to represent something far more serious like a character flaw or a signal that they have fallen slightly shorter than the Olympian ideals which they have set themselves. I don't exempt myself or anyone else when I say that there are certain situations where we all hate to say we are sorry, because we hate to admit we are wrong. If there is a subject upon which you consider yourself the expert and you get a detail or fact wrong, when challenged by someone who claims to have superior knowledge, it can be difficult to admit your mistake. We like to feel that we have certain talents and gifts, and don't necessarily like being contradicted or corrected. A slice of humble pie is often the dish of the day when we take our self-importance too far, and occasionally the odd person demonstrating that we are imperfect can do wonders.

One difficulty is the devaluation of the word 'sorry', which can be used for anything between accidentally detonating a nuclear device and having someone tread on your foot on an Underground train. While wailing "mea culpa" at the top of your voice and committing hari-kiri may seem an excessive way of apologising, so too does a mumbled "sorry, I 'spose" seem a minimal and less-than-heartfelt was of expressing your regret. It is the sincerity of the apology and the promise that such a mistake will not be repeated which indicates the real force of meaning behind the word, and not simply the use of the word itself.

Forgiving mistakes
To continue the Alexander Pope quotation, "to err is human, to forgive, divine" but forgiveness can't occur until that little two-syllable word has been uttered. The scale of the absolution correlates directly to the scale of the transgression. Minor mistakes and the ensuing apologies are easily waved away as their significance is little and the effect they have had on the other person is hardly important. More serious errors of commission or omission will be far harder to excuse as their direct consequence will be felt more keenly by those who have suffered.

The hurt – the real hurt felt can sometimes make you think that nothing could ever let it go, erase the memory of the distress, of the heart-sickening, stomach-aching distress which stays and stays and stays, lingering as though it's a physical part of your body, your memory attaching the mistake committed against you to all the things you hear and see, despoiling what you love and have loved, crying dry tears and turning away from mirrors – may preclude forgiveness. God may be all-forgiving, but we are far from gods and our ability to forgive is more limited, bounded only by our capacity for love. Forgiveness can be the benchmark of love or its absence: do you love me enough to forgive me? Can you love me enough to forgive me? They are questions we should hope we never to need to ask.

Sing for absolution,
I will be singing and falling from your grace.

But if we are forgiven, then doesn't that open up just a little ray of light? A tiny corner of a painted-out window to look through and see what we nearly missed, what we nearly threw away, what we nearly destroyed? Isn't it the understanding that mistakes will be made, that they can and are regretted, that they are not inevitably to be repeated, and that lessons have been learned – isn't that worth forgiveness? I believe so.

(posted by Zena)

But I'm not sure I'm ever going to get over realising how superficial most (men) of the world is (are). People who have looked through me for years, suddenly want to go out with me. People offer me seats, parking spaces, all manner of fine things, and I know that I'm exactly the same now as when I was heavier. More, so, perhaps.

And what happens if I meet someone, and we get together, and then I get fat?

(Posted by Fi)

Oh dear I've made it to the final hurdle and run out of steam. You've probably all gone home for the week already anyway, so I'll just talk about shoes.

I love shoes. Not in a fetishistic way, just in that way that one woman can love her shoes. Don't understand what I mean? Go stand in a shoe shop and watch women fight over the final pair of suede boots with the kitten heel and tasseled edgings around the top that have been reduced to sell.

My favorite shoes are my most comfortable ones. I heard someone say that in life you need comfortable shoes and a comfortable mattress cause if you're not in one you're on the other. I'd have added a couch in there myself but it would have thrown the "one/other" format off. They're made by a company that does far too much sponsorship so I won't add to it here. Rhymes with "dyke" though. They're also the least feminine shoes I own.

After the running shoes there's a myriad of flats, sandals and flip-flops before we get to kitten heels. Kitten heels are called that because they were discovered by kittens, specifically Puss in Boots, whilst accompanying Dick Whittington to London noticed that high heels caused her boots to sink into the ground and flat soles were just not stylish enough.

I have boots with cuban heels too. Cuban heels are special because in the early sixties JFK had to threaten Castro with nuclear retaliation if he didn't stop the propagation of cuban heels across the USSR, they were putting the US kitten heel industry in danger of extinction. The gambit paid off and ever since cuban and kitten heels have been in a carefully balanced eco-system.

Platforms however are entirely different. For one thing I hate having trains stop beside them when I wear them. Very inconvenient. People stand on your toes, nudge towards the front and just cramp your style underneath the arches. They do however turn you into one tall b*tch that nobody is likely to f*ck with.

Probably my best pair of shoes, albeit the most uncomfortable are a pair of YSL Rive Gauche black leather sandals with leather laces that tie up to the top of the calf muscle and 4 inch metal spiked heels. They're lethal. I came close to killing three people including myself with them one evening in an incident I try not to think about involving a bannister, a very short dress and a desire to relive the thrill of sliding down said bannister.

When we think about heels, what do we actually conclude? Were they designed by men to make women easier to catch? Were they favored by women because they countered the height difference? Are they merely useful tools for stamping on people's feet? Do they really accentuate the legs, tighten the calf and thigh muscles and flatter the female form or are they merely a way of warning people you're coming up behind them with that endless click-clack noise... I don't know, I just like shoes.

(Posted by Buni)

Do you ever get to the end of a relationship, be it for a night or a for a much longer period, and through all the upset of it finishing / ending you have to think to yourself, "Was That All It Was?" - just a way to pass the time?

The former, where you've been out for the night with mates or perhaps on a date, you've had a few drinks and the beer / wine goggles are kicking into action. Though, for that night and that night only, the other person was the most important, beautiful and interesting person in the room; they meant absolutely everything to you, or so you thought.

The next day, the sun rises, the milk and postie comes and goes. You wake with that realisation that, there is someone else in the bed with you. Then it all comes flooding back, the flowing drinks, the flirtacious attention, the dancefloor, the taxi (the shocked taxi-driver), the hall, the bedroom........here, to now. You then have to admit to yourself that it wasn't such a bad night after all, you had a good time didn't you? In fact thinking about it, it was a damn good night. You take a glance over your shoulder to check out the bedmate for some reassurance. They stir; NOT YET! Actually they're not at all bad. It's at this point that you have a choice; more of the same, a repeat performance or tea / toilet / polite conversation. You decide on the first option, just to make sure that you did have a good night. After - much delayed - polite conversation you ask if they'd like to get together again, perhaps their phone number? While they're putting on their clothes, you're politiely told that they think your both old enough to realise you're not going to call each other. "Let's be grown up about this, eh? We had some fun, thats all."

Was That All It Was?

The latter is more involved. It may or may not start like the above but the ending is different, you both realise that you are old enough and mature enough to call them / them calling you. You begin to see each other and grow fond of each other. Time passes and your lives become interwoven into a neat tapestry of committment. The initial insecurity about letting your barriers down about certain things has been overcome, you know they're not going to hurt you. Don't you. You enjoy a period of happiness and then at some point, something happens, for whetever reason there has been a short circuit somewhere in the relationship and it all starts to falter. It all starts to go terribly, horribly wrong; before you know it you're back to square one (see above). You feel bitter and betrayed. It wasn't your fault it was theirs, they >>ADD YOUR REASON HERE<< and they didn't see your point of view. We've given up x amount of our lives for each other and that's it, over, done, finito.

Was That All It Was?

(Posted by Mark)

Advertisers like to state about their products that they are 'the thing you can rely on' or comment that 'if only everything in life was as reliable as Brand X'. It's part of the way that they play upon the unreliability of so many aspects of our life, feeding into our insecurities about dependability and inconstancy, hoping that we will recognise their product as a way of enhancing our otherwise topsy-turvy, late again, broken down humdrum. Of course, Troubled Diva readers are far too canny to be duped by such messages, but issues of inconsistency and reliability are why we spend time (or waste time, depending on your particular viewpoint) on the science of second-guessing.

Is it true?
Interpreting what people say and what people mean is, to put an honest face on it, bloody difficult. Firstly, you need to establish whether they are wilfully lying to you, whether they are lying to you by omission, or whether they have dressed up the message in obscure, arcane or masked language. If they are outright lying to you then you have the option of corroboration, unless they are expressing a personal opinion. The old "it's not you, it's me" line is particularly apposite here, for the varying shades of meaning and duplicity it can cover. Translating what the other is saying is akin to revealing a Potemkin village.

When Catherine the Great toured her empire, she wished to see things in the best possible light, despite her advancing years and failing eyesight. In order to ensure that the Empress was presented with a positive view of her domain, her chief minister Potemkin ordered that elaborately constructed and beautifully crafted fake villages be built in the Ukraine and Crimea for the Imperial visit. Thus, when Catherine toured these places she was shielded from the poverty, drudgery and desperation of the average peasant, instead seeing happy, clean and well-dressed subjects outside their warm, safe homes. Once the tour was over, these villages, like film sets, were struck and normal life was resumed. Seeing past the façade of guarded conversation is very much like taking a closer look at the Potemkin village to reveal the stagecraft behind.

Body language considerations come into play as well. The most interesting time to interpret body language is when you believe that someone is lying. And, as with all good things, the best way to interpret this is through the use of monkeys. The 'speak no evil' monkey tells us that when someone is speaking with their fingers to their mouth, or using their hand to block the sounds, they are lying. The 'hear no evil' monkey tells us that the liar will somehow protect their ears, by covering them with the hand or directly blocking the earhole with their finger. The 'see no evil' monkey tells us that when lying, the person will rub their eyes when talking. There are a lot of other characteristics, but we don't have enough monkeys for them.

Is it sure?
Of course, second-guessing at a meaning is not only necessary when the other person is lying. They may well be truthful, but unclear in their own mind as to what message they are trying to convey and by speaking their unorganised or unstructured thoughts, they will help themselves to decide. In this case, you are attempting to get to the root of their feelings, not necessarily their words: opening a small window into their minds to work out the real meaning rather than how they are expressing it. This is extremely intricate because you are sifting through a disorganisation of potentially conflicting or self-contradictory opinions and statements, as well as emotions which ebb and shift while they are trying to form a coherent, unified approach to the situation. To get to the determinate point may well take many narrow, bending roads.

Perhaps this is why an oft-repeated phrase in arguments or when having the dreaded 'deep and meaningful' conversation is "I don't know". The questions which you ask or are asked may well be ones you can prepare for or ones which directly address the thinking you have done on the issue, but there are always those particular posers which leave you answerless. Then it is the turn of the questioner to second-guess whether you are answerless because you haven't thought about it, because you are trying to work out a way of making it sound better, or whether you are devising a way to leave certain things out.

Is it complete?
Whether they are telling you the truth or not, they are probably not telling you everything, so you'll need to be alert to omissions. "This is pretty much everything," you will be told. What this means is that it is not everything. There is the possibility that this is a stylistic tic of spoken language which this person has adopted and that they do mean everything, in fact. There is also the possibility that they are covering themselves in case certain factors or consequences occur, in which case they will legitimately be able to point back at the conversation to defend themselves with "Well, I did say 'pretty much', I didn't mean everything". You'll have to decide which of the two you believe.

There are also situations where you can only hear half the story. When A splits up with B and you only hear one viewpoint, it's fairly safe to say that you can second-guess some of what really went on, but until you've heard about or directly spoken to the other side to get their perspective, you are still a long way from completing the picture. Even when you have both sides, the variety in how certain incidents are recalled, how they each expressed themselves, what actions took place in what order may all be wildly changed. Whether this is done for self-serving or self-protecting reasons is what you have to work out for yourself, as well as trying to adopt a middle view and then seeing what they're missing out and why.

Also, you can second-guess meanings through the detail of the language: the more vague the wording, the more likely that real reasons and key motivations are missing. You can probably make your own list, but 'sort of', 'kind of', 'partly', 'appears to' are all genuine contenders for a Top Ten of words and phrases which mask the deeper, underlying meaning, and getting past them appears to be sort of partly tricky. You see what I did there? Second-guess me, go on.

Is it them?
What you believe and what you want to believe are two completely separate things and you should be careful not to colour your second-guessing with wishful thinking, as this is likely to lead you into areas that the other person hasn't even mentioned. What you thought was the case and what you wanted the situation to be should not be merged because then you are speaking to the other person on completely different levels and your estimates of what they really mean will be way, way off. Such conversational disconnects provide us with the basis for most sitcoms where, along with mistaken identity, amusing consequences tend to follow. In real life, these disconnects are not often as funny, more often they are disappointing and emotionally charged.

These are just a few of the elements in the science of second-guessing, which resembles an elaborately choreographed verbal dance between people, occuping many different strata of meaning: emotional, social, familial, financial, rational. I've deliberately avoided mention of solutions and results in second-guessing because they vary depending on what you are trying to get at, and also because your second-guessing may well have no fixed results. Trying to calculate the motivations of others is frustrating precisely because some statements or actions are motiveless. Even when there are motives, the chances are that you will only second-guess correctly a small percentage of the real reasons. But it's still better than taking everything at face value, right?

(Posted by Buni)



I’ve always questioned how some people can just flit from one relationship to another; one relationship ends, another starts; or a relationship hasn’t quite ended, and the other is starting already. How? How is this so and how do they do that?

Take ‘X’, they’ve been seeing ‘Y’ for the last year and a half. Things haven’t been easy for a while and they have been drifting apart. One day, Y says to X that they should split (NO chromosome jokes please), which they do. Then, before you know it, X is seen out and about in town with Z. Barely a few weeks have gone by and they’re at it again.

At this point I should point out that I’m all for picking yourself up and getting on with life, but it just seems so……..disposable. What about depth of feeling, do they have depth of feeling or are they just going along for the ride? Are they just settling into taking second best (i.e. pretty much anyone) as it’s a much more appealing option than being single. I have no idea.

I have absolutely no qualms about being single. I’m not desperate for anything, maybe that’s why I can’t see the above perspective. If I go out or go clubbing, I rarely if ever go looking for anything, I go to have a good laugh, spend time with friends and relax. If I meet someone then that’s just a bonus. I like to meet guys, there is no denying that, but I’m not one for flitting about. I like to bide my time, meet a guy I genuinely like and then go for it. I’m a typical Taurean, once stirred I go at it like a bull.

(posted by Buni)




It must be terribly difficult for a director to come up with decent plot lines, cinematography and direction each and every time they release a film. This must be especially so when the said director happens to be Quentin Tarantino who, with such iconic films to his name as Pulp Fiction and Reservoir Dogs (amongst others), happens to have quite successfully pulled it off this time too.

Kill Bill is an all round action movie that is pleasing to the eye as well as the ears. With the former, you can clearly see where his influences are; there is traditional Japanese and U.S. cinematography that switches to some of the best Manga out there. With the latter, Tarantino has cleverly spliced together tracks as diverse as Nancy Sinatra, Luis Bacalov, Isaac Hayes, Bernard Hermann, Tomoyasu Hotei and many others to create a soundtrack that is both exciting and inspiring.

