Chicks vs Dicks

Approximately 364 days of the year I am very happy to be a girl. We get to wear dresses, don't have to shave our nice soft faces and it is more socially acceptable for us to show our emotions, weep at the Bridges of Madison County and be unable to change a fuse. However, this photo - courtesy of The Sartorialist - has me sort of jonesing to be a dude because... Jesus Christ. Could he look any more cool and breezy than he does right now? Could he be any more calm and relaxed without actually slipping into a light coma? Is there some scientific explanation for why I find the combination of the cuffed pant leg, the bare ankle and his sneaker so goddamn charming? And, yes, sure, in theory I could put on this exact same outfit and salmon my way up a New York street but... no: it has long been my view that t-shirts and jeans just hang better on a dude's body, yes, shut up, THEY DO AND YOU KNOW IT. Girls are great and all but when the right guy wears the right jeans and the right t-shirt the combination simply cannot be improved upon. I'm sorry, I don't make the rules. You know those stupid body swap movies like Freaky Friday, the Freaky Friday remake and, um... I'm sure there was another one? Anyway, if that body swap stuff ever becomes viable in real life I am putting my hand up to swap bodies with this dude basically immediately, just for a day or two to get it out of my system. I'll cruise around looking smooth and dapper and perfect and he can, uh, play with my boobs and get out of parking tickets? I don't know, I guess everybody wins.

At the hairdresser, while a woman on the other side of the salon talked loudly and endlessly about weirdly personal stuff:

Me: That woman, um, talks a lot.
Him: She's always like this. Everyone here knows everything about her.
Me: Oh, really?
Him: I know when she had sex for the first time. And I've never even cut her hair.

Questions I was left asking myself after ploughing through a stack of glossy magazines at the hairdresser today

Should I be wearing foundation? Is everyone wearing foundation? Is it bad that I don't own foundation? I'm so confused.

In other news...

... this.
(Via, as so many lovely things in life, McPhee)

That awkward moment when...

 ... You run into that chap who tried to get you into bed foreverago and he's married and you say "wow congratulations when did that happen?" and he tells you and you realise he was totally married at the time and you have to try to stop yourself from sounding all Judgy while your mouth goes "greeeeeat"...

Swings and roundabouts

So today was a pretty shitty day for reasons mentioned in the post below. And I was sitting here, marinating in post-funeral blues until whatdoyouknow I realised there are advance screenings of Moonrise Kingdom on this weekend and I remembered there are still things to look forward to. Also: wine.

So

With very few exceptions funerals are awful, sad and difficult events and I don't want to make light of the one I am attending today, which is for the lovely mother of a lovely friend. But I will point out that this is what happened one of the last times I attended a friend's mother's funeral. So in case anyone was worried... today I'm wearing tights.

"Touch my lie hole... harder"

This one comes via McPhee and Jesus it's been kind of a bad week for dudes talking about rape, right? (Well, except for this gorgeous sonofabitch)

Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again

So this is both extremely amusing and has reminded me it's time to re-read Rebecca. It's always time to re-read Rebecca.

Mildly disconcerting texts I have received lately from people whose numbers I don't have in my phone:

"So tell me more about [the name of the man charged with a serious crime, whose trial I have been helping to cover for work]."

I mean, you're going to have that kitchen for a long time so...

Abortion is one of those things I have long felt faintly uncomfortable talking about or writing about for two reasons.

Firstly, I've never had to have an abortion so I feel unqualified to say much and a little bit like I might be shitting on other people's experiences if I voice my own opinion. Merely owning a working (um, so far as I know, I guess) womb doesn't feel like much of a qualification to start shooting my mouth off.

Secondly, until very recently I secretly thought I might be a monster or perhaps a low-level psychopath because, while I appreciate the decision to have an abortion must be very hard for some people, for me it's never seemed like much of a decision. If I got pregnant tomorrow I would wait a polite amount of time for my husband to try to talk me out of it and then say sorry and go and get an abortion. And while maybe I'd surprise myself I can't imagine being overwhelmed with guilt or grief - lord knows the not-a-baby would be better off being snuffed out of existence before it's too much more than a cluster of cells than being born to a mother who has absolutely no desire to have it.

