Things I should not have done today

* Taken a shortcut across the WACA cricket oval (is 'oval' the right word? It don't sound right)
* Tried to scale that fence to get OFF the oval
* Suggested to the nice shareholder who climbed the fence with me and later asked me out that I maaaaaay be free next week.

Jizz in my pants

I'm pretty sure the incomparable Dans put me onto this one and it's a classic. Dirty.

Conversations with my boss

HIM: Hey Kate, you've got new glasses?

ME: What? Oh no, these are old. I just don't wear them much.

HIM: You wear contacts most of the time?

ME: Oh no my eyes are kind of... not that bad. So I just wear them at the computer mostly.....Um but you must have seen these before because I distinctly remember wearing the glasses when you interviewed me for the job - I thought they would make me look smarter haha.

(A brief appalled silence where I realise my attempt at charming self deprecation has failed)

HIM: So... I guess it worked then?

ME: (Nervous laughter).

Lessons learned

1. If you must start drinking at 2pm do try to eat lunch first.
2. If you must get drunk in the afternoon try not to let the lure of drunken shopping draw you in.
3. If you must go drunken shopping at least buy some totally awesome Marc Jacobs perfume you will otherwise find impossible to justify.

A series of memos to people encountered at the shopping centre this weekend:

To: Guy with his hand down his pants
From: Me
Me: There are probably more discreet ways to scratch your balls, young man. Say, absolutely any other way you can think of.

To: The girl trying to see what her arse looks like in those black jeans by craning her neck around and squeezing both buttock cheeks.
From: Me
Message: Don't worry, sweetheart, your arse looks great.

To: Everyone else
From: Me
Me: Fuuuuuuuuuuck you.

Thoughts I had when, pulling on a pair of fishnet stockings, I noticed that the skin peeling off my sunburnt legs was HANGING THROUGH THE HOLES...

1. Well, this is a low.
2. EW.

Elementary

So normally I would be outraged. The very idea of having Sherlock Holmes dash about shirtless is, to my mind, an affrontery to the very IDEA of Holmes. Smacked out of his mind, yes. A kind of pain-in-the-arse know it all, sure. Possibly really sexist and totally racist? Hey, dem books are old. But shirtless? Come ON man.

This argument tends to break down, however, when you recall that the role of the great man in the latest movie adaptation is being played by an even greater man: Robert Downey Junior.

I had a request the other day from a regular reader to ask if I couldn’t try to indisperse my gooey boy-related posts with some ‘girls I’d turn for’ action. To be accompanied, of course, by some graphic photos. I said I’d give it some thought, and honestly I did. But, faced with a choice between staring into some minx’s faux cleavage or some shameless gushing about RDJ… well, my hands are tied.

The truth is that RDJ could, at this point, more or less take a giant crap – an ACTUAL crap – on any number of my favourite literary creations and I’d probably let it pass. Oh you’re going to play Maurice as a straight man are you? Oh well done, if anyone can pull it off you can. And um Gatsby is, er, black? Uh huh well, um… good luck with all that I guess. Should make a fascinating double feature with your take on The End of the Affair in which Henry is Weekend-at-Bernies-style dead. So, can I meet you in your trailer afterwards or what? Cheers, RDJ – you’re the best.

Token Smokin' Hottie: Robert Pattinson

As I sat watching Twilight last night, surrounded (I assume) by sexually frustrated teens, it occurred to me that the success of the entire movie, by which I mean whether you love it or hated it, hung more or less on one thing: do you want to fuck Robert Pattinson?

Luckily for the movie of course you do. Me too.

Two hours spent looking at his face brood its way through some cheesily awesome dialogue filled me with the desire to bring the word “scrumptious” back into popular usage. His cheekbones should be giving other people’s cheekbones lessons on how to be cheekbones. Even his hair, which, in the movie is actually eleven feet high, started to look tasty to me if only because, I reasoned, if he could make THAT stand up all day… well, let’s just draw a curtain over that little suggestion. But seriously: the bit where he opened his shirt? Yeah if someone could tell me what happened in the ten or so minutes after that bit that would be great – I think I blacked out.

Sure Rob’s role (you mind if I call you Rob?) as Cedric Diggory in the Harry Potter franchise does leave the unsettling impression he’s only about 15 and you reeeeaally shouldn’t go there but in reality the boy is a strapping 22-year-old. Not only legal but moderately socially acceptable.