Many have commented on the level of violence within the film and the graphic way it is portrayed. The violence within this film is however, well within context. It is a Samurai film about Samurai Assasins, they’re not going to be doing crochet or ‘pearl one’ for 110 minutes are they? At the end of the day, we know what level of violence we are going to get with Tarantino anyway, if you don’t know by now, where on earth have you been? I’ll give him dues in this area; he switches from contemporary colour in the goriest parts to the more traditional black and white Japanese Samurai films of the 60’s and 70’s, just to save us from the level of red out there.

I said earlier that Tarantino manages to pull off cool, iconic film after cool, iconic film. I’ve though long and hard over the last 24 hours to try and attempt to work out how he manages this. The only conclusion I can come to is that he flies in the face of critics and not only avoids but also uses clichés in the areas of the that it matters most; he’s not afraid to use clichés from his own films either. His advantage is that they are his own; he created them so he will bloody well use them.

Finally, I’d like to comment on the totally obvious way he has created a serial film. Wednesday nights viewing was only Part I, we still have Part II to go yet. I’m not so sure I like this idea or the fact that the film ends just at the point where you start to think that you’re getting into it. I’m not going to ruin the ending for anyone so all I’ll say on the matter is that my point about films is that I find them more interesting and enjoyable when they just leave you wondering if there is going to be another.

(posted by Mike, who has been up since 4:00 this morning and is therefore feeling a bit jet-lagged, even though the time difference was only an hour, and who is aware that what follows might consequently be a rambling, spaced-out jumble of a piece, but - since time is so tight in his newly acquired eurotrash-business-jetset lifestyle - is also keenly aware that it's this or nothing, and that he can't leave everything to his actually quite scarily talented guest posters, and oh God, he's rambling already, OK, focus...)

1. This is bewildering.

Pitched into an unfamiliar (dare I say alien?) environment, where all life's little details feel somehow other, one's capacity for making the wrong choices increases exponentially. On difficult days, my expectations will shrink back to that classic, irreducible, middle-class English ideal: to get safely from one end of the day to the other without suffering any noticeable embarrassment along the way.

During my first week in Paris, this proved impossible. I pushed doors marked tirez, and pulled doors marked poussez. I caused bottlenecks in front of crowded Métro barriers, frantically scrabbling through my satchel for that sad little placcie bag containing my carnet of tickets. Given a choice of directions, I invariably set off in the wrong one. I struggled with suitcases, room keys, breakfast juice dispensers, coffee machines, small change, tables in cafés, plates of unfamiliar food (how the hell are you supposed to eat escargots, and why did I order the bloody things in the first place?), tips, the language (how I hated it when well-meaning Parisians answered my faltering French with grammatically perfect English, always, always, always - humour me, goddammit!) ... embarrassment compounded embarrassment, leaving me feeling trapped inside a bad sitcom.

Mr. Bean Goes To Paris. Sometimes, I could almost hear the laugh track. I could even feel myself starting to pull the facial expressions. Behind closed doors, I sometimes did. Hey: got to keep yourself entertained somehow.

2. This is exciting.

Hang on a minute - I'm in freakin' Paris! Cool as!

Pavement cafés! (Refreshingly free of all that creeping demographic segmentation, with hand-holding teenage couples bunched up next to gnarly old men, and neatly coiffed Madames next to merry groups of homeward bound office workers - every single last one of them smoking of course, but somehow getting away with it, because this is Paris, and this is what you do. Comme il faut, sort of...)

Beautiful manners! (None of that sod-you-mate Brit solipsism in evidence here, thank you...)

Timeless, understated elegance! (Thank God I got that ridiculous it's-for-a-play-it's-meant-to-look-stupid Hoxton Twat bleached fin hairdo chopped off in the nick of time...)

Iconic buildings! (Eiffel Tower, Pompidou Centre, Notre Dame, Louvre...)

All those sexy Marais 'mos a-poutin' and a-struttin'! (I'd do you, and you, and you, and you...)

Two nights running, I met up with Sarah, who had seen my shout-out on the blog a couple of weeks previously. Up until that point, my existence in Paris had been a steadily de-humanising round of work / eat / read / sleep. Now, I could finally start having proper conversations again. It still took a couple of drinks each night to unfurl my tightly sprung mental coils, but Sarah's stimulating company gradually eased me back into a more functional, natural engagement with my surroundings.

Towards the end of the second night, I met Sarah's charming Italian boyfriend, who spoke no English. So there we were, none of us native French speakers, conversing in the one non-native language which we all shared. My first proper French conversation in years. I don't think I fared too badly, all things considered. The wine helped, of course - as it always does with foreign languages, relaxing you into a state where, the less you consciously try and search for them, the right words will instinctively start to bubble up to the surface of their own accord.

Sitting in the back of the Italian boyfriend's car, zooming along the Seine embankment past all the illuminated guide-book sights, heading towards the twinkling Eiffel tower (that hourly light show turns out to look much better from a distance), I found myself grinning with glee. Wheeee! I'm zooming through night-time Paris in the back of a car! This is living!

3. This is fantastic.

Commuting to and from the office every day on the Métro with all the other workers, headphones playing Blur's Think Tank or - best of all - Bowie's Reality, newspaper on my lap, I started to feel like quite the proper Parisian. No longer the innocent abroad, but a seamless part of the crowd. Striding purposefully across the Port St. Cloud, with the crisp, clear Autumn sunshine lighting up the glass buildings ahead, and all those gorgeous height-of-autumn colours in the trees of the Parc St. Cloud, and on the edge of the Bois de Boulogne behind me. Heading back after an intensive (best behaviour in front of the client!) but surprisingly satisfying day's work, to the hotel where they know me by name, and the little Internet place over the road, and my favourite local café/bar next door, and those wonderful early morning markets underneath the raised Métro tracks...oh yes, I'm up and running now, and lovin it lovin it lovin it.

4. This is routine.

Almost as soon as you've reached Stage 3 - the very next morning, in fact - Stage 4 stumbles up, bleary eyed, and clobbers you round the back of the head. In a trice, the thrill of the new evaporates, leaving you once again with that familiar feeling: same old, same old. After all: routine is routine, wherever you go. Suddenly, you're back to wanting out.

5. This is enough.

You're exhausted - okay, so it's earnt exhaustion, "good" exhaustion - but no less knackering for all that. You feel ground down, fed up, wanting your man back, your home back, your life back. The misery of the shabby, over-familiar satellite lounge at Charles de Gaulle airport is the last straw - especially when you find that the bar's shut. All your fellow passengers irritate you to distraction. The massed ranks of self-important business wonks are de-briefing into mobiles, with as much manufactured assertiveness as they can muster, all with the same emotionally distanced and faintly absurd vocal patina. There's a tense Daily Mail type on your right, eyes narrowed and suspicious, muttering her inecessant litany of minor grumbles about absolutely f***ing everything to her silent, defeated looking husband, who looks as if he stopped listening years ago. You can't get home quick enough.

On the plane, you put REM's Bad Day on repeat, and crank it up nice and loud. When was the last time you kept hammering the same song over and over, because it gave you that "Yes! This is ME!" feeling? Pissed-off music for grown-ups. Bloody marvellous. Sipping your G&T from the trolley, you revel in your misery. In fact, you positively celebrate it. Dinner's waiting when you get home. As you start planning your comic monologue, a wry smile creeps over your face.

---

I've not been in Paris this week. I've been in Cologne instead. Meaning a whole new set of unfamiliarities, of course - but somehow, I'm becoming familiar with the very state of unfamiliarity itself. If that makes any sense at all. (I can't tell anymore; it's getting on, I feel even more f***ed than I did when I started.) I'm beginning to sense that - for now at least, until even the familiarity of the unfamiliar ossifies into dull routine, as it surely must - this is actually doing me the power of good.

Labels: top25

(Posted by Fi, after Mark and Zena)

How often have you heard the phrase "I know what I like and I like what I see"? How meaningless and subjective can that statement appear to people who have a different frame of reference to the observer. One man's spam is another man's steak. So what if I think that modern art is a load of old Pollocks. What really Lichtenstein's my Klimt and makes my Gaugin Gogh is a nice Seurat or Monet. I can't explain what it is about those 19th century French painters that makes my Botticelli all warm inside.

What does all this have to do with Science? Well, if we are to believe Robert Pirsig in his book Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance the unifying value behind art, science and religion is quality: a judgement brought by the observer to the object being observed and not just a street made of chocolate.

With science we postulate theories, make logical progressions through experimentation and draw conclusions that support our original theory. With art... with art... well... we sort of dab paint on canvases and step back and hope it doesn't look too crap. Or we cut out square blocks and put them one atop the other and sell them for millions of pounds.

Science has its foundations in art of course, undocumented unfortunately, but true nonetheless. The famous caveman scientist Ug-ugog used stick-figure cave paintings to develop his first invention "fire". Fire was such an immediate success that the cave was turned into an art gallery with nice lizard canapés served hourly and freshly fermented mammoth pee lager available at the bar.

Conversely art's roots can be traced back to science. Across the other side of the super-continent Pangea another caveman known as Og-ogug was attempting to determine the origins of a particular species of spineless fish by pinning it up on the wall and rummaging around through the internal organs. The resultant cross of biology and art was also turned into a science museum where tour guides refused to tell you where the nearest dunny was and small pamphlets for coming attractions were handed out.

This conflict and chicken/egg-style paradox lead to the emergence of the first two true religions: The Church of the Fish and the Flowchart Appreciation Society. Suddenly the continent was in turmoil, split right down the middle. Whole tribes went to war to defend the premise that reading the fish innards revealed the future against the blasphemous idea that the flowchart predicted the way. Thousands died clutching small keychains of fishguts or postcards depicting the best panels from the flowchart.

Unsurprisingly, it all ended in tears when the true messiah, Mastadon Smith, left his tall black obsidian obelisk in the middle of the monkey enclosure...

(Posted by Mark)

Giving up
First up, let's establish the fact that there is absolutely nothing wrong with being a quitter. If you're not winning, and you're not cheating well enough either, then give up. Persistence doesn't always pay off, and though few people like a loser, even fewer people like someone who just doesn't know when to let go. As Zena so correctly points out, failing and then quitting immediately gives you more time to go and fail somewhere else. Spread the failure around, don't keep it all to yourself.

Yielding when you know that you can no longer win represents a realistic and honest attitude, rather than a bloodyminded insistence that however bad the situation gets, you will continue until the bitter end. For some reason, though, society regards the fact that a captain will go down with the sinking ship as somehow heroic and noble rather than really moronic; though I can see the point that this would serve.

If the ship is sinking, then it must be the captain's responsibility and he can't be a very good captain if his ship is scuppered, therefore letting him perish along with the vessel allows you to get rid of an inept mariner. Now that's good thinking, but still not very heroic. And I'm sure that rats aren't too chuffed that they've been given a bad name simply because they had the sense to desert the sinking ship. Which in turn raises the question: if a ship of rats is sinking, would the rat captain desert or go down with the boat? I think we should be told.

There are, as always, a few minor exceptions to the rule that capitulation is often a sensible course of action. If you have swum halfway across the Atlantic, it seems foolish to give up, turn around and swim all the way back. You should just radio for a cruise ship instead. Also, you should recognise when it is a good time to give up: a split-second after the aircraft has taken off is a bad time to realise that you aren't yet ready to face your fear of flying. For the best example of when not to quit, watch Lloyd Bridges' attempts in Airplane and you will see what I mean. Otherwise, though, feel free to give up immediately.

Giving gifts
Timeo Danaos et dona ferentis. Quite true, especially if the gift is a bloody big horse made of wood with armed warriors inside. However, as the construction of such an animal is time-consuming at best and pointless at worst, most of us make do with making something smaller, or just selecting and buying pre-manufactured balsa mares gifts. Though I run the risk of being accused of hubris, I would aver that I am quite a good gift-giver, provided that I have remembered the occasion and that I am in the unlikely position of having any money at all. When memory and wealth collide, though, profligacy surely follows.

It's a great feeling when you see something and immediately think to yourself, "I know exactly who would love that!". The only better feeling is being there to watch them open it and, hopefully, dance a little jig in celebration at having received a perfectly chosen present. Last birthday, I was on the receiving end of the perfect present. My friends all clubbed together and bought me 12 Bond DVDs, in a box which they had made and decorated with pictures of Bond girls cut out from newspapers and magazines which also contained little tins of caviar, some crispbreads and a bottle of vodka. I recall being speechless with gratitude (and, ahem, booze), though there was no jig-dancing. There was chin-cutting and blood-letting, but no jig-dancing.

Giving money
I would refer you to Messrs Kiedis et al and their previous statement to "give it away, give it away, give it away, give it away now".

Giving directions
As referred to many, many times before, I am an absolutely hopeless navigator, preferring instead to work out my route through 'zen navigation': wherever you end up is where you were meant to be. I am, however, quite good at giving people directions. Not directing them in the "1.5km north-north-east" sense, mainly because I never know where north is, wherever I am. I give people real-life directions, though occasionally putting in a bit too much detail:

"Right, go to the end of the street, where the coffee shop is, take a right and walk down just as far as the HMV. Stand with your back to the HMV window display and on your right, across the road, you'll see a small alleyway. Go down there until the second wheelie-bin, turn left then right and you should be about 20 seconds away. Got that?"

I'm also good at drawing little maps, which is pretty necessary when directing people from my flat to, well, anywhere, but mainly to the tube station. Wiggly lines means the canal, little pint glasses shaded three-quarters black mean pubs, little five pound notes mean banks, shopping baskets mean supermarkets … you get the drift. Camden being Camden, I was wondering whether I should put in other little symbols to denote some of the more 'local' attributes: little needles could represent either piercing studios or drug dealers, outstretched palms could mean beggars, and little black inverted crucifixes could indicate goths. It would give the map a bit more of a community flavour, I think.

The two pre-eminent experts at giving directions are my flatmate Mike and my father. Knowing London intricately well, most probably better than either the front or the back of their hand, they seem capable of instructing people through all the back streets, byways, alleyways, one-way streets and short cuts. Whereas I tend to know some areas very well and others hardly at all, Dad and Mike have a knowledge to rival The Knowledge. This is significantly better than most of the minicab drivers who stand by Camden Town station and whose knowledge of Camden itself is rather bad, never mind the rest of London. Half the time, I end up giving them directions – perhaps I should give them a copy of my local map.