I've always felt this way but never felt comfortable expressing the view until I read Caitlin Moran's fantastic, maybe even life altering and very funny book, How to Be a Woman. In it she writes how, as the mother of two kids, she decided to get an abortion when she got pregnant for a third time:

"I have no dilemma, no terrible decision to make - because I know, with calm certainty, that I don't want another child now, in the same way I know absolutely that I don't want to go to India, or be a blonde, or fire a gun... I can honestly say that my abortion was one of the least difficult decisions of my life. I'm not being flippant when I say it took me longer to decide what worktops to have in the kitchen than whether I was prepared to spend the rest of my life being responsible for a further human being, because I knew that to do it again - to commit my life to another person - might very possibly stretch my abilities, and conception of who I am, and who I want to be, and what I want and need to do - to breaking point."

I remember reading that line about the kitchen worktops while sitting somewhere beautiful in Positano a couple of months ago and bursting into guilty laughter, thinking holy shit are we allowed to talk like this now?

I've gone off topic because this was supposed to be a very short post directing you towards this article, "I Wish My Mother Had Aborted Me", about which I have little to say but which I think might actually be... kind of great. Or at least very interesting, particularly in a world in which this kind of fucknuttery is out there making Australian politicians look positively sane and competent by comparison.

Finally, two pieces of advice.

Number one: If you or someone you know owns a vagina, buy Caitlin Moran's book.

Number two: don't ever try google imaging the world "abortion" in the hope it might throw up an appropriate picture to illustrate some inane blog post you may have written. Just... trust me on this one.

Things I said at the pub that weren't intended to be a burn but apparently came out that way:

Him: I like your outfit.
Me: I got married in this dress.

Things I secretly believe I can do better than most people #12

Pack my shopping bags at the supermarket.

Procrastination

The problem: Should I take my parents' wee dog to the dog beach (my parents are away and she could do with the exercise) or park myself in a cafe and do that work assignment I have been putting off all week that really actually MUST be finished today?

The solution: Do neither and instead lie in bed with my laptop, blogging about my indecision.

Token Smokin' Hottie: Chris O'Dowd

Two incidents.

One, a few months ago during a harmless game of shoot, shag or marry involving various boys in the office. Presented with some fairly unappealing options I nevertheless made my choices and, when pressed to defend my selection for the shag (an unattractive but friendly, chap), did so with the words: "yeah but he'd make you laugh quite a bit during." I stand by my decision.

Two, many years ago when I was in bed with an, ahem, gentleman caller (sorry Mum) who said something along the lines of "do you have something to, um, not get pregnant?" (I'm being disingenuous with my faux recall, that's actually exactly what he said). For some reason, even though I maybe didn't really know him well enough (again, sorry Mum) to make the joke I said, straightfaced: "No I really want to have your child." Things might have got super awkward except that he cracked up, which, of course, made me crack up too and all was well.

I mention these two incidents now to explain the presence of Chris O'Dowd under the tag Smokin' Token Hottie, given that he is, you know, not really hot.

I first noticed Chris O'D in the sporadically funny TV series The IT Crowd, vaguely noticing that he was kinda cute, had a nice t-shirt collection and got most of the best lines ("have you tried turning it off and on again?"). Then I saw him in Bridesmaids and was distinctly smitten, at least in part because of a throwaway bit of super cute dialogue when he's (uh... spoiler?) falling into bed with whatshername and says something like "I'm so glad this is happening". I don't know why that charmed me so much but it really did. My crush was magnified when I saw him this week in The Sapphires, in which he manages to be delightfully amusing and single-handedly carry what is really a good-but-not-great film into the territory of would-recommend-to-a-friend.

And, as I insinuated in the start of this blog, Chris O'D's appeal is almost entirely predicated on his (assumed) sense of humour. You just know that if you got him into bed he wouldn't be tearing off his clothes to reveal a hidden six pack or amazing you with his kinkery fuckery but he would be making you smile and laugh until somehow, before you quite knew it, you were having sex with him, without being entirely aware of having taken off your pants. Humour in bed is a seriously underrated quality, is I guess what I'm trying to say.

Oh shit, and did I even mention the Irish accent? Yeah, um, that helps.

How to not psych yourself up for going out when you're feeling distinctly low:

Glass of wine + woolly jumper + Joni Mitchell = Must... leave... house...

Things I feel fairly confident I will not do again

1. Get a nose stud.

2. Wear a ra-ra skirt.

3. Live with my parents.

4. Watch the (I have no idea why this is even considered a classic because holy shit no just no no no) film The African Queen.

