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What women want (according to the US)

HuffPost Women have created a slideshow, entitled: ‘What women want from a man’s apartment: the biggest turn-ons’.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/04/25/what-women-want-turn-ons-mans-apartment_n_1453350.html?ncid=edlinkusaolp00000003#s902085&title=A_Nice_Coffee

They have asked their readers to contribute, and willingly, their readers have. (Actually, I have no idea if they contributed willingly or the entire slideshow was made under brutal office tyranny by the beleaguered intern, but I’m giving them the benefit of the doubt).

These, apparently, are the things women want to find in male apartments:

1. Photos of him and his family
I have no idea why. The only possible explanation is to check if his Father is bald, and see whether he is likely to age well. And possibly to reassure themselves that they are hotter than his Mother.

2. Good books (and a nice bookshelf)
Presumably in case he is dreadfully boring- in which case they can unobtrusively start reading one of his ‘good books’. I imagine the ‘nice bookself’ is a euphemistic way of saying ‘I don’t want large items of furniture falling on my head when I visit him’.

3. A Big Bed (Ie: Not a twin bed)
The caption under this photo reads, ‘His bed. If it’s too small, I can’t work with that.’ I see now that ‘bed’ is the HuffPost Women’s chosen term for ‘penis’. I am still somewhat mystified by ‘twin bed’, but hopefully someone will clear that up for me.

4. A subscription to ‘The New Yorker’
This is a pretty self-explanatory continuation of point (2). Although possibly with a more toilet-reading oriented slant.

5. A Nice coffee machine


Presumably so they can take it with them when the relationship heads south. Those things are expensive.

The slideshow continues (apparently for 23 more slides), but I think you’ve got the idea. American men are obviously insufferably dull. And often come with odd encumbrances, such as a ‘twin bed’.

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My new haircut

My Father took pity on me, and gave me some shekels for a haircut.

He has been reminding me daily to get this haircut. Which would be helpful, except I’ve already had it. The first time he reminded me to get it, I smiled modestly and promised that I would. The second time, I nodded my agreement firmly. The third time, I started wearing a cap.

I’m not quite sure what to do about this. I’m certain that my hair never looks better, no matter how dreadful the cut, than in the few hours after I leave the hairdressers. And those hours are long gone. ‘Just say something,’ Perhaps some of you will be urging me. Some of you are idiots. My Father, unsurprisingly, is a man. If I have had a haircut that he cannot even notice, he will certainly not think that was money well spent. (Bear in mind, this is a man who, when he found out I was popping off to see my beautician, asked why he did not get to come. ‘It seems rather unfair,’ He pointed out. ‘You are more than welcome to have a bikini wax,’ I told him).

But back to the hair on my head. I’ve peered at myself in the mirror, and it certainly looks cut to me. But perhaps I’ve become one of those self-deluding women who stare at themselves in the changing room mirror and say, ‘You know, I think I’ve lost weight’ while their flab flobbles over the top of their new jeans.

I just popped downstairs to see my Father, and spent much of our conversation flicking my hair like Farrah Fawcett having an epileptic fit. No use. Perhaps I’ll have to go have it cut again. It really seems like the most economically sensible thing to do.

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Listen to this song. Even if you don’t want to.

‘You abosolutely must listen to this song,’ My friend told me recently. ‘It’s amazing.’ It wasn’t.

So when my friend emailed me the next day, asking ‘How good is this song?!’ I wasn’t quite sure how to reply. See if we had been speaking face to face (or even on the phone, because my point is one of tone), I would have told her instantly, ‘not very’. But when I wrote this as an email reply it looked terribly curt. I was also afraid that she would think I was being sarcastically deadpan- adding to my ‘not very’ a because ‘it’s BETTER THAN GOOD!’ I certainly did not want her to think that. Imagine the deluge of mediocre songs she’d start recommending to me.

Other people’s recommendations are a minefield. Unlike my own, which are infallible.

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In which I am a better wedding planner than J Lo

(For those of you who haven’t been keeping up- two of my best friends are getting married, I’m pretty sure they’re going to ask me to be the wedding planner, here is my manifesto)

1. Wedding Singer

Invaluable. I will do it for them.

2. Free Bar

Yes.

3. Location, location, location

I’ll leave this up to them, but as long as there’s a substantial sized bar and a good platform for me to sing from, I’ll be happy.