Giving as good as you get
Although I am not one to advocate retaliation, it's vital in the cut and thrust of conversation to be able to stand one's ground and refuse to be intimidated, cowed or bullied. And it's even more important that you manage to get at least one cheap gag into a conversation before you're shot down. Parrying and blocking another person's verbal barbs is tricky, and is often easier when you've never met them before because you have a licence to be as rude or intentionally offensive as you like. It's especially fun to watch and listen to other people when they are duelling with their wits, mainly because they will probably reveal some secret or some gossip that they weren't supposed to let slip. Either that or you can learn new put-downs.

It would be perfectly possible to enter into the 'an eye for an eye' versus 'turn the other cheek' debate here, but I'm certainly bored of it and I imagine you are too. I say that you're entitled to riposte when someone is deliberately and nastily attempting to belittle or humiliate you. Those who would patronise and humble others in order to make themselves feel good, look good in front of their friends or provide themselves with a way to pass the time, those people should prepare themselves for some equally vituperative and forceful comebacks. I really hate it when people talk down to me, so I see no reason why I should do it to anyone else, and would hope that this is a common view. But then the real measure of a heated conversation is whether the person who's dishing it out can take it, so you might as well test them.

Giving yourself to the moment
Carefree abandonment. Even the words sound fun, never mind whichever actions or inactions they represent for each person. Surrendering into what you really want to do has to be the most exciting part of the science of giving, without any doubt.

(posted by Zena, after that talented bloke Mark)

Some people think Failing is an art - imprecise, open to the vagaries of colourful creative types - but I've got it off to a science. If that is indeed a phrase. I suspect not. But hey, no editor, so bugger you.

Failed
The thing about having failed is it's on your CV (resumee, honey) for ever. Done deal. So I've failed at a couple of jobs, more than a fair handful of relationships, and at small every day tasks, numerous times. No, really. But then my refugee antecedents give me naturally high standards. Standards I can only fail by. Imagine, a big red stamp over your life: FAILED.

Failing
This is like "failing math" in a John Hughes movie circa 1987. Failing math has baggage like being dressed up as Molly Ringwald in Pretty in Pink, and wearing too many bangles and too much eye makeup.

The upside of failing is that you can change course mid-fail (seri-fail?). You can see the eyeliner on the wall, and the accessories piling up and think to yourself "how did I get here?" like you're in a Talking Heads song, and then get into Failers Anonymous and you're only twelve steps away from being new and improved like washing powder or gunpowder or even talcum powder.

Failer
I made this up. I have no idea what a failer is. Someone who is currently in the process of failing: someone who has the characteristics of failing hardwired into their personality; a person who never passes, only fails. This is getting depressing, non?

Alternatively, it could be Fayla: the latest North London hip hop diva (have you noticed how all those words end in -a?), and then of course you're a massive success. Or a showgirl. One or the other.

Failee
I think you can be the victim of someone else's failure. So my parents are moderately middle-class people - my dad's a lawyer - who haven't quite had the life they expected. My Dad's judgement led to him mistiming and mis-judging a couple of crucial deals that would have meant he could retire at thirty. So I guess that makes my mother a failee: she's living a certain degree of failure, as a result of the actions of someone else. It's a good reason not to get married, too, methinks.

I'm just "writing with the door closed" as they say on all those annoying creative-godess within weekends that I have paid oh-so-much money to have my creative-genes attuned. I'll stop now. Must go fail at something else.

(Posted by Melodrama)

I do not own a car and rely on cabs to ferry me all around Calcutta. I favour cabs because:
(i) I just do not have the patience to wait for a bus or a tram or the metro.
(ii) I hate crowds.
(iii) I have started enjoying the thrills and heart-stopping moments involving rides in Calcutta cabs.
(iv) I am lazy.

Calcutta cabbies fall under two categories, the bengalis or the non-bengalis. If you have hailed a bengali cabbie, the probability of having an interesting conversation is high. In the past, I have discussed Rabindranath Tagore (I knew next to nothing about Tagore, but after the ride I felt I was equipped with enough trivia to put any self-respecting, cultured bengali to shame), the communist state goverment in Bengal, the decline of the jute industry, why Dalhousie square was renamed BBD bag, the Goethe Institute and the Calcutta Film festival. Most bengali cabbies are inquisitive and over-helpful and will ply you with advice until you are ready to yell "Tagore" in exasperation.

The non-bengali cabbie is another ball game. You will never need to visit an amusement park as long as you take rides in cabs in Calcutta. The cabbie often harbours the misconception that he is Schumacher and your heart will be in your mouth as you see him weave and twist in the traffic. No self-respecting Calcutta driver drives in a lane, so how can our cabbie? You open your eyes and just when you think the bus charging into your cab will flatten you and you start whispering your final prayers, the cab will lurch and you will bang your head against the cab top and will find that the cabbie is cheek to cheek with the lorry that was along your cab and the driver has stuck half his torso out of the cab to abuse the bus driver who dared to take over his right of way. When you reach your destination the cabbie will have no change and you will often find his meter tampered and spiked. A long argument will ensue between you and the cabbie and will result in you resolving never to take a cab again. Then when you need to return home, you hail a cab and breeze into it and forget all your resolves until your next encounter with a non-bengali cabbie.

(Posted by Mark)

There'll always be something on your mind you'll never quite find
Won't you ever make your mind up?

I find it possible to worry about almost anything at any given moment, despite the fact that I lead what is, in comparison to a lot of the world's population, a rather worriless and pleasant life. So why worry? Although not quite at the "did I leave the gas on?" level of ill-remembered fretting, many of the things I worry about are embarrassingly trivial. It's quite similar to sitting around thinking about whether you could ever train cats to play football when someone asks, "What are you thinking?" to which you have to lie "Er, reconstruction in Iraq", otherwise you sound pathetically shallow (and not a little crazy). With some of the topics for my worrying, such shallowness abounds.

Tasks
This is the most understandable of worries: Did I do X? Have I called Y? Will I get to my location on time? Have I taken the right turning? Will they remember who I am? Did he leave the tickets/keys where he said he would? What's my name?

Speed-fretting such as this is fairly low grade and can be dispensed with quite quickly. If you are worrying about being lost, then stop being English for a second and just ask a bypasser for directions. You can check your mobile phone to see whether you called someone or whether you are running late. And if you get to your destination and things aren't entirely perfect, there will probably be either a good explanation or a way of fixing things so it all turns out well. That's the optimist in me talking. For advanced worriers, the consequence tree has many branches and each different aspect of an outcome will produce another mini-worry chain.

No, the real problem with speed-fretting is when you are worrying about so many different things at the same time that you fall into a kind of shutdown mode. Combining multiple worries can send you into a catatonic state whereby you are incapable of any form of remedial action to resolve your panic. Here's an example worry chain: Lack of money + delayed train + missed call + not sure of directions + meeting for the first time = a very nervy worrier who is about to go into a state of mental breakdown. And there's no real solution to this one, other than to stop. You could try the 'go to your happy place' trick, but I'm not sure that works and it sounds a bit hippie-ish for my liking.

Work is another area where worrying takes hold. This is usually because you have too much to do and too little time to achieve it. Here again the shutdown mode is evident, because while you are trying frantically to finish off as much as you can, you're also thinking about what's next, what can be shelved, what can be delayed and what you can make excuses for. Your mind is not focused on the one thing you are supposed to be doing at that time, and so you make a botched job of it, meaning that the remedy work which will eventually come back to you will add to your overall burden. Don't you just love vicious circles? For this kind of worrying, there are really only two cures: cigarettes and coffee. If you don't smoke, take it up. If you don't like coffee, learn. You'll need all the nicotine and caffeine you can get to work your way through nightmare days.

People
You shouldn't, you know, but it's terribly easy to. It ought not to make a difference, but it really does. Yes, it's the old worry: what people think. I am 100% positive that I have inherited this trait from my mother, who has an incredibly bad case of "what will the neighbours think" syndrome. WWTNT syndrome is particularly severe in the particular leafy corner of tube zone 4 where our family house is located, with net curtains going all aflutter when strange cars drive down the road and curiously coincidental bumping-into-by-accident meetings whenever I was bringing someone home back in the days I still lived there.

I went to pieces when I should have shouted and screamed instead
So sorry, I said

To be more accurate, I don't worry about what people think about me in isolation; I manage to feel this while simultaneous thinking that if they have a problem, they can go to hell. This combination of low self-confidence and misplaced belligerence is hardly a sign of good mental health and yet I know that other people get this as well. First impressions are always a worrying time because although everyone knows that the best way to make a good impression on someone is to be yourself and be relaxed, the situation in which you are meeting someone for the first time is probably going to be a bit stressful, to say the least. Also, the most annoying way of ensuring that you have worried yourself into a gibbering frenzy is to keep thinking about it; sod's law, really.

A good example of worry paralysis is when meeting up with people you have never met; for example, taking a random situation from nowhere in particular, at blogmeets. Turning up at the right place and at the right time is a good starting point. And then you just sit there, trying desperately to remember people's faces from the photos you quickly checked out the day before when you realised that you were just about to go off and meet a whole bunch of people about whom you know incredible amounts of information yet whose faces are completely unknown. Occasionally, you might glance over at another table and think "well, they look like they might be bloggers" but then quickly dismiss it because anybody could be a blogger. You recall that one of the people you are due to meet wears glasses. Well done, that narrows it down to half the UK population.

Then you realise that you have no idea what one or two of the prospective attendees are called; oh, you know their site name, but their real name? Nope, no idea. So you either stay seated, firmly in the grip of worry paralysis, or you start to wander around the place in the vague hope that you might recognise someone or that someone might recognise you – this is known as worrywalking: you're not actually going to anywhere definite, but the act of moving is a displacement activity while your mind roams through myriad possibilities.

If you are eventually lucky enough to find or be found (thanks Hg), then you have to worry about the fact that people might be talking technical things (uh-oh) or just that they're all a lot funnier and have better social lives than you. At the beginning, you stay very quiet, trying to work out what the hell terms like RSS, A-list and MT mean so that you don't make a fool of yourself. Eventually, the worry will pass and you will slip seamlessly into conversation, so for anyone worrying right now: fear not, there is hope. (Top tip: keep hammering on about being Z-list so no-one realises that you actually have no idea what you're doing; it's worked for me so far. Fingers crossed.)

Insane
Some of your worries will have foundation. There is a chance that you might miss the beginning of a film, your partner could be having an affair, your friends may be talking about you behind your back – however likely or not, these are all within the realms of possibility. Some other worries, however, will be entirely groundless and quite fantastic. This is generally the time when you should stop worrying about alien invasion and begin considering the distinct possibility that you are clinically insane.

While sitting on the steps outside my work building a while ago, enjoying an elevenses cigarette, I looked up at the building site diagonally across from where I was sat. The construction work was still in an early phase and the building's skeleton was the only completed part. Looking up at the girders and beams criss-crossing up and up, I wondered to myself whether a sniper sat on one of the beams would be able to shoot me from that distance. I then wondered whether, if a sniper starting shooting into the crowd, I would be able to find adequate cover from the fusillade of bullets which would be raining down upon the commuters and workers crossing the road. While I was trying to work this out, I realised that I probably would be able to find cover, but not in time, and this started to worry me.

I should point out that this is paranoia of the highest level and I have (a) laughed it off since then, and (b) seriously considered getting professional help. However the momentary worry I had, before realising that this was entirely the fault of an overactive imagination, a slightly warped approach to urban planning and probably a bit too much coffee, was definitely real. It is annoying, though, that I had not only to deal with some of my real worries, but that I was also inventing new and implausible ones to further send myself into a nervous breakdown. Fortunately, I managed to stop myself worrying about my worrying, because that's just taking it a bit too far.

(Posted by Buni)

Ok, I have two minutes to place this entry before I have MISSED A DAY guesting. So you're gonna get 5 words of wisdom about the above film:

Manga

Violence

Cliche

Serial

Tired

Night, night.

(Posted by Mark)

As a child, I remember being told that 'I want' never gets. As a lesson in manners, it was extremely effective and is probably the root cause behind my overwhelming compulsion to say thank you far too many times in shops, thereby alerting the sales assistant to the fact that I am a twit. As a lesson in life, however, it is not strictly accurate. 'I want' often does get.

Possession
We live in a material world, and I am a material girl erm, bloke. Acquisition and immediacy are highly important in our everyday comings and goings as chattels and goods have become status symbols and brands have developed to be instantly recognisable. Truly, we want it all, and we want it now (or next-day delivery at the very least). Previously, conversations might go:

"Nice shoes."
"Thank you, I've only recently bought them."

Now it is far more likely to be:

"Nice shoes"
"Yes. They're the new Nike Dunk Low Pro B hoops shoes."

For some reason that I have never fully understood, trainers are very, very important. It is essential to have the correct trainers and to make sure that you are wearing the latest footwear fashions and brands the moment they are released to the slavering, drooling masses. It is the equivalent of having a large sticker on your feet stating that street credibility may go down as well as up. And I don't agree with it. I may not know much about co-ordinating my own ragtag clothing ensembles (especially not if I'm only going to work; why dress up for them?), but I have to disagree with 'the street' on the issue of trainers. Wanting the latest fashions and trends every fifteen seconds is simply unreasonable, it makes me mad as hell and I won't take it any more.

Come the catastrophic, nay apocalyptic, day when I become a father to a Master or a Miss Londonmark, I hope to be able to sidestep the whole 'new trainers every day' issue by presenting my child and heir with a simple choice: you can have the trainers, Mark II/Marcia, and you can buy new ones as often as you like. However, you will have to work for them. I've signed you up with a temp agency and although you're only seven, they've waived the whole underage working restrictions thing. You start 9.00am on Monday as a legal secretary, and don't forget to put some overtime in if you want to pay for this week's board and lodging. Harsh, you may cry. Get to work, I say.

Although we always want things, childhood is the time when we are most insistent. "Want, want, want" cries the child as he/she/it points at an ice cream or a balloon and, in order to avert wailing and tears, the child is pretty likely to get the object of his/her/its desire. This does not work when you are a twenty-six year old standing outside Micro Anvika on Tottenham Court Road pointing at the jaw-droppingly gorgeous Apple 23" cinema display screen, because it is unlikely that anyone will care whether you start screaming and crying, unless they decide to have you sectioned under the Mental Health Act. Otherwise the similarity between childhood wants and adult wants are reasonably similar: food and toys.

When denied the ice cream which they want, want, want, a child may sulk or holler but then, like I did when I was a child, they will make a promise with themselves: "When I grow up, I'm going to eat ice cream every day, for breakfast, lunch and dinner. I'm not going to eat horrid vegetables, I'll eat tubs and tubs and tubs of ice cream instead". It's when we get to adulthood that the thought of an 'ice cream only' diet may sound appealing but we know it to be impractical. We bound our wishes with realities, in this case the realities of nutrition, body shape and balanced eating.