Obviously

I once nearly had to appear on TV for work purposes and I all but shat myself with fear (before brilliantly getting out of it by, uh, effectively resigning from that position) so why am I using this space to make fun of a friend who is a) far more successful than me and b) actually does have to go on TV to shill his wares and thus keep his kids fed and clothed? Because I can, dear reader, because I can.

An open letter to...

This person

And

This person

Please get a fucking grip.

Regards,
The World

"Why was I programmed to feel pain?"

Courtesy of Eye on Springfield.

Unforgivable crimes committed by the girl sitting next to me at work this week

1. Sharing baby photos... of her boyfriend.
2. Eating a tin of tuna in a teeny tiny room.
3. Displaying no remorse for point 2.
4. Crying.
5. Being super nice and friendly, thus making me feel like a heel for thinking bad things.

At the pub*

Him: Do you have a bob now?
Me: Uh yeah. What do you think: too short?
Him: Yeah.
Me: Wait, what?
Him: You should grow it, I don't know, an inch longer.
Me: No, I've done it - I look like the mother of two children...
Him: I mean, this is coming from someone who can't be bothered to shave his neck.

*My recollection may have been slightly alcohol-impaired but this is definitely the gist if not, uh, entirely verbatim. I mean there may have been a few more insults involved. I don't remember.

Lessons I have learned from work #23

Always wear nice underwear in case you are murdered but not too racy or everyone will think you were a slut.

Questions I had after seeing Lauren Bacall on the big screen in The Big Sleep last night

1. Why don't we see faces quite like hers in the movies anymore.
2. How many cigarettes would I have to smoke to acquire her voice?
3. Where can I find that amazing checked suit?
4. Is now the time for berets to make a comeback?

Eggs

Apparently Bambi celebrates its 70th anniversary today or this week or, um, maybe just very soon. I can't quite remember: I started reading a news story about this fact on the wires at work today and then got distracted by a really ludicrous typo in the story - I kept wondering how this thing hadn't been picked up - and never quite around to finishing reading the actual story. But I do remember that part of this story was going on and ooooon about how the bit in the movie where Bambi's mother gets shots is one of the saddest movie scenes ever blah blah blah. And I thought... really? I saw the movie when I was a kid and I love animals and all but I can't say it made a big impact on me. Maybe I'm dead inside but I don't even remember, um, shedding a tear at the time. In any case, it got me thinking about the scenes from movies that always have made me bawl like a little bitch and then I started thinking about other movies I liked for different reasons and, well, the end is result is as you see below. Try to control your excitement - there are matches on the bench if you need to prop your eyes open.

Saddest movie scene: The Bridges of Madison County. I know how pathetic this sounds, especially since I just kind of ragged on Bambi - practically Citizen Kane compared to this melodrama. This is not a great movie. I mean, Clint Eastwood is the romantic interest. But there is something about this movie that always make me cry - not little tears either but really fucking bawl. In particular it's the scene at the end where Meryl Streep is in the car and Eastwood is in his car ahead of her, about to leave town. It's raining (of course it is) and her hand is on the door handle, like she's going to turn it and she nearly opens it and then her husband comes back to the car and the moment passes and Eastwood drives out of town forever and she's brushing tears away to hide them and... What? I have something in my eye, okay. It's raining on my face. I'm making a lasagna... for one.

Funnies Movie Scene: The Mikado (the nuts 1939 version where half the 'Japanese' characters are played by white dudes in bad make-up) I'm not going deliberately obscure here, honest. I mean The Mikado is in not even close to making the list of my favourite comedies: for the most part it's a sometimes very amusing, sometimes very dull movie. But there is this one scene in this version of The Mikado where a character makes a joke and laughs at his own joke and you think that's the end of the laugh but Oh My God no it's just the beginning and... Look I can't even describe it but I have watched that scene maybe... 50-plus times - approximately half of those with my brother, the only other person I know on whom this scene has exactly the same effect - and have never not laughed like a drain. It's weird.

Sexiest Movie Scene: Considering this category, for two seconds I thought about Jamec McAvoy in Atonement, writing that fucking insanely brilliant letter to Keira Poutface Knightley ("In my dreams I kiss your cunt, your sweet wet cunt. In my thoughts I make love to you all day long") and then I thought a little harder and realised, of course, that it begins and ends with Y Tu Mama Tambien, far and away the single sexiest movie ever made and without, um, giving away too much of the plot (if you haven't seen it you really should - sexiness aside it's funny and charming and all good things) a movie apparently made with me as its target audience. Anyone who knows me and knows the movie will know that the scene I'm talking about comes near the end of the movie, just before the end of their holiday and is insanely hot on a variety of levels. But, um, I'm said too much. I must lie down.