4. Dress Code

This depends on location, but I usually advocate something Donna Karen calls the ‘all-day outfit’, which is demure enough for the church service and exciting enough for the reception.

(It’s pretty much a slutty dress, with a cardigan. To ‘transform’ the outfit, remove cardigan).

5. Speeches

Often the low point of any occasion, I will generously offer to ‘sacrifice myself’ and make them all. I am particularly looking forward to the Father of the Bride speech.

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A Real Life Hen Party

As I said, two of my friends are getting married. (I won’t tell you who, because that’s their news to share, but it’s not Brad and Angelina).

Last night, I was speaking to another friend. ‘You know what just occurred to me?’ I told her excitedly. ‘We are going to have a real life Hen Party!’

‘Mmm,’ My friend replied. She didn’t seem nearly as enthusiastic as I was. ‘You understand what that means?’ I asked her anxiously. ‘Absolutely disgustingly trashy behaviour. It’s going to be tremendous.’ ‘I am not coming if there are any fake penises whatsoever,’ My friend told me firmly.

‘What?’ I asked incredulously. ‘What are you talking about? There’s going to be a million penises. Real and fake. And a stripper. And champagne with sparklers in it. And she’s going to have to wear a fake veil. And it’s going to be themed. And the theme is ‘sluts’.’ My friend quietly interrupted me. ‘You know her hen night is not going to be anything like that, don’t you?’ She asked me.

‘And a fireman! A real fireman, not just the stripper fireman, because the party is going to be ON FIRE!’ I shouted at her.

I cannot wait. Tomorrow, I will tell you my plans for the wedding.

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Two of my close…

Two of my closest friends just got engaged. (To each other- they’re not desperately fighting for attention and cursing the other for ruining the best day of their life). I am delighted. I called my friend to tell her so. ‘This is really excellent,’ I pointed out. ‘Thanks,’ She replied. ‘Be sure to tell your Mother.’ ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘I don’t think I’m going to do that.’

My Mother is abroad. I know this, because she sent me the following text:

‘I am off to Virginia til Monday. Please find a husband before I get back.’

I wonder if my friend would like to be adopted. She’s changing her name anyway…

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April 13, 2012 · 12:41 pm

Ecstasy: The movie

She doesn’t know it yet, but I’m taking my little sister to see ‘Ecstasy: The Movie’. This is because her favourite author is Irvine Welsh. I know this, because ‘If you liked school, you’ll love work’, one of his post-Trainspotting novels, was ostentatiously left out all over our house.

I personally did rather like school, and was well aware of the biting sarcasm the omnipresence of this book represented. (I am unsure if my little sister attended enough school to determine if she liked it or not).

Anyway, I am excited to take my sister to this Ecstasy movie and prove my cool credentials once and for all. (I would like to mention here that it was only after I read ‘Trainspotting’ that my little sister began to read Irvine Welsh. I found the book distressing and uncomfortable, but that is by-the-by. In a bid to overcome this, I gave a pre-GCSE book report on ‘Trainspotting’.

I was meant to read an extract from the book and then explain why I liked it. I cannot tell you how long I spent searching for a readable extract. This was the best I could do:

Ah switched the box oaf at the handset. – **** waste. That’s aw it is, a **** waste, ah snarled at the ***, the **** irritating ****..
He flings back his heid n raises his eyes tae the ceiling.
Ah’ll gie ye the money tae git it back oot. Is that aw yir sae **** moosey-faced aboot? Fifty measley ****pence ootay Ritz!
This **** has a wey ay makin ye feel a real petty, trivial*****..

(Where you see ****, I paused in front of the whole class, and made frightened rabbit eyes. I then continued to read. I made no concession at all to any accents, and read the entire thing sounding like Mariella Frostrup. It was scarcely comprehensible).

‘Well,’ I continued afterwards. ‘You can see that these people are from a different social class because they are worried about 50p, which is not a lot of money’. (In my defence, I was 14 years old).

I like to think that ‘Ecstasy: The Movie’ will give me a second chance with Irvine Welsh.

I have spent some time on the movie website. ‘This is a fantastic movie!’ Someone has written. I am delighted. Oh- it’s a quote from Irvine Welsh, Author. I personally believe that in the hierarchy of critics, the person who wrote the book the film is based on comes pretty far down. Possibly above ‘Heat’ magazine (who I have never ever forgiven for recommending ‘Iron Man 2’), but certainly below everybody else. ‘Perfectly captures the chaos and chemistry of the dance floor,’ Simon Morrison, MixMag. I think I’ll let that one speak for itself. Only I won’t, because I’m now going to point out that apparently ‘Ecstasy: The Movie’, is a replication of that awful, drunken  dance floor dancing and lunging that everyone tries to forget. Perhaps the sequel will be called ‘Ingredients: the kebab’.