Perhaps we also lose the singlemindedness of our childhood: for a brief moment, the ice cream is the most important thing to have in the world and we strain in our efforts to get it. After the denial of gratification, and the tantrum it brings, however, the desire has passed and we focus on something else, this time needing the new item with the same blaze of intensity. Adulthood brings with it an ability to rationalise away snap decisions and impulses, and to moderate our monomania. Which is, I think, a little bit of a shame.

You
When we say "I want you", we are neatly combining many differing and possibly self-contradictory things we would like to say, but either lack the words or lack the courage to say them: I want you to be around me, I want to you to agree with me, I want you to support me, I want you to affirm me, I want you to have sex with me, I want you to live with me, I want you to laugh at my jokes, I want you to take care of me, I want you so I'm not alone, I want you to change me, I want you to change for me, I want you so I'm not scared any more, I want you to stay with me, I want you.

The title song of the latest Rufus Wainwright album expresses want wonderfully:

I just want to know
If something's coming for to get me
Tell me, will you make me sad or happy
And will you settle for love
Will you settle for love?

Of course, the wants we have for others may rarely, if ever, be fulfilled. An entire artistic subject has been based around concepts and examples of unrequited love; I believe some dead bloke called Shakespeare may have written the odd poem about it, even. Our childhood monomania for ice cream/balloons may well have developed during our transition to adulthood into a more narrow focus away from transitory pleasures and towards … well, love.

Of course, in the process of wanting others, we may well be found wanting by them. Our capacities for reciprocation, generosity, care, tactility, expression, thoughtfulness and all the other attributes which light up our eyes may well not be enough for another. You can want someone too much; one person's detachment is smothering to someone else. Whether wanting is measured in quality or quantity depends entirely on the individuals concerned. Unfortunately, there's no hard and fast guidelines for us to follow – we just have to muddle through, minds fogged by desire.

Is it the pursuit of perfection, a realisation of pragmatism, the search for the divine or perhaps baser instincts which drive us into wanting someone? Or, more likely, is it a combination of these? I've always felt ever so slightly envious of couples who have known that they were meant for one another from the first moment they saw each other. I don't begrudge them their happiness by any means, but the romantic deep within me still gives a nearly imperceptible sigh. It's probably because we were force-fed all those fairy tales from infancy, where everyone lives happily ever after at the end, but I don't see why the world can't work that way simply because it doesn't at the moment. Starry-eyed nonsense, I know, I know.

But if you're allowed to want a new car, want peace on earth, want an ice cream, want to be loved, or whatever it is you want, then I'm allowed to want as well. And that's the beauty of the science of wanting.

(posted by Fi)

The exit ramp from the motorway took me down to a set of lights, sadly however it took everyone else down too and a queue of vehicles was waiting to get through the lights. Only half a dozen cars were getting through each time and the starting and stopping became automatic to me as my mind wandered and I found myself looking forwards into the car in front.

Inside the blue Renault Clio there was only the driver, her long dirty blonde hair falling below her shoulders, I could see her dark roots showing through, she looks about my age and she… she's watching me in her rear-view mirror. Start, move forward, and stop.

Looking again, I can see her playing with something with her teeth, nibbling her fingers or something. Is she watching me? Yes, she's watching again, to see if I'm still looking. Against her back windshield a plump orange soft-toy playing a furry blue guitar is also watching me. I suddenly feel embarrassed at appearing intrusive and nosy and I hook my own hair behind my ears and look away.

Her car is so much cleaner than mine, and just as it isn't until you see how good someone else's haircut is, or how nice someone's new clothes appear that you feel bad about your own. First thing this weekend I swear I'll wash this hunk of junk and make it shine. God, I hope she doesn't think I'm some sort of slob because I have a dirty car. Start, move forward, and stop.

What is she doing with her fingers? I keep angling my head to one side to try and see past her headrest but each time she leans to one side too. I find myself wondering what music she's listening to, where is she coming from, where is she going? I find my mind inventing all sorts of scenarios; she's on her way home from work in her boyfriend's car. She's single and the back seat is full of bags of shopping. She's going to see her parents to tell them she's moving out to stay with her lesbian lover.

For a few minutes this woman has become an obsession for me, she consumes my thoughts, is she thinking about me? I can see her eyes, the mirror makes them appear darker and tilted forward seductively, ocean blue, which probably means she's just a dark blonde who lightened her hair colour, rather than a brunette trying to be a blonde. Ha, I smooth a hand through my own blonde hair, how does she like those apples? Start, move forward, and stop.

I thought she had time to get through the lights, maybe she was just too slow, a voice inside me says she did it on purpose to stay here at the lights and draw this affair out a minute longer. She's now first in line, with me directly behind her. After this change we're likely to head our separate ways. Is she thinking what I'm thinking? What would happen if I got out and walked up to her window? Would she deny that she was watching me? Would she accuse me of staring at her? Maybe she's not even bothered by it and feels quite flattered by the attention. And maybe I'd just be left standing there at the side of the road like a lemon.

It can only be a few seconds now until the lights change, already I notice the flow of through-traffic is lessening and the boy-racer in the Ford Escort beside me is like a horse champing at the bit, he grins and I turn away with, what is hopefully a disdainful look. One last look forward before I release the hand brake.

The dirty blonde winks one of her azure eyes at me, turns to one side and spits her gum out; it sails in a wide arc and lands in the grass at the side of the road. The fantasy scenarios are put back into the mental filing cabinet and reality takes hold again as the lights change and she pulls away to whatever life awaits her. It was probably never meant to be, anyway.

(Posted by Melodrama)

This week of being a guest blogger does not seem to please the fates or the forces or whatever it is that makes life go tickety-tock where I am. First I was looking forward to blogging heaven over here. What? Another blog to post my deep, profound words on? Yeah! Sadly, I have been beseiged by work this week. Today morning while stapling a sheaf of papers, I forgot that my finger was below and I was in such a fit of caffeine-induced working enthusiasm, I stapled my finger along with the papers. Actually a little flap of skin. Now, I have a tiny loose flap of skin exposing some pink flesh and the said report was sadly splattered with blood and my cabin, with choice expletives. Nice beginning to a day.

La familie, well, the progenitors if you really need to know, compounded my misery by ringing me up right in the middle of the morning and telling me all the details of the vacation they are taking next month and rubbing it in by sighing about how sad it was I couldnt join them. Then, I fell out of my chair after lunch. I hate chairs with wheels. I am not normally so accident prone or so angsty, I think it has something to do with this troubled diva guest blogging. I am almost convinced.

On asides, my brother is back from college for Diwali (if you guys don't know what that is with the number of punjabis you have in the UK, then you ought to feel ashamed of yourselves.) and its Diwali time once again which means having to meet people I dont want to meet, namely relatives and my parents' friends and forcing myself to be nice to them so that I am not branded 'that rude spinster daughter of the Singhs' and forcing myself not to snap back when asked about my marriage plans. Why am I celebrating Diwali at my parents again? I think I need to go shopping today evening to cheer myself up and to post a cheery post for once on TD.

(Posted by Mark)

As any professional comedian will tell you, timing is an essential weapon in their armoury, as to be able to deliver the coup de grâce on cue will determine their on-stage success or failure. Timing is important in other professions as well: one would hope that a bomb disposal expert has a keen sense of timing, for example. Likewise a clockmaker, a neurosurgeon, a referee, someone who times things for a living (sorry); all must be aware of the perfect moment, the ticking of seconds into minutes and deadlines approaching.

Timing pressures are not confined to professions, however. In our personal lives, timings are crucial also: our lives are run by wristwatches, alarm clocks, the beep-beep-beep of reminders on mobile phones. We make arrangements at specific times and get irritated if we have to wait. Our time is running out. How did it come to this?

Timing a joke
I feel inclined to argue on behalf of nature rather than nurture when it comes to comic timing – some people are just hopeless at telling jokes. Often it's not the actual timing but instead the sequence of the various constituent parts of the joke (assuming that the narrator has remembered them all successfully, another pitfall for the wannabe stand-up comedian) which eludes the storyteller. However, let's assume that the joke has been remembered, and remembered in the right order. Now it's no use just gabbling the whole thing in one go. You need to build a sense of anticipation.

The old music hall adage still holds true: make 'em laugh, make 'em cry, make 'em wait. It is the first and third of these which are most vital (unless they are crying with laughter, in which case the second element is good too) as they focus you on timing the joke well enough to make them actually laugh. So, don't just trot out the whole shaggy dog story at once, take your time. Ad-libbing is helpful here, as is irrelevant and potentially misleading detail: by padding out the tale for a little bit longer, you pique the listener's interest. And, for God's sake, get the punchline right.

Timing journeys
Damn, I'm late. Again. What's it to be then? I can walk, I can run, I can hop onto a bus, I can try the Tube, I could hail a taxi, I can see if there's a train. What's it to be then? Being someone who, paradoxically, hates other people being late but am mostly late myself, I am constantly looking for new and inventive ways of cutting a few minutes from any particular journey time. As a point of pride, I consult the Underground journey planner and then scoff at their suggestions, preferring instead to follow my own route based on not only a knowledge of tube lines but also the most easily navigable stations, the correct doors to use when alighting from the train and trying to get to another platform as speedily as possible, which places have lifts rather than escalators and, of course, which places are just bloody well closed due to the ineptitude of the people who run the Underground.

We're always looking for the quick route, the short cut, the way to avoid the traffic. One of the signs of getting older is when discussions of bands or films or books mutate over the years into discussions about the best way to get from A to B while dodging bottlenecks and, preferably, also dodging the congestion charge zone. Rather than smile and change the subject when someone tells you about their journey to meet you, instead you launch into a long conversation about how, precisely, they got there; what route, were the traffic lights working, how are those roadworks affecting the contraflow, etc, etc. Or perhaps that's just the British obsession with all things car-related.

Also, whinging about public and private transport has never been brought closer to an artform that in the British Isles. After years of poor planning, mismanagement, delays and 'essential engineering works', the transport infrastructure of this island is amazing not due to breadth of coverage nor the services it provides, but rather it's incredible that it even works. There are plenty of things wrong with the system and if you're taking a twenty-minute journey, it's wise to leave a good hour beforehand to take into account the inevitable mishaps which will occur, yet somehow you can pretty much always get to your destination. You just get there a little bit late, or at least that's my excuse.

Timing criticism
The human animal is a sensitive creature, capable of perceiving slights and withdrawing into itself at the merest hint of criticism, justified or otherwise. To get a point across to someone, it's necessary to be diplomatic, tactful and most of all, borrowing a phrase which Evelyn Waugh regarded as essential for schoolmasters, to "temper discretion with deceit". You should also time your 'we need to talk' moment very carefully indeed. Manipulation is a demanding enterprise and not to be taken lightly: I wait until Spurs have won before approaching my flatmate about getting him to repay money, for example.

It's not just about getting your own way, although obviously that's always gratifying. Knowing when and where to pick a fight or to have a serious, emotion-laded conversation can often be the make-or-break point in a friendship or relationship. It's often hard to find the 'right time' to approach someone about a delicate issue, as well as being difficult to say the words you need to say. At times it's also difficult to wait for the right moment, rather than unload your heart right here, right now. You have to be able to get the time with someone first before you can say your piece, confess to your worries or your concerns, and then try to get them to engage.

Just because you've picked the perfect time doesn't mean that you're guaranteed for them to answer, either; you're just giving them every opportunity to be in the right frame of mind to hear your opinion. If you're lucky, you'll get a response. If not, then you're just going to have to wait. The science of timing is more precise that some of the others I've written about but it's also one of the more demanding. When thoughts are getting muddled in your mind, allowing contradictions and doubts to counteract what you previously held true, it's helpful to talk them out with the person concerned or with a good friend, but you have to find or make the time, and then be sure that they are receptive. For all the timing in the world, it's the arrival that matters.

(posted by Zena)

My flatmate is having sex with more people than I actually know.

(posted by Buni)

Now that I’ve finished insulting the Welsh and scaring the bejeesus out of everyone with my Carrie moment, I’ll continue.

I have to admit that I’ve never owned a wild horse, nor do I care to, and if I did I’m sure my flat would begin to look even worse than it does now . Also, I don’t think my lease allows me to have un-caged pets. I’ve always enjoyed riding horses though, some friends in Portugal owned a couple and as it happens they weren’t wild either. They were light-tan and dark, something breed.

The only time I’ve ever come into regular contact with these animals was about 1973 / 74. We used to live in a village called Aldbury in Hertfordshire. As you can see form the map, it’s a very small place with a tiny little population. We used to live just off Stocks Road (which is on the map) at a place called Little Stocks which, in the 19th century, used to be the guest house of Stocks Country House.

About the time that we were living there, Stocks had been purchased and redeveloped by Victor Lownes, who co-owned Playboy with Hugh Hefner. I would have been about 3 at the time and my sister would have been 5 so she would have gone to school. My mother, who had been a keen rider in her youth, had a part-time job exercising Victor Lownes’ horses. He’d taken it upon himself to become a bit of a ‘Lord of the Manor’ in those days, having lavish weekend parties and him and his guests would be riding his horses all over the estate.

The only problem with this set up was that my mother had to leave me with people while she worked. Firstly, there was her best-friend Karen, who was the mother of my best friend Lincoln, she was a total hippy girl and introduced my mother to doing hot knives on Ivanhoe Beacon one solstice and as Stocks was being used as Victor’s home / Bunny-school, there were of course the Bunny Girls.

My recollection of this period is really quite clear, I can even draw a floor plan of our home and memories I relive to my mother are received with surprise though, I have no recollection of the Bunny-Girls. However, stories told to me by my mother usually entail me being smothered by the Girls and told how cute I was. There is one story of where I walked down the steps of the pool outside and just carried on under the water, I was saved by being dragged out of the water by my shirt collar by a Bunny. Unfortunately, I cannot for the life of me bring this story around to who is going to ‘Ride My Wild Horses’ as I’ve been rambling. I have a good idea who I'd like to but won’t mention it on here.

So, there you have it, that’s how Buni got to be 'part' raised by Bunny-Girls.

(Posted by Fi)

An eccentric Japanese girlfriend invited me to one of her famous "Super Happy Fun Dinner Parties" as she calls them. Usually it’s just an excuse for her to put her hair up in buns and wear her Cheongsam and play the doting mistress of the house. The only problem is that she comes across more like a B-list celebrity in Widow Twanky drag. It's a shame but as her friend I just can't bring myself to tell her that there's a panto somewhere with her name on it.

After the original stir-fry evening she diversified to sushi, fondue and nouveau cuisine before trying to host a murder mystery dinner. The dinner was something of a failure due to my reluctance to play dead when there were such fine wines to be sampled that evening. I waved people away telling them that I was an alcoholic zombie and that they should pay me no attention, but if they could pass me the Russian Cigarettes I'd refrain from mauling them and eating their brains.