Walking out of the cinema the always insightful Andy described the concept thusly: “it’s like a girl had a wet dream and then made a movie about it”. For once he was incredibly right. And this wet dream is six foot one AND speaks with a British accent.

Is that a copy of War and Peace in your pocket or are you just pleased to see me?

I love the way surveys-as-news crop up at this time of year, when bugger all is happening and papers and website still have column inches to fill.

So a story in the Daily Telegraph today makes me laugh almost as hard as it makes me cringe.

The story (and apologies because my links bit isn't working for some reason) found that more than a third of Britons will lie about about books and magazines they have read to impress a prospective date. Sounds about right to me but the really disturbing bit is the break down of ‘top ten reads’ to impress a man or woman and, no, I’m not sure how they came up with them.

FOR A MAN it goes something like this:
1. Current affairs websites
2. Shakespeare
3. Song lyrics
4. Cookery books
5. Poetry
6. Nelson Mandela’s autobiography Long Walk to Freedom
7. Jane Austen
8. Facebook/Myspace
9. Religious texts
10. Financial Times.

Sadly FOR A WOMAN it’s no better:

1. Nelson Mandela’s autobiography Long Walk to Freedom AGAIN
2. Shakespeare
3. Cookery Books
4. Poetry
5. Song lyrics
6. Current affairs websites
7. Text messages
8. Emails
9. Financial Times
10. Facebook.

Now I do appreciate that clearly these poor respondents had to respond to multi-choice range of options and weren’t spontaneously deciding that reading the bible Really Does It For Them but… really? I mean REALLY?

I have nothing against Mr Mandela or what I imagine would be a fascinating story but vom-it. Ditto for anyone, no matter how cute they were, pulling a copy of fucking Hamlet out of their bag on a first date. Whatev, mate. Even if he was completely genuine I would still assume he was a liar. And, obviously, a massive wanker.

But some of the other stuff is even weirder… um, emails? Facebook? Who gets impressed by visual evidence the object of ones affection knows how to use a computer? Cavemen and women? Text messages are almost worse – I mean, sure, we all use them but if his idea of a good time means fiddling with his predictive text the chances are your break up speech (should such a day arrive) will read something like UR DUMPED SO SORRY ITS ME NOT U.

To summarise: people are weeeeird.

Either way it's a winner

Okay so it's not as bad as it sounds. Yes I have technically shelled out an additional and arguably somewhat indulgent sum of money I don't entirely possess on flights for my Perth to London and back again jaunt. Yes one of the compelling reasons behind doing so may or may not have been the fact that the move allows me to avoid the horrors of a dry flight but, wait, before you judge me, please, allow me to explain.

On various planes at various times in my life I have drunkenly had a bit of a cry, fallen asleep, probably drooling, on the shoulder of a complete stranger for Quite Some Time and been creepily chatted up by someone I was then forced to sit next to for the following 15ish hours. (You scoff but if you had to try to avoid physical contact with a fleshy neighbour for that long while sharing an armrest you too would consider, somewhere over the Pacific Ocean, gnawing off your arm below the elbow).

Of course then there was the time I wound up lost, alone and ticketless in Singapore airport en route to China, the day I turned up 24 hours late for my flight to New York and the time I arrived (on time) for my flight from London to Perth with two years worth of accrued baggage… without my ticket.

To summarise: I am a useless traveller. I fuck up dates and times and forget to collect crucial documents like tickets and visas. I get bored sitting in those cramped little seats and I can almost never sleep. I dread being seated next to people who Won't Shut Up but am then secretly disappointed when the chatty cutie I met in line ends up sitting ten rows away.

This pattern of stupidity on my part shows no sign of abating. To misquote Graham Greene I am too old and too tired to change now – as with the duff shoulder for which I refuse to do the simple exercises required to prevent the regular onset of crippling pain, my policy is medication, not prevention. And for my medicine I choose booze. Little, handy-sized bottles of booze delivered straight to my tray table, if you want to get into specifics.

Pour enough of it down my throat and I will still miss flights and get seated next to lecherous bores. And, yes, okay, it may even increase the chance that I will doze (albeit in what I fancy is a fairly friendly fashion) on my neighbour's shoulder. The only difference is that I don't care. The people around me do, of course, but who are they? Gormless fellow commuters I will never meet again who, if they had half my sense, would be getting very drunk very quickly too, thus enabling them to deal with all of the above in addition to my hysterical giggles at whatever deliciously trashy 'novel' I've bought for the trip.