I’m being desperately unfair, of course, because I haven’t seen the movie yet (it comes out on 20th April). And because even the mention of Irvine Welsh reminds me of how much cooler than me my little sister was. And how I had to ‘talk to the teacher’ after that book report.

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I re-write more books (mostly for my own amusement)

I really enjoyed re-writing books (far, far easier than attempting to write my own) so I have decided to continue.

Here I re-write some more:

1. Behind the scenes at the Museum


This is a book about a little girl who fights stifling bourgeois constraints by resolutely ignoring the ‘do not enter behind this barrier’ signs and daring to touch the artwork. She also meets the people in charge of writing the little information stickers one finds by each painting. Oddly, when they got their PHD in art history, this was not what they imagined they would be doing.

2. Brighton Rock


This is a bedtime story written by a dentist as a sneaky marketing ploy. Middle class parents will be well aware of the pernicious effects of Brighton rock on children’s teeth; this book was later withdrawn from publication after accusations that it targeted the ‘uneducated’.

3. Atonement


This former Catholic priest was astounded at the sales volumes his book generated, until he realised that it was being bought by a very unsavoury section of the population, looking for ‘advice from the experts’.

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I re-write books for you

I was born in the 80s, and two of my Mother’s books that I remember most clearly from that period are:

‘How to get a flat stomach in 14 days’

and

‘Feel the Fear- and do it anyway’.

My Mother will now be furiously denying that she ever owned any such books. But she did. If you give me a moment, I can tell you a little something about their covers. (Precisely what you would imagine, only with more embarrassing photos. And jagged, ‘you can do it!’ font).

(At 7 years old, I was pretty much their target audience)

Anyway, once I had finished reading all the baby books (I can tell you three different ways to breastfeed twins simultaneously) I started reading these books. They were incredibly boring. It was almost as if the authors had spent all their time and energy on the title, and had run out of steam before they began writing the actual book. (Other examples of this: ‘Pooh gets stuck’ and ‘Finding the joy in Alzheimer’s’).

So I have decided to write these books myself. Also, my Mother has a rabid fascination with giving things away, so the original books are long gone. OK,

‘How to get a flat stomach in 14 days’:

Days 1-12: live normally.
Day 13: eat nothing.
Day 14: flat stomach

‘Feel the Fear-and do it anyway’:

Absolutely idiotic. Fear is one of the few things that separates us from lemmings. I have no idea what the ‘it’ that you want to do is, but stop it. (Although, if you are the kind of person who buys a book titled ‘Feel the Fear-and do it anyway’, I’m pretty certain the ‘it’ isn’t that exciting). You strike me as the type of person who ‘seeks medical advice’ before going on a step-machine. Or turns off your phone before you board a plane. Or washes grapes before eating them.

Which happily leads me to my next book:

‘How to stop wasting time’:

Don’t wash fruit.

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Nightmares

I’ve been having these dreadful nightmares. Last night, I dreamt that I was invited by ‘the coolest girl in school’ to a pajama party. I was thrilled. Until she walked into my bathroom and pointed out that all of my pajama bottoms were in the wash. You laugh, but it was the ultimate ‘naked in public’ dream, as sponsored by Jack Wills.


I woke up, naturally (who wouldn’t, after such an ordeal?) and read a very good Saturday Times column. (Quick sidebar here- yesterday, at the gym, I was frantically searching through The Sunday Times for the ‘good bits’ when I noticed a lady on the stepper had purloined Style, Culture, The Magazine and News Review. I would have said something, but have you ever tried to talk to someone on a stepper? They’re never at the right height).

It was very early, so I fell back asleep. This time, I dreamt that I was on holiday. ‘How delightful,’ You might be thinking. I was on a group holiday. With people I didn’t know. And on the last day (the other days were spent mostly avoiding them) I lost my suitcase.
I will not bore you with other recent dreams (I will- they include receiving someone else’s mail, properly addressed to me, opening it and being roundly derided for its contents; being unable to locate something vital; being placed in charge of a dog and losing it) but, suffice to say, I’m pretty tired. I’m also doing a lot more laundry than usual.

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