"This time diff'rent" she told me "You like this time. You wear something sexy."

So I showed up in a cocktail dress with ruffles down the back and my hair up in a chignon. This turned out to be a monumental mistake. My definition of sultry sexy didn't match her definition of trashy sexy. My friend had organised a spanking party.

The light bulbs had been replaced for red bulbs and a girl in a bikini covered in various finger foods and nibbles had replaced the dining table. I was surprised not to see cocktail sticks with pineapple and cheese cubes protruding from anywhere. My friend who was more bubbly than usual on these occasions handed me a carnival mask at the door. Everything was going so well apparently and everyone was having a very naughty good time, she assured me. It looked a lot like a budget version of Eyes Wide Shut.

My friend had enlisted the help of someone she'd met over the Internet who ran these sorts of parties in a similar vein to Tupperware parties, only with less plastic and more rubber. An assortment of canes and whips dangled from her hat stand and people kept brandishing paddles and looking for a willing bottom to practice on. I immediately felt a surge of anger when I realised that all the women were masked and all the men carried paddles.

The paddles turned out to be harmless slapsticks, with holes through the actual paddle part so they could cause a loud slapping noise without hurting. I found this out after I was struck with one as I dipped a carrot stick into the thousand-island-dressing in a dish on the bikini-girl's hip as I gave her a polite smile that said "rather you than me". The offending male was rather sheepish when I glared at him through my cat-mask and asked him what exactly he thought he was doing.

For some reason I couldn't get the mental image of Michael Palin in Castle Anthrax out of my head as the eight score young blondes and brunettes, all between sixteen and nineteen-and-a-half, cut off in the castle with no one to protect them begged for a spanking, a spanking! And then the oral... no, hang on a moment. I spent most of the evening either sitting in a chair or standing against a wall to prevent anyone getting any ideas and left early. I'm adventurous, but not desperate.

(Posted by Mark)

Play is an important part of our daily lives, as evidenced by the old advertising slogan "A Mars a day helps you work, rest and play". Of course, many people prefer to substitute words such as 'coffee' or 'non-prescription drugs' rather than 'Mars', but that's really their own business. It's the other elements in the slogan that are important, especially 'work': play is a key factor in the work/life balance. Whenever an employer tells you that they encourage a healthy work/life balance, don't assume that this means 50/50. They actually mean 95/5. After all, they're not paying you to have a life, are they? (If they actually are, then tell me where you work.)

That said, work can afford some opportunities for play as well. Playing air guitar while sitting in an office swivel chair can be pretty fun, provided no-one has noticed you. The only trouble is if you put a bit too much gusto into the power chords, as this accidentally pushes your chair across your little area of open plan, knocking you straight into the recycling bin, as well as ripping your headphones out, thereby opening up your music to the entire floor. Not that I know this personally, you understand. (Whistles nonchalantly.)

Playing up
There's nothing quite like a good hands pounding on the table, bawling your eyes out, toddler-style tantrum, is there? So cathartic and so immature at the same time. I regret the fact that because we have grown up, started jobs and relationships, incurred financial and social responsibilities and are just so fran-tic-a-lly busy, we don't get to have a loud, no-holds-barred tantrum any more. Or at least, we're not supposed to, despite the fact that the pressures on us are greater. It seems very inequitable that when we are young enough to jump up and down legitimately, howling in anger, there is actually very little for us to shout and scream about, yet when we are old enough to have job, money or personal worries, it is not really acceptable to sit in the middle of an office, legs crossed, screaming to high heaven and crying like a baby.

Well, I think that we should bring tantrums and playing up back into adult life. If we get all the horrible things like bills to pay and meetings to attend, then I think we should be allowed some of the decent things as well, starting off with the inalienable right to holler and launch hissy fits as and when we deem necessary. Further items on this Regression Manifesto will include the right to sulk, the right to claim "you just don't understand me" and then stomp off to our bedrooms, the right to do our homework in front of the television, and the right to wear whatever damn underwear we want when we get run over in the street.

Playing hard to get
If you are coy, then you'll already know. If you're not, then I'm not telling.

Playing into their hands
It's that particular moment when you realise, "I've been had" accompanied by a slight sinking feeling in your stomach and generally also partnered by the beginning of laughter from others. Walking straight into a trap, be it verbal or a practical joke, or even just being set up to supply an answer that had already been predicted; these are just a few ways of playing straight into somebody's hands. They have you where they want you, you have swallowed the bait and they are now reeling you in. However, unless you are prepared to take the radical step of never saying anything and never going anywhere ever again, there isn't an awful lot you can do about playing into people's hands, I'm afraid. Vigilance is your best option. Oh, and a very low gullibility level will help no end also.

Playing away
Don't ever think you won't get caught. You will. Don't ever think you won't hurt people. You will. Don't ever think it won't haunt you. It will. Don't ever think that it's not a bad idea. It is. Don't ever think that you won't lose friends. You will. Don't ever think that it's worth it. It isn't. Don't think you'll keep it secret. You won't. Don't ever think that tears won't be cried. They will. Don't ever think that it's just the way you are. It isn't. Don't ever think that you're being clever. You're not. Don't think you won't feel ashamed when you look back. You will.

Playing for keeps
There is a time when playing stops being fun and suddenly gets very, very serious. Whether it's a 'friendly' game of pool, a kickabout in the park or even a poker night at a friend's house, however much you are enjoying simply playing, a competitive edge enters the game at some point and remains there, under the skin. I remember that playing Trivial Pursuits at college was possibly one of the most competitive things I have ever done: out of the players, two were graduate students who already had their Firsts, two of the others would go on to get Double Firsts, the another player got a 2:i and then there was me. Oh dear. As they were predominantly English Lit students, the Art & Literature category of questions quickly became a bloodbath, as you might imagine, and it was arguably the quickest game I have ever played (and lost quite badly).

Although it's not quite the same as the 'win at all costs' strategy of game-playing, when you switch from a gentle, well-isn't-this-fun mode into a destroy-destroy-destroy mode, playing for keeps isn't all that easy to conceal. In a 'friendly' game of pool, for example, the sudden and insistent snookering of your opponent will be pretty obvious and very likely to push them into an equal tactic of attrition. Chess, despite stalemates, has never been anything other than playing for keeps and so neatly avoids the courteous first few moves before the deluge. Of the more physical sports, you know things are going badly when a little game of three or four people playing keepy-uppy descends into a mélee of twelve or so people performing sliding tackles, grabbing shirts and making sure that they foul everybody bar that big bloke who spent some time inside, so don't mess.

Playing by the book
No matter where you are, what you are doing, or who you are with, one of the people around you will be the rules person. You know what they're like: all events must be played out according to his/her little book. The type of person who whips out a calculator when the bill for dinner arrives, the person who insists on making an entire cinema row move because they have to sit in "their" seat, the person who doesn't believe in tipping because it isn't in their rule book. This level of formal, constricted thought is liable to get more relaxed people whipped up into a frenzied rage. "Can't we just go out and see what happens?" is the lament, while the response is invariably something along the lines of "But what's the plan?" Although this person will be invaluable when the car breaks down, when someone gets ill or when the fate of the world is at stake, while you're just going out for a few beers, they will be massively irritating. There are times when the book should be shelved and left at the library.

So, play up! Play up! And play the game. If you're not winning, you're not cheating well enough.

(Posted by Fi)

I can't stand silence. Silence is either justified by the amount of time it takes to load a new CD, or the break in the argument where you scrabble for a better foothold. I associate long silent pauses with the intake of breath before I'm lectured for leaving a fork in the microwave, spending all my money on clothes or stepping out onto icy lakes. Well, it looked solid enough!

Perhaps I'm part of that generation that needs constant distraction before anything can be done, but I can't concentrate without music. I spent a week studying for my finals without music and it was the longest, most boring week I have ever spent. Now, I had the honest intention of continuing this article, but I suddenly feel quite silly typing the merits of music and how I can't live without it when Buni is doing such a good job of it and Quarsan did last week. So instead I shall expand on Melodrama's piece below.

Perhaps a more important thing to talk about than my fantasies of being swept through a crowded ballroom to the open dance-floor and twirling to the Blue Danube Waltz in a satin gown and gloves with Bruce Campbell is the nature of relationships. What makes two people want to tolerate each other, share themselves intimately, disclose deep, dark, potentially-dangerous-after-the-break-up secrets?

I don't want to cause a fuss here, but let me make it perfectly clear that men are not complex. They do not have the same intricate inner workings of women and they are not unfathomable pools of emotions swirling effervescently in a bubbling turmoil of feelings and needs. Brian O'Halloran simplified what men want out of relationships quite simply: "insert someplace close and preferably moist; thrust; repeat." If a man stays silent in a relationship it's because he has nothing to say, if a woman stays silent it's because she's run out of things to complain about and is wondering what's wrong with the man. They don't have enough to think about and we have too much.

Men as partners are easy to please, in general of course, take these guidelines and tailor them to suit your man;

1. Provide regular meals, don't question where they end up, provide air freshener of a scent that you like since he never seems able to smell anything wrong with the bathroom.

2. Keep a running total of every anniversary, birthday, event and Saint's day that he's forgotten to celebrate. This is ammunition and works better than hollow-point nine millimetre shells in the war that is argumentation.

3. If he sleeps late, let him. Make your own breakfast and remind him that if he wanted pancakes and maple syrup with bacon and scrambled eggs he has to be up early enough. Be sure to leave enough on the plate when you're finished to show just how good you make it (even if it's out of a packet). On the mornings that he does wake up early, tell him you'd like breakfast in bed.

4. Stay silent. Play music if you're angry about something. Make the music suit your reasons for being angry but complain about nothing until he asks. If he asks, he cares, if he doesn't then you're entitled to do just as bad back and when asked why, justify it with rule number 2.

5. If you want kids, leave handy reminders everywhere. Childhood toys to remind him how much fun kids have. Point at kids in buggies and wave at them, then turn with your smile turned all the way past cute to dangerously sweet and say "how adorable!" Asking outright is the polite way to ask for a break-up.

These five rules obviously aren't set in stone, they've been handy guidelines for dealing with men. The basic sleep, eat, sex pattern is 99% universal, albeit not necessarily in that order, more like, eat, sex, eat, sleep, eat, perhaps skipping the second eat every second time. My mother always claimed that the key to a lasting relationship wasn't patience, but tolerance. Because any annoyance can be countered, but new ones will constantly crop up here and there. If you set a limit to how much you'll put up with and reach that limit, it's time to reassess your position in the relationship and what you feel you're getting out of it. Now, quick guidelines for living with women;

Volume I, chapter 1, paragraph 1;

1. You are never, ever, ever, to think for one second that you are right, be you male or female. Even if she is wrong, you can never make a woman admit that she is wrong, which is why we argue the way we do.

2. If you think that the secret behind women can be named, categorised, analysed and unlocked, then you're living in a dream world…

If you want to extract a moral from this piece, it's simply put that the ballroom fantasy must remain rooted in reality to have any sort of meaning. Even were I to be lucky enough to get Bruce Campbell into a dinner jacket and find a ballroom with polished floors and ornate golden chandeliers, reality would step in and make my shoes one size too small. Everything depends on your breaking point. How much can you put up with before things start becoming a problem and how much do the little things matter to you when you're dancing with the man of your dreams?

(Posted by Mark)

Bones are brittle, hearts are fickle and promises are made to be broken. Whatever the act of severance, be it physical or emotional, the effects of breaking can be as hard to mend as years of yearning or as simple as a two week plastercast. Sticks and stones, if used with enough force and malevolent intent, may well break my bones, but sadly the playground wisdom requires correction when it comes to the part where words can never hurt me. I've had a few broken bones (leg, ankle twice, wrist) but they were healed far more speedily than the little scars which I believe we all bear from words. One of the worst sentences in the English language? Easy: "I don't love you any more".

Breaking the routine
Matt Bellamy (no relation to David or Craig) sings "Change everything you are, and everything you were, your number has been called" and I'm not about to disagree with him. Life can be a drudge unless you are very careful to perforate the tedium regularly with changes to the timetable or variances to the pre-established way of things. My own little train tracks of despair are easy to map: home, work, pub, home; in a little five-day cycle which is broken fewer times than I'd like. This isn't a lament – it's up to me to break the cycle and I know it.

Breaking a habit, whether it's the usual series of events every day or an addiction like smoking, takes a measure of willpower; furthermore, most people have a habit of some kind or another, and yes, the less harmful habits count too: biting nails, ice cream, your favourite "can't miss" TV show – they're all habits and our acceptance of them in others varies, depending on our own particular vices.

How do we make the change? Well, that's the prize question, without doubt. You can get patches or gum to combat your nicotine cravings, but unless Ben and Jerry are holding out on us, an ice cream obsession may not have such an obvious escape route. Perhaps if we are to break out of our patterns of living, it's the smaller things we need to adjust first. Sound easy? Of course it isn't. When I've finally quit smoking, I'll let you know how it went.

Breaking the ice
Whether a social lacuna has opened up and is threatening to absorb the entire company into the black hole of dullness, or whether you have just arrived at a gathering and know absolutely no-one there, you will need to somehow introduce yourself, get a dialogue moving with some of the people around you and generally begin to integrate into the rest of the party; to adopt a rather overstretched and ridiculous metaphor, you need to break the ice of silence with the icepick of your wit to reveal the fresh-flowing pool of conversation which lies beneath. (I've just re-read that sentence. I might need psychiatric help.)

So, how can you go about relieving any awkwardness or discomfort when a silence has lasted just that little bit too long and the expectations of the next speaker have built up to levels where only Churchillian rhetoric would be able to fill the void? Try some of these and see what you think:

"I hear that the Pope is actually a woman."

"Who here have I not told about my operation?"

"JFK isn't dead, you know. Neither is Elvis. They live together in a bungalow in Kings Langley."

"Did you know that the fastest land mammal is not the cheetah, as believed, but actually my mother-in-law?"

"Do you say 'lattay' or 'lartay', out of interest? I only ask because I read this piece …"

With any luck (and you'll need luck), the response to any of these all-gold nuggets of ice-breaking will be either (a) open and ill-controlled laughter, or (b) some kind of considered and sincere response. If it is option (b), then you will be able to ridicule your respondent successfully for the rest of the evening and you stand a very good chance of being regarded by your peers as a god of comedy. Either that or a very mean-spirited and sarcastic person, but the difference between the two is very fine.

If surrealism or outright lies seem inappropriate for breaking the ice (a first date or a funeral are good examples), then you may be forced to sit back, concentrate fiercely, and fake some sincerity. Sincerity always plays well with other people as it gives the impression that you actually care what they are saying or whether they are breathing, and people like to feel cared about. Really the only trick here is the old husbands' favourite: memorise the last five words the other person has said, then ask a question based on whatever information those five words have contained. The other person will be sufficiently enthused that you have bothered to do even that much that they will witter on for hours, like as not. You're on a hiding to nothing if they don't.