Put all of this context and I think you'll find that even a siezable sum of money (and if I convert it into pounds it's only… um, you know, less) for the reassurance of something more than warm orange juice in my glass is a bargain. Plus – and perhaps I should have mentioned this earlier – the changes also mean I wind up with two extra days in London. Oh, yes, and my fucking travel agent somehow "forgot" to save my seat (???) on the cheap arse dry flight because she's actually just some bullshit student who just works there on Saturdays and (fair enough) couldn't give two shits about the job, so my penny-saving flight is not even an option anymore. Still, I think I've come out on top in the deal. One way or another. Or I'm just too drunk to care.

Foiled again

Back when I was a teenage I’m pretty sure teenage rebellion was something to aspire to. Before the youth of today got all emo on our arses and started taking guns to school and/or listening to fucking Sandi Thorn and reading whatever shiteful shit is in Peaches motherfucking Geldof’s new magazine we used to be cool. I’d swear to it.

At least the rebellion bit used to be cool, though I’m sure it will stun and amaze you to learn I wasn’t very good at it. I wallpapered my room with a mish-mash of cringingly pretentious “literary quotes” and song lyrics, which my mother cunningly praised as “lovely and creative” (well played, madam). I listened to music at high volume as I sulked on my bed, prompting at last some urging from dear Mum to open the door so she could hear it better. Arguably my fault for choosing Belle and Sebastian as the soundtrack of my revolution but STILL.

Fortune did start to favour me somewhere in my later high school years when the police turned up at some random party to shut it down. Easily the closest I had ever come to a brush with the law in my 16 years. I forget why they were there or what we’d done wrong exactly but they herded us outside the house, where we milled about awkwardly. My friend Alley Cat and I made ourselves comfortable on a nearby kerb - too nervous and mildly squiffy to call our parents, too poor to consider a taxi. While we sat there, our bags filled with at least, gosh, two (mid-strength?) beers apiece a loitering cop came up to speak to us.

“You girls need a lift home?” he asked.

This, though it may not sound like it, was one of those questions I would later replay to relive that little prickle of pleasure (as in much later years it would be “do you want to stay over” or a few other things I won’t mention here).

My grin, as I clambered into the back of the paddy wagon, my heart only slightly panicked by the unmistakable sound of the beer cans banging together in my bag, was not the thrill of a child getting to ride in a cop car – it was the delight of a moody teenage getting to rock up at home with sirens (I hoped) blazing.

It was then, of course, I remembered I was staying at Alley Cat’s house but still, I reasoned, surely her parents’ concern was as good as my own. So I resolved to enjoy it. The ride is, these days, a blur, but I distinclty remember the arrival: pulling into the quiet Dalkeith street, clambering awkwardly out of the paddy wagon and thanking the (admittedly pretty damn decent) cops and heading in to face a barrage of questions. Except not quite so much.

The flaw to the plan? Well the cops had broken up the party pretty early and so it happened that while WE were home before midnight Alley’s parents were not. The cheeky sods were still out. Alley and I sat up eating chocolate for a bit and then went to bed. We didn’t hear them when they came in.

The top four things that, with hindsight, I probably shouldn't have done yesterday

1. Spent 10 hours in the soul destroying Port Hedland sun with one pathetic coat of sunscrren.
2. Compounded sunstroke and dehydration by getting a leeeetle bit drunk on the plane.
3. Spoken to my boss AT ALL at the party.
4. Repeated that crack about my boss' jacket... to my boss.

Blueblood TV

Quick: imagine what vampire porn looks like. Now try to imagine that porn set to a slightly cheesy string quartet and acted out entirely on a flat-bed truck being driven repeatedly around a cemetery. Oh and written and directed by the man who created this show. The result? True Blood - either the most guilty pleasure since that episode of Gossip Girl where Chuck tooootally nailed Blair to that Virgins song or just a really fucked up dream I had one night after eating that jar of Nutella.

In short: the entire reason TV exists.

Thoughts I had while watching The Howard Years #2

9.29pm: Yes, Mr Howard, your "hunch" that trees don't have a lot of votes DID prove to be accurate. Douchebag.