Breaking promises
Some promises don't really count – we all know that, so it's no use pretending that every single promise you ever make will be held fast and true for the rest of life and unto eternity. Just as there are big lies and little lies, so there are important promises and minor promises and we all have our own ways of distinguishing between them. I would suggest that there is a great difference between breaking a promise that you will be able to give someone a lift to the train station and breaking a promise that you will be faithful to your partner. There's a sliding scale and although I or you or your partner or your best friend can choose a point at which you shouldn't break promises of such-and-such level of importance, the only person who really knows what they would and would not do is you.

Not only do we break the promises we make, sometimes we also make promises which from the outset we have no possible way of keeping. Herein lies an unbreakable: optimism. You hold your lover's hand, stare intently at the face which makes you want to be a better person, slide the back of your hand down their cheek, brush away a tiny fleck of hair back over their ear and say to them: "I will never hurt you". And you mean it. At the point, at that frozen moment, you mean it with every sinew straining, every nerve tingling, every excitable heartbeat. But one day, you will hurt them. You may not wish to, but you will; it's unavoidable, but it won't stop you promising.

Breaking your heart
Breaking your heart invariably involves the breaking of promises; some important promises and some less important. I'm sitting at the keyboard thinking about what I can write about heartbreak and I have just realised that my stomach is churning a little bit, I've stared into space now for a good few minutes, and I'm thinking about tidying up a few things. I don't want to write about heartbreak, because that means I'm going to have to relive it, doesn't it? And that's the last thing anyone wants to do; however happy and settled you may be right now, however in love with your current partner, however comfortable in your current stage of life, you don't want to think about the time when you had committed so much and then had it all destroyed.

Perhaps that's why, in serious break-ups, both people cry. The breaker and the broken both cry for themselves and for each other, for the pain they have caused and the pain they are feeling. Amid the tears, there are justifications, counter-arguments, pleadings, denials, arguments, old ground retrodden, infidelities relived, memories burnished and then sullied – but there are definitely tears. I wonder whether it would be possible to go around the world and let each person visit places they have lived or seen and allow them to place a small red plaque at every appropriate place, with the plaque reading: "A part of me broke here". And if we could do that, would there be any other colour than red anywhere?

But we bounce back from our disappointments and from the aching. Although the science of breaking is generally a negative one, there's always the possibility that whatever has been broken may one day be fixed, good as new.

(posted by Zena)

I've spent my whole life on a diet. Well, a series of diets. I've probably lost and gained my entire body weight two or three times.

Motivation's always been an issue: the latent-ardent-feminist within abhors the get-thin-for-men school, and I've just never had the willpower to get by on two lettuce leaves and half a stick of celery (which I have just realised will surely be the name of my Spike-alike production company).

But something happened.

It's a long story, but I'll try and give the seven-inch version.

On March 7th I went to stay with some friends for the weekend. No big deal; friends from church who'd been inviting me to hang out for a while. D, I'd known since I was about fifteen, and M, his wife, I'd met in the last few years since they'd been together. While we weren't best friends, it felt like we had a hippy-searching-style understanding of the world, and I was looking forward to a relaxed, chilled weekend. Also, I'd heard she was a good cook, which is always great. I'd had a crazy day at work, running around, and was starving when I got there, as I hadn't eaten all day.

When I got there on Friday night, D was already a little stoned - which in itself doesn't bother me that much - and M had taken the kids somewhere and would be back shortly. D told me he liked to chill at the weekend, and I thought, that's cool, so do I. I've smoked a small-to-middling amount of dope in my life, and don't really have a problem with it. Just, like most women, I get slightly morose rather than giggling at the cracks in the pavement.

D offered me some hash cake. I said I'd never had it before. He said it was better than smoking: smoother, faster, no munchies. Sure, I made an error of judgement, I could have said no, blah blah blah, but I trusted him, and I'm an experimental type of person. I get off on new experiences, and I figured this would be one. And it was.

Later, I found out that putting a hudred quid of stuff in one little cake is not so smart. And about the vagaries of cooking, and you don't know how much you're having, and all that jazz.

After ten minutes, when I wasn't bouncing off the ceiling, D offered me a second piece, which I sensibly declined. After half an hour, the room started spinning a little, and everything felt slightly muzzy. By the time M got back with the kids, I couldn't really focus. We sat down for dinner, and at 9pm - about an hour and a half after I'd eaten it - I was overcome with the most death-defying paranoia ever.

I was convinced that I was going to die. I remember sitting at the kitchen table, and shaking it so violently that the plates broke. I remember trying to put my hand through their glass kitchen cabinets. I remember my heart beating so fast I thought I was having a heart attack. I remember feeling that I couldn't control my bodily functions.

D and M handled it badly. He was so stoned that he couldn't really deal with it. M kept saying "D, she's your friend, you sort her out." All I wanted was for someone to hold my hand or give me a hug and tell me everything would be alright. D kept telling me to sleep it off and it would be fine, but I knew I would die if I went to sleep. I clearly remember M saying "D, this is the third time this has happened, you have to stop giving this to your friends."

The kids - 5 and 7 - seemed pretty freaked out, and who wouldn't be, a strange woman coming over and trying to wreck your house. I wanted them to call an ambulance, and remember them having a huge row, as they didn't want to get the authorities involved. Later, I found out that I was lucky not to be hospitalised from the amount of dope in my system, and lucky I didn't end up cowering in the corner of some small room for three months.

When I really lost it, and started shouting and smashing things up again, they pushed me outside - it was raining heavily - "to walk it off". I didn't have a coat, and I was freezing, and scared. After about ten minutes, I begged to come back in and said I would "behave". They put me in their spare room with a couple of litres of water (D had said early on to keep drinking or I would dehydrate, and I was paranoid I would die).

It was about 11pm - the room was overtaken by Aztecs who wearing my skin inside up, which was pretty unpleasant. (I'd just seen the show at the Royal Academy that week). I remember thinking to stay calm, and it's only the drugs, but I couldn't. I tried to go to the toilet, but couldn't co-ordinate myself to get up. Around 11.30, I remembered that I had some friends. Called my boyfriend, his phone was switched off. Then I called a good friend, S, and she realised straight away that something wasn't right, and I told her as best I could what had happened and how scared I was.

S got the address, and came over to collect me. By this time, D and M were in bed, and I just walked out of their house in my pajamas, and S gave me a hug, and took me home, and cosied me up in her spare room. She stayed up all night with me, talked to me when I got scared again, and was a better friend than I could ever imagine.

By Saturday, the paranoia was coming in waves, and so I had periods of lucidity which was good, but I was petrified I was changed forever in some way. My boyfriend came round and hung out, and on Saturday night he took me home. I was weird for at least a week, couldn't really go out, and he stayed with me and looked after me. Usually I'm the looker-after and needing things from people, feeling incapable and delicate was a scary, new feeling.

That week, the handful of friends I told were amazing. People came over and cooked me vegetables (I was petrified of putting anything unhealthy in my body), and were just nice to me. It took about a month to realise I was completely back to "normal" - whatever that is.

D and M? They woke up on Saturday morning to find me gone. The last they'd seen of me I was trying to kill myself, and D finally called my mobile about 5pm. I couldn't really talk to him. He said it was my fault, as I should have told him I was on anti-depressants (which I'm not), as that's why I had a bad trip. He wasn't at all apologetic. I decided that I didn't like how he behaved and didn't want to talk to him again. For a few months I was angry: I wanted to call Social Services because I didn't think living with stoners was good for the kids (he told me they come home from school and say "are you stoned today, Daddy?"). After about three weeks I told him that if I ever heard that something like this had happened to anyone else, I would have no problem calling the police. And also, that I never wanted to be in contact with him again.

I learned things, though. One: always have breakfast. I'm sure it wouldn't have been so bad if I had eaten something that day. And - related - that you only have one body, and you really need to look after it. It's within your control, you have choices, and I felt like I was so near to death (all paranoia, I'm sure, but real scary nonetheless) that I wanted to make the most of the time I have left. Two: what good friends I have. Like lots of people, I ocassionally feel friendless and insecure, and this experience showed me how much my friends really value me.

For two weeks, I only wanted to eat steamed brocolli (strange, I know), and lost some weight. Then I thought, I could eat in a way that looks after my body all the time. And that, folks, is how it all started...

(posted by Buni)

Oh god Mike, you do ask them don’t you?

Do I like the things that life is showing me? Hmmmmm. >>rubs chin<<

Have you ever seen that scene in The Fifth Element where Leeloo, the Supreme Being is watching visuals about war, genocide, poverty etc etc. It feels something like that sometimes. I’m not saying I’m like 'The supreme Being', (that’s far too modest) I’m saying I would watch the TV or catch something on the internet and it just cuts me up inside how awful things can be. Last May the tube went on my TV and I just couldn’t be bloody bothered to go get a new one. I don’t miss the TV either; I am able to filter things through the internet.

Earlier on in the year, I went on a stag weekend to climb Mount Snowdon in North Wales. I had my reservations about the weekend; after all it was my first stag. I wasn’t sure if I’d make it to the summit either. That weekend was really very special for me in many ways.

Firstly, we were all there because a very good friend was getting happily married to a wonderful lady. It just goes to show that love and happiness is out there, you just have to find it. That’s the fun part.

Secondly, for years I had struggled hopelessly with vertigo. I would avoid heights at any cost and break out into the most terrible sweats. I thought I’d managed it by bungee jumping, which scared the living crap out of me, but that failed as well. When we began the ascent of the mountain, I could feel the bile rise slowly at the back of my throat, my heart and stomach were being pounded by a herd of elephants and to top it all, I had no bloody cigarettes. I was up a mountain with vertigo and no bleeding baccie. Nightmare. But I managed it.

The third and final part of this is that when we got to the summit, it was the most beautiful sight I’d ever seen. Miles and miles of some of England’s Wales' finest countryside; an eagle flying close to the summit soared past us and I just thought, this is it, this is beautiful.

Of all the things that life is showing me, those are the things that I take notice of now. Everything else can go whistle in the wind for all I care. The past, the present, it’s all miniscule compared to events like that. We are tiny.

(Posted by Melodrama)

Before I begin my list, let me clear up some misconceptions that I fear a few of you might be harbouring. I get to post early because I am on another continent, a continent that is more to the east than your piddly (adjective not applicable if you're an OOSAn) continent and hence rise and shine and check email/ get to work/ blog earlier than most of you. Now that my geographical coordinates have been well-established, I can proceed with my post.

(i) Use a camera film container as an ashtray. Shut it tightly and leave it sitting innocently where it originally was and let your girlfriend/ partner unit/ wife open it at midnight on the bed to have cigarette ash and gunk cascade all over her nice, white, clean sheets.
(ii) Tell her exactly at the stroke of midnight when she's about to sleep, how much you have accomplished today and how organized you've been all through the day.
(iii) Remember that you've forgotten to book her tickets for her trip the next day.
(iv) Tell her that your sister has invited you for the weekend and you have accepted and that you are extremely sorry you can not make it to see her parents this weekend despite the fact that their invitation is more than a month old.
(v) Remind her that she has to wake up early to go jogging because she is beginning to put on an awful amount of weight.

(whoops: posted by Zena)

I grew up in an industrial city outside of London, and arrived in the smoke about twenty seconds after I graduated. Anxious for the fun and frolics of urban/urbane life, I left my close-knit family behind. We've been through our ups and downs - whose hasn't? - and they've never quite got over my leaving our six-digit postcode area.

But life moves on.

My brother and sister-in-law are about to have their umpteenth child, and as a result of a host of medical complications, it's arriving tomorrow, by cesearean. For my other nieces and nephews, I hopped straight on a train, laden with gifts, to share in the big day and greet them personally. I would count holding my first nephew in my arms as among the top five most emotional experiences of my life: the miracle of new life blew me away.

Originally, my brother said don't bother coming, we've had so many kids. But I thought that in the future, this kid'll ask me if I was there when they arrived, and I'll say "naaah, hardly worth coming up for you." And the advantage of planned ceasars, is I could book a relatively inexpenisve ticket weeks ago.

I was kinda planning on it being a surprise - they thought I wasn't coming, and then I'd appear, laden with gifts for all the other kids (you know those books that say the other kids have to get gifts so they don't feel left out? I got my own - Freudian - carry cot and baby doll when my little sister arrived. She was good at shopping, even in the womb.)

But I'm not great at surprises, and when I talked to my brother this afternoon, and he said he'd call me in the morning, I couldn't help myself, and said, "I'll be there. I'm on the ten o'clock train." He was cool about it in a slightly reserved way, but called me back tonight and said that R, my sister-in-law "isn't accepting visitors" tomorrow at all, and I shouldn't come.

I feel a mixture of emotions: over-ridingly, that it's her baby, and I obviously don't want to create any extra stress or tension during what can be a difficult time anyway. My other siblings have apparently already been told they can't go tomorrow, but because no-one was expecting me, I wasn't in on all that. I was only going to go for five minutes with my mum (grandparents are allowed, apparently).

So now I've got a zillion large gifts from the Early Learning Centre sitting in my hall, and a ticket I'm not going to use, and a terrible feeling that somewhere on the worthless-stupid-unwanted continuum.

For me, times like this are family times: a whole brand-new person joining our family. And wanting to share that with my brother and sister in law, and nieces and nephews and parents and unles and aunts. R calls the shots, obviously, and if she doesn't want me there, I'm not going to go (my Mum said I should just visit for the day anyhow, and not see the baby, but that's just stupid).

I feel hurt. And rejected. And times like this make me realise quite how alone in the world I really am.

(posted by Buni)



Of course I have you silly boy, I’ve loved many women, just never shagged any of them that’s all. All that fanny batter and lips and stuff, jeeeeeess.

One of my first loves was a girl called Dawn, I think. She had a dark, bobbed haircut and dressed like a boy (perhaps an early indication of something to come?) She also had the most enormous collection of gingham shirts. It was summer of, oooh let me think, 1975 or 6 (when was that heatwave?) and I don’t think the girl wore the same shirts twice. Though she did climb the same trees twice, that much I do remember. I remember her most of all because I have a scar on my head as testimony to her amazing female strength.

Do you remember when you were kids – or you may even still be doing this as adults – where you stand back to back and link arms, then one of you stoops forward so that the other person is going backwards? Well, as we didn’t have computer games in those days, that’s what we did and I think Dawn forgot her amazing female strength and pulled me straight over her head. I went flying backwards, arms flailing and all I could see was the teacher’s desk coming over the sunset, whereby I cracked my own head on the corner of said desk and cut my head open. At first I thought nothing of it and then a girl called Zoe started screaming and pointing frantically at me. I just stood there like, “Chill girl, all I did was have a flying lesson”. Then the teacher piped up, which had the rest of the class screaming and there was I, looking at everyone in my class looking at me and pointing and screaming.

Then I felt it. A very slow warm substance was running down the side of my head. I lifted my hand to the part of my head where the feeling was coming from and all I could see was red.

At that moment and no other, the panic set in and I can still remember now thinking to myself, “Just…..got….to….get….to….nurse” like out of a cartoon where they can’t……..quite…….reach….something. The school where this all happened wasn’t a particularly large school. Along one side of the building was a corridor and all the classrooms and offices fed off of this main corridor. To get to nurse I had to walk down the corridor, passed all the classrooms to the end near where Mr. Matthews the Head, had his office.

There I am, walking ever so slowly (as I didn’t want to mess up the shiny floor) down the corridor, arms held out like Jesus Christ, palms up, horrified look on my face and blood absolutely running down my head like its going out of fashion. I swear it was like a dominoe effect going down that corridor; past one class, the screams started, past another, more screams, then another, past the games hall where I recall all of a sudden the pupils just stopping and their balls just slowly stopped bouncing, they just stood there staring and screaming while I walked past them.

I call this my Carrie moment.

In the end it was just a little gash, but very deep and it turns out that at the top of your head is like a reservoir of blood. I needed a couple of stitches.

(Posted by Mark)

cor•re•spond•ing adj. 1. similar in character, form or function; able to be matched, joined or interlocked; 2. dealing with written communication; having this responsibility; having an honorary association with a group, esp. at a distance (from the group's headquarters).

What an arid description; I'm not sure that I'll continue reading this dictionary (I have a sneaking suspicion that the zebra did it in Zurich with the zucchini). The science of corresponding is about much more than a simple match – most matches I know (other than the 'strike well away from the body' kind) are complex and intricate things, demanding subtle interpretation and an appreciation of nuance. Readers who have actually met me are allowed to begin laughing with derision at the previous sentence … 3, 2, 1, now.

People
"Matchmaker, matchmaker, make me a match, find me a find, catch me a catch." Well, quite. Often a third party interceder is the best way of securing some form of romantic relations between two people who are apparently unable to manufacture such unions by themselves. In other words, some of us need a meddling interloper to come in, rearrange our lives a little bit, serve up a potential partner on a plate (not literally) and then nudge us towards the happy ever after ending. Others of us prefer to take the bull by the horns (again not literally) and make our own matches. It's not so much the process whereby people correspond to each other in a relationship that interests me as much as the way that friends view couples; especially if/when their loyalty conflicts with their honest opinion.

Recently, I met the new boyfriend of a good friend. I chatted with new bloke Peregrine and my friend Drusilla (names changed to protect everyone) for a little while before we all circulated and I saw him occasionally during the evening. The next day, a mutual friend Constance (name again changed etc) asked me what I thought of him. Aware that Constance and Drusilla were friends, I ummed and aahed for a little bit, offering up the usual platitudes, "He seemed very pleasant", "I liked his shirt", "A nice speaking voice", etc, etc. Constance then asked me the same question again, having realised that I was attempting to sidestep it. I fell back on the slightly pathetic but nevertheless heartfelt "She seems happy".

Friends are simultaneously the best and worst people to ask about your relationship, or to have commenting on someone else's. They are the best because they will be able to recognise similarities, correspondences, reasons why you are with somebody which you might not even realise yourself; they can see personality points in the other person which you find endearing and confirm your own opinions, they can provide examples of things your partner has said or done which you didn't know but which reinforces your thoughts about them. All good positive, life-affirming stuff.

Your friends are also the worst people because they will, assuming you have good friends, be honest with you and there are times when it's a lot more convenient to fool yourself that the current relationship is perfect for you when it patently isn't. Such denial, though undoubtedly convenient (and I feel sure that most people have fallen prey to it at some point or another), might be acceptable to you but, to your friends who have either to listen to you try and put a brave face on things or watch as you construct and maintain your façade, denial is not an option. The brutality or care with which they take you aside and chat to you is, of course, entirely up to them, provided it graduates beyond the "What is she wearing?" stage.

This is a question which could never be asked of Drusilla herself, who is always beautifully well co-ordinated. She is very much aware of corresponding one item of clothing to another; colour, shape, texture and shade all interwoven together to splendid effect. Mixing and matching one's wardrobe may often be the subject of as much gossip as the matches one makes with partners. I will confess immediately that I am hopeless with fashion and clothes. I know what I should be wearing, but somehow it never quite works; whereas my father could wear virtually anything and make it look stylish, I am keenly aware that I make an Agnès B pullover look like secondhand M&S: I'm just more Lada than Prada.

Letters
There's a world of difference between sending or receiving a letter/email commencing "Dear Sir" and any form of correspondence starting "Oi, Sparky". The conventions we follow when communicating through the written word are intriguing, as they explain a lot about us before we have even started the real purpose of the message. The former example indicates to me that my bank are wondering about my overdraft (again), whereas the latter signals that my friend Alex has got back into contact with me and is wondering whether I'm going to his birthday bash this year. Especially in the case of the bank letter, there's often no need to read further.

What else do letters tell us? Quite a lot, though there is often ambiguity in the meaning. A long letter may mean that the correspondent leads life in the social fast lane with a hectic evening calendar, and thus has plenty of rip-roaring tales to relate, or simply that they are a less-than-frequent writer, saving up several days'/weeks'/months' worth of news before sending a message of epic length. A scrawled and poorly spelled missive may demonstrate that the sender prizes the content over the style or they may simply not have taken very much care over the letter, regarding it as a duty rather than a pleasure to compose. An email with plenty of acronyms and abbreviations may refer to a shared familiarity with the concepts within the body or it may show that the writer has tried to get their chore completed as quickly as is possible. To confirm or deny these varying interpretations, the recipient will read the content and apply their own prejudices and foreknowledge of the sender (not necessarily in that order).

Regardless of the content of the epistle, there is still something exciting about receiving an email or a letter from someone close. It means they are thinking about you, and however much of an egotist you may or may not be, it's somehow exciting and affirming to receive a message, however correctly spelled, detailed or frequent the messages are. Often at the beginning of a relationship, there is a certain sense of nervousness about the sending and receiving of text messages, emails, postcards or letters. There is perhaps a certain freedom in the written word which is constricted when speaking to them, either directly or by phone. Apposite sentences constructed from the perfect word choices may express your feelings or your thoughts in a more elegant, direct or poetic way than a stumbling half-conversation conducted over a crackly mobile phone line.

And then there are the decisions. How much can I write without giving too much away? Will this message be kept for posterity or will it be deleted immediately and never considered again? Will the other person realise what I am hinting at? For all that written correspondence can manage, a subtle undertone and feeling is probably the hardest to achieve. Sincerity and sarcasm alike are finely balanced on the page whereas they are evident in a person's voice and demeanour. It's a lot more difficult in writing than in speaking to get the perfect juxtaposition between what you want to write and how you want the other person to read it. But therein lies more the art than the science of corresponding.

(Posted by Fi)

One of the recurring non-sexual fantasies that plagues my life, along with what I would do were I taken back in time to certain eras, is what would human life be like if we had tails?

It's not a new idea to me. As a child I wanted to grow up to be a cat, they have it easy; you feed them regularly, stroke them a few minutes a day and they're loyal loving pets. This future career choice was forgotten as soon as it became my chore to empty the kitty-litter box. From that point on cats were just as smelly as humans were, except that humans have better waste-reprocessing facilities.

I'm not talking about dog-tails that are more like wire coat hangers dipped in a Hoover-bag, but prehensile muscular tails that rival limbs. Tails you could dangle from trees with. Tails you could carry that extra bag of shopping with when your fingers are going numb and breaking out in blisters. That's the sort of tail I'm after, but what sort of consequences would it involve? For a start, as with every new invention or discovery, the sex industry would find a way of exploiting it. Cat suits would have greater appeal for one thing. Hardcore would involve a new appendage to be inserted into any available orifice. The height of kink would be a shaven tail with a pierced tip dangling provocatively between the male star's legs. However, it wouldn't be an exclusively male addition. Women performers would have them too, solo performances would be totally different, and a 69 would become an 88.

Would this lead to a ban of tails being shown on television at anything higher than a 45-degree angle? Would a new type of condom be invented to avoid rug-burn from the fur? Once the adult entertainment industry had exploited every possible use for tails, the more day-to-day uses would become apparent. Opening doors with both hands full wouldn't be so difficult anymore. Dusting while hovering would be a cinch. Scratching that bit in the middle of your back you can never quite reach would be as easy as pie and having to slap guys who pat you on the rump would become a thing of the past with the new whiplash backlash technique.

According to Darwin, humans once had tails. So where did they go? Did we evolve to the point where eating from trees was no longer necessary? Did each generation's tail get shorter or did they all fall off one fine day and the creatures turned and looked at their asses and collectively said "Aw hell, what do we do now?" before bludgeoning a cow to death with a large obsidian monolith?

If you're more inclined to believe the Adam in the Garden of Eden theory of origin then reach round and feel the base of your spine, just at the coccyx. Isn't that the perfect place to put a tail? Human thinking would change too. Instead of being confined to bipedal walking around in two-dimensions, a third dimension would be more accessible to us. Not as easily as if humans developed wings, but then that's silly, we're not descendant from birds. However, being able to climb up and over pipes would change everything.

Department stores could fill up all that extra space, replacing the floor with giant mattresses for those of us too inept to stay aloft. You would thread your way up and through giant jungle gyms to the stall or desk of your choice, making bumping into people even rarer as you can get there at different altitudes. Hanging onto a pipe with your tail you converse with the sales clerk as she hands you various samples to try, you hold one as you try the other, ten metres up. Office cubicles could be stacked on top of each other for extra productivity per cubic meter. Apartments with high ceilings would be the home of the elite or those with big families.

It's not all roses though. A serious re-thinking of things as simple as clothes and chairs would be required. Creatures with tails either rest on their stomachs or hunkered up. I can't imagine that this would be very comfortable for humans, so would chairs be forgotten altogether in favour of the "Human-o-frame"©? A metal construct like a kiddie swing but without the swing part, from which you can swing happily whilst watching television or typing? Nobody would want the seats on buses, instead we'd fight for the handholds and the over-head bars, and buses would go past with people swinging like carcasses on meat hooks.

Clothes would need redesigned, obviously not the top half or anything below the knee, but would pockets within clothes be designed to store our tails in, or would new holes be required so we could retain the use of our tails while out and about?

None of my skirts would look good with a tail swinging about underneath. G-strings would need to be totally done away with altogether. Seams and stitching would need to work around this new hole at the back of underwear and outerwear and you'd never be able to put slacks on the wrong way round without exposing a little too much.

How would criminals be restrained? A third cuff would be required to restrain roaming appendages. Would barred cells become a luxury and be discarded in favour of vertically walled pits? Would the military create special ordnance for this new body-part; clip-on night-vision binoculars, tail-mounted grenade launchers, and camouflaged blades for close-quarters engagements? Would everyone have access to clip-on accessories like blender-attachments, the new improved tail-held whisk, the tail-controlled electric carving knife, and the specifically tailored for the tail mobile phone? Hands-free everyone, its the way forward.

Tail design and accessories could become big business, with companies competing for the most aesthetically designed tails. Would we want hair-covered monkey-style tails? Leather-skinned, dragon-like demonic tails? Bare pink skin tails like arms without hands attached or sectioned chitinous tails as though we had giant millipedes protruding from our behinds?

At any rate, my cats don't complain about their tails, but then they can't talk and I can only be thankful of that. Maybe I wouldn't dream about this so often if I'd had mine stepped on as often as they have.

(Posted by Mark)

Nosce te ipsum. Know thyself. While Francis Bacon has been attributed with that stalwart of business training session slogans "Knowledge is power", I vastly prefer Oscar Wilde's opinion on the subject of knowing: "There are only two kinds of people who are really fascinating – people who know absolutely everything, and people who know absolutely nothing". And so, perhaps to counteract the art of guessing, we have the science of knowing.

Knowing trivia
My name is Mark, and it's been two days since I last played a quiz machine. I just couldn't help it; I saw the bright, flashing lights, the sounds of coins dropping and electronic twangs and bumps and I was drawn towards the touchscreen. I know it's a problem, but with the group's help, I know I can fight it. Actually, I know no such thing. There is something wonderful and at the same time slightly shameful about quiz machines. I think it's because after years in primary, secondary and higher education, I now use my knowledge not to find a cure for cancer, nor to broker a peace settlement in Northern Ireland, nor to write a Nobel Prize-winning piece of literature, but rather to remember how many goals Peter Beardsley scored for Newcastle United or when Ramsay MacDonald was Prime Minister.

The way that my (and it's not just me, it's also other people's) eyes light up when they see a Cluedo, Trivial Pursuits or Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? machine in the corner of the pub is, I realise, a sign that my social life may need some form of enhancement product. I would defend quiz machines simply by stating that they are, in fact, intensely social. When three or four are gathered around the machine desperately trying to put car models in the order in which they were produced, it promotes team work and friendship. The occasional shouting across the room to the guy who you are positive will know Pele's first name manages to draw other people into your circle as well as make them feel good about themselves because they are regarded as an 'expert'. It's a feelgood thing. Being able to draw disparate friends with different spheres of knowledge together in the noble pursuit of getting rich quick is certainly a talent, and while I might not be saving the world in style, I am doing my own little bit for society. Well, society in our pub, anyway.

Knowing the score
Akin to knowing how the land lies, knowing the score is all about being up-to-date, to the minute, with the times, with one's finger on the pulse, being au courant with the latest trends and news. What I am doing writing about this is therefore something of a mystery as I can rarely be said to know the score; indeed often I don't even know that the match is being played. Knowing the score originates from the Middle Ages when "the score" was a term for the amount owed by one person to another, or the balance of a business account, so by knowing the score you would be aware of exactly how much you owed. As the language has evolved and filtered through the centuries, it now simply means that you know what's hep, hip and with it, daddy-o.

Of course, if you were to take the term "knowing the score" more literally, you would be able to have the perfect entrée into the average male conversation. "What was the score?" "Oh, 2-1". Naturally, we will actually need to know what the result of the football, rugby, cricket or other sporting event was in order to participate properly in this, but assuming that you are aware of the tally after the final whistle, you now have a quick way to get acceptance. You should try and back this up with a few other key phrases:

"Shocking defence" (football)

"It's all down to the slips" (cricket)

"You've got to convert them, though" (rugby)

"Magic arrows" (darts)

"It's about temperament" (all sports)

After a few careful minutes gauging the reactions and team allegiances of your newfound friends, you will be able to discuss all manner of sporting events with them, free from the fear of being regarded as ignorant or, even worse, uninterested.

Knowing too much
No-one likes a smart aleck, or so the saying goes. I beg to differ. I think that a lot of us really do like the smart aleck mainly because without the person who knows too much, most detective stories or thriller films would not exist. It's the classic scene and you can pretty much cast and write it yourself. Edward G Robinson is the gangland boss who is attempting to pull off the heist of the century. Alan Ladd is the good guy in the wrong place and the wrong time who has stumbled into the dastardly plot. Peter Lorre is the henchman entrusted with making sure that Ladd is silenced. All you need is a half-decent score, the RKO logo and a gangster's moll and there's a sure-fire film noir hit for you.

Too much is generally a bad thing to know, however, for that particular person. As a form of criticism, it is a strange one. Are we not supposed to like someone because they are intelligent? Are we not supposed to like them because they worked hard at school or they educated themselves to a high standard? It's not really clear, but I think the main reason we're not supposed to like them is because we're not supposed to display the fact that we know things. Like Tennyson, we are supposed to be "wearing … learning lightly, like a flower". It is bad form to be constantly showing off (like quoting Tennyson, Wilde and Bacon in one post, for example; oops) that one has done such heinous things as, well, read books or paid attention. Perhaps it's better to know too little, but then we return to the cult of the gentleman amateur and, as my mind constantly does, we turn to Sherlock Holmes whose knowledge of literature, astronomy and philosophy may have been nil, but whom no-one would accuse of knowing too little.

If, as is often said, a little knowledge is a dangerous thing, then I will end the science of knowing here, hoping that while it may not be comprehensive, it may at least be said to have a little thrill about it.

(posted by Fi)

I only just managed to log in. This editing window is far too complicated for me so I'm just going to write a bunch of stuff and push the "post & publish" button when I'm done. Trust me, its better for you and me both if I don't try and mess with these settings. User Interfaces are not my strong point.

Maybe a bit about myself to start with, since everyone else seems to have settled in already and I'm the one showing up in a tizzy at lunchtime when Mike specifically requested that we sign in at 9 a.m. on the dot (he's such a taskmaster).

I write. Lots. When I have a spare moment I write more. I write database manuals for a living and articles for websites on the side. The technical work balances out the diverse and ecclectic mix of subjects I am commissioned to write which pay less but prevent me from pushing my manager's nose through his brain-stem.

I live with my partner and two cats in None-of-your-business and I'm here to write. You don't have to read, you can skip them if you like, but I'll try and entertain you along with these beautiful people.

(posted by Zena)

Gee, those other guestbloggers get up early. So here I am. Thanks for letting me type in your space, Mike.

Here's what I'm interested in: men, women, the "disconnect" as I once heard some very annoying relationship coach describe it as, and how women's bodies play a part in all of that.

I've recently lost some weight. Quite a lot of weight, actually. Nearly four stone. I tend not to tell people how much, because then I become the sort of person who previously needed to lose four stone. And then some: I have a way further to go, but I prefer not to get into that.

I look different - to most people. I feel different - to me. And boy, do men - I'm straight - treat me different. So that's some of what I'm going to explore this week. But first, chocolate digestive biscuits. Get coffee, come back, we'll talk.

...and fellow guestees.

(posted by Buni)

Thanks Mike for the intro. x

Cripes, this is all a bit daunting isn't it, a little like being put on stage at Wembley with an overly bright spotlight shining in your eyes and the crowd just staring, waiting for you to deliver something amazing.

I was kind of expecting this and so considering I also have a 9 - 5, college tonight and tomorrow, and of course, my hectic social life as the Doyenne of Nottingham Café Society to attend to, I gave Mike the opportunity to ask me 7 questions which I would do a write up on over the 7 days. I will be posting in between though and of course, there is always MY SITE. Oops, too loud?

Mike saw it another way, and proceeded to ask me 7 song titles as questions. So without further ado, as I know you all have jobs to go to, I give you ………….>

7 Titles in 7 Days.

1. Do You Know Where You're Going To? (Diana Ross)

This is actually a good place to start the week as it’s a subject that has been on my mind of late. I’ve always been quite a restless person; I get very bored very easily. As a child I was always out and about with friends, constantly doing things, we were very dynamic. I get very irritated by laziness. We are dead longer than we are alive, grasp the nettle. Take risks. Live life to its full potential and embrace it. Not to do so, I believe, breeds regret. I don’t want to have any regrets when I grow older. I want to be able look back and say what a bloody good time I’ve had and think about all the great people I’ve met along the way.

My outlook on life is to think about where I’d like to be and try to find a way to get there. Being this restless person, it is inevitable that I would have a ballpark idea about where I’d like to go to or a place where I’d like to be. However, they are just that, ideals. I’ve always been this sort of person who thinks ahead, anally breaking the years up into three or four year segments and thinking about what each segment would contain, I would compartmentalise my life into challenges. I am currently at the end of a three year period and, as my friends will testify, I’m becoming restless with semi-structured thoughts about what my plans are.

To understand where you are going to, it’s terribly important to be able to understand where you’ve come from and where you are at present. I’ve come from what could be called a dysfunctional family, my mother having married five times, it was a highly insecure state and marred by family arguments and fights. We moved about a lot, even to other countries, and my sister and I got used to not staying friends with people for too long in case we moved again (and I might add, not getting too used to our step-fathers). It’s only now that I’ve lived in Civvie Street in Nottingham for nearly a decade that I’m not worried about losing friends and can now establish long term friendships. As such, my social life is excellent.

One of my primary thoughts as a young man was to get away from home as soon as possible; I tried at the tender age of 15, running away from Portugal (where we were living at the time) to Manchester and I called my mother the following Wednesday to tell her where I was; I tried a little later at 17, with my parents consent this time, to go and live in London. That didn’t work out and I ended up homeless for 3 months; then after returning from a European Interrail holiday, I tried later on when I was about 19, when I joined the Navy. That is the pivotal moment in my life, where everything changed.

I have to admit, joining the Navy was totally against my belief system. I was a pacifist, against the establishment, war and everything it entails. I was a kind of hippy kid with long hair and a desire to spend most of my days getting stoned. When I said where I was going to, all my friends said that I was mad as I wouldn’t be able to handle the discipline. I had no choice, I had to get away. Also, being the sort of kid who had ‘flights of fancy’ about certain things and never stuck to them, my Mother just asked if I thought it was the right thing to do.

There I was, 19 years old, no qualifications with a stable job and a new ‘home’ at the base. This carried on for about 3 years when I was asked if I wanted to take redundancy. This was a really tough decision as the Navy had been my back-bone and ‘aunt’ for the whole time and I never really considered life outside of the gates. It was ‘us’ and ‘them’. In the end I took the money and ran, to Nottingham to go to university here. University isn’t all that much different from the Navy; you get the social life and the binge drinking; people from all walks of life joining together; and once you’ve got your work done , your time is your own. I graduated in 2000.

That’s really what the last decade has been, through my 20’s; building a foundation to work on through my 30’s. At present I’m really quite free. I no longer have the hassles I had as a child, I have no baggage to validate it either. I also now have the security that was lacking as a child. I’d like the next decade or so to be one of personal growth; experiencing things, travelling and meeting new and wonderful people. There is such a big wide world out there that I can’t possibly imagine only seeing it for two weeks every year and the rest of the time spent in Nottingham. Moreover, I’d like to meet someone who has the same desire that I have. It would mean so much more if I could experience these new and wonderful things with someone.

From reading this, I suppose the first thought that comes into my mind is that where I want to go to isn’t tangible. It’s not a place like Barcelona or some other destination; it’s a place in the mind that you get to when you know you’ve done pretty much all there is to do. I don’t mean making pots of money or anything remotely similar, I’ve had that in Portugal and believe me, money doesn’t bring happiness; you just don’t worry about bills. Happiness in my eyes is from knowing you’ve given it the best that you’ve got, your best shot.

Does that answer your question? I’m going to seek happiness, experience and self-fulfilment and to share that with someone.

Posted by Melodrama

Hello England, or is it Great Britain? First of all, I thank Mike for inviting me as a guest blogger. I stumbled on to Troubled Diva, while I was checking out British blogs and have enjoyed reading his blogs very much. As for your queries Mike, I think there would be plenty of job opportunities for you and I'm emailing a long list of Ayurvedic retreats to you by tomorrow. Now that we have dealt with the stereotypes on to the posts. By the way, the number of referrals you got from my blog is testimony to the fact that India is soon overtaking China in matters like umm... headcount aka population. Alas! We are a many and curious people!

This is my first umm... international exposure, so to speak of and to be honest, apart from the kicks I get from er... reaching out to a global audience and everything, is mostly designed to er... increase the hits on my own humble blogs. Nah! I'm joking, its a pleasure to be here and to do what I enjoy doing the most on my blogs, wax lyrical (mostly about nothing in particular) and have interesting feedback about the waxings. So, here I come, all you Brits. I can assure you, like it or not, I will post often and certainly more than just five times!

Time once again to pipe out the old and ring in the new, as Guest Week Three prepares to launch.

First of all, who could forget my dear, big-hearted, irrepressible, jam-tastic Auntie Cyn, over yonder in Liechtenstein? I regret to say that disturbing news has reached me this week, from well placed sources on the Liechtenstein Mail & Herald, that Cynthia's days in the kingdom may soon be numbered. Something about export shipments of Auntie Cyn's Special Herbal Preserve, Made To A Unique Recipe And Guaranteed To Cure A Wide Range Of Ailments & Maladies, and a team of over-zealous sniffer dogs. This is clearly a terrible misunderstanding. However, it does rather explain Cyn's somewhat hastily announced "Big European Jolly" (see below). Auntie dearest - wherever you are - your loving nephew sends you his heartfelt gratitude for being such splendid company over the past week.

Thanks also to Mac, whose virtual acquaintance I have enjoyed making. What with all my pop-culture Anglicisms, I don't always do a terribly good job at nurturing an overseas readership, so it's good to form bridges across the water. I'm equally grateful to Quarsan for waxing lyrical about one of my favourite periods in music - the post-punk era - and for maintaining some directly music-related content on this site.

And then there was John, who I'm sure has endeared himself to us all over the past week. I'm not sure which part of "you should be prepared to make a minimum of five posts, spread reasonably evenly over the week" he failed to grasp, but never mind. I blame the falling standards in our educational institutes, obviously. "I'm just like Jack from Will & Grace, only hotter", he claims. Clearly no twink, then! Hope you enjoyed having your URL at the top of the page all week, and all that FABULOUS extra traffic, John!

On to next week's guests, then. They are, in alphabetical order:

Buni, loyal old mucker, confidante, partner in crime, and my stalwart companion on the podium at NG1 on Wednesday nights, when the R&B section kicks in. Many of you have asked me how to pronounce his name: does it rhyme with Bugs Bunny, or George Clooney? The answer is, of course, neither. It's pronounced Boo-NAY.

Fiona is a twenty-something database administrator for a global internet company, who can still remember the wet paint smell of the Web from the early Nineties. She has written for various sites in various guises, and under too many pseudonyms to list, without ever settling down to blog in one place.

London Mark should need no introduction. Founder member (and indeed sole member) of the self-appointed Blogging Z-List - as he will remind you at every conceivable opportunity - Mark is perhaps best known for his exemplary "The Art Of..." series. For a master-class in The Art Of Guest Blogging, keep 'em locked on Mark's postings over the next seven days. (I haven't over-sold him, have I?)

Melodrama is a web mistress and self-confessed drama queen, currently living in Calcutta. Judging by the number of referrals which came my way following her endorsement of this site on her blog - the most referrals I have ever received from a single weblog - she is quite a force to be reckoned with.

Hello India, with your thriving and constantly expanding IT industry! Got any vacancies for a washed up mainframe systems developer? Also, could you tell me more about those Ayurvedic Spas of yours? It's just that K likes the sound of them, and is considering coming over for a week in November to avail himself of their delights.

Zena is an international woman of mystery, currently residing in London. That's all she wants you to know for now. Yes, that makes five guests this week. Yougottaproblemwiththat?

Guest Week Three starts....NOW.

Well, it's been a blast. May I leave you with a link to wfmu the world's greatest radio station where many tracks that will educate young people are broadcast. Indeed almost every show's playlist is archived and avaliable to listen to. It is an awesome treasure house.

They also think I have a footnote in musical history for 'helping to define Post-Punk"

Well, what can I say. It was a wet Wednesday and someone had to do it ;)

(posted by Aunt Cyn)

Hello, my dears. It's me, Cynthia, again. I'm still here - although not for much longer.

This is my last post on Mike's site and, you know, this week on the web has got me thinking. Meeting all you gorgeously thrusting young bloggies and bloggettes - even if only through the computer screen - has made me remember all the people out there in the extended Troubled Diva family whom I haven't seen for some years (because of - well, you know - my colourful past). Great Uncle Boris, who we used to call Great Uncle Bulgaria because he lives in - aha! - Bulgaria; he'll be about 103 now. The Russian branch of the family - the Divasnikovs - out there in Kiev. And my long lost artist cousin, Pierre, who sealed himself up in a Paris attic almost twenty years ago in pursuit of his artistic vision. The last time any of us heard about him, he'd decided to go one better than his hero and chopped off both his ears. Poor, poor Pierre. Oh, and I mustn't miss out Cousin Bettina either, who's still doing her act with the snake and the performing dwarf in Hamburg, even though she must be nearly 70. Bless!

I've remembered all these people, and I think it's time I visited them. So I'm about to embark on Aunt Cyn's Big European Jolly. Oh yes! I'm not going alone, of course - my driving skills have failed me somewhat since the incident when I ran into a lorryload of plastic garden gnomes. Friedrich, my extremely smooth and muscular German handyman, has agreed to accompany me, to drive the 2CV and regularly service the engine. He's such a good boy.

I'll let Mike know how I'm doing and - well, you never know - he might even be able to report my progress here occasionally, with a few photos. "There's Aunt Cyn in front of the Eiffel Tower, there's Aunt Cyn drinking beer at the Oktoberfest, there's Aunt Cyn getting arrested for procuring young men in - " Ahem.

Oh, and a special message to Mike and K - I'm coming to see YOU too!! Yes! That's right! You must be overwhelmed with delight! Expect me around Christmas - I've already loaded the car with twenty-three jars of jam (Prune & Melon, because I know it's your favourite!) We shall have SUCH fun, shan't we? In particular, I want to see the garden - because, ooh I shouldn't really tell you this now but I'm just SO excited! - because I've been making something special for you in my evening sculpture class. It's your very own p*ssing cherub, painted in gold. Wonderful, isn't it? I just KNOW you'll love it. So put the kettle on, Mike, and make sure you've got some teacakes in!

Fire up the 2CV, Friedrich - I'm on my way!

Big kisses to all my readers; it's been lovely knowing you,
Auntie Cyn