Most Romanic Movie Scene: No this is not the same as above, of course I'm not repeating myself. Nor is it cheating if I cite a scene from Maurice - just about the most swooningly romantic book in the world as well as a pretty decent movie. Blame it on Rupert Graves insanely beautiful face (Jesus Christ,  I'm sick enough that I still find him hot but back in the day he was really something) but the scene where he first tries to blackmail Maurice and then, shyly, with a stupid little tap on his arm, suggests maybe they find a room instead is one of the few scenes that I like better in the movie than the book. Something about the what-am-I-doing expression on Graves' face and the way he mumbles his line ("I wouldn't harm one hair on your head" or something like that) just undoes me every time.

Happiest Movie Scene: Sometimes I'm so predictable I hate myself but for me it has to be the end of Woody Allen's Annie Hall. This doesn't count as a spoiler because the end of the movie is spelled out in its first few minutes but Allen's character and Diane Keaton, the titular Annie Hall, have broken up, again, and the implication is that this time it's the last time. It's sad, obviously, but it's also really happy because you can see that they've both got something out of this relationship, that they're going to be friends and then of course Allen has to finish it off with a stupid little joke that I still find as charming now as I did the first time I watched this bloody movie, when I was trying to impress some stupid boy:

"I-I thought of that old joke, you know, this- this-this guy goes to a psychiatrist and says, "Doc, uh, my brother's crazy. He thinks he's a chicken." And, uh, the doctor says, "Well, why don't you turn him in?" And the guy says, "I would, but I need the eggs." Well, I guess that's pretty much how how I feet about relationships. You know, they're totally irrational and crazy and absurd and ... but, uh, I guess we keep goin' through it because, uh, most of us need the eggs."

Overheard at the Pub last night

Girl 1: So have you ever been asked to be the third in a threesome?
Girl 2: No. (Sigh)
Girl 1: Yeah me neither.

"Two bad decisions away from homelessness"

Would your friends or family tell you if they thought you were acting in a potentially-destructive way that risked fucking up your life? I don't know if mine would, although I would like to think so. Lord knows certain people in my life have been outspoken in their distate for my (only partially cured) Diet Coke habit, which I really do appreciate. Most of the time. Which is really just a long way of saying I thought Sam de Brito's column today was kind of a cracker.

Overheard in the office

"Who even does heroin anymore?"

Token Smokin' Hottie: Bobak Ferdowsi (AKA: NASA Mohawk guy)

Obviously super smart, nerdy, cute and with the kind of lips you could bury yourself in... do I really need to say any more?

You're fooling nobody

As mentioned elsewhere I was really disappointed by The Avengers. I went in with high expectations and I thought it was an average superhero movie with one or two good lines. Nevertheless, this story made me very happy because that disappointment has done nothing to kill my Joss Whedon love. As far as I'm concerned Whedon gets a lifetime pass for making Buffy: one of the smartest, funniest shows ever. Throw in Firefly, Dr Horrible and, more recently, the extremely amusing Cabin in the Woods (it's still showing at Luna - why aren't you watching it right now?) and, in my eyes, he could murder a kitten in front of me and I'd probably be cool with it. Wait, probably? Who am I fooling...

Harden the fuck up

I realised some time ago that, either as a function of getting older or as a result of covering the particular industry I was until very recently reporting on, I have become more politically conservative. I'm still most definitely left-of-centre, just a little bit further along the political spectrum. For instance, although I wholeheartedly support the carbon tax in practice and the need to protect the environment in theory, I get irritated when I see green groups making erroneous claims that aren't supported by the facts. It doesn't do anyone any favours. Similarly although I didn't vote for him I think our State Premier, who is conservative, is actually doing a... pretty good job.

I only mention this as maybe one explanation for why this article, written by a student journalist and published by a university publication about her "horrific" experience interning at a mainstream Aussie tabloid newspaper, made me roll my eyes and mutter "harden the fuck up" under my breath.

There are racist, sexist and generally awful people working in newsrooms around the country. Of course there are. There are racist, sexist and generally awful people walking around all the time - naturally some of them are going to end up working in the media industry. Having worked in the media for most of my adult working life I don't have many other workplaces to compare it to, so I can't say whether journos are more offensive than most other people. However, I would say that in my experience journos do tend to like the sound of their own voices (hence this blog, I guess) and, in some cases, maybe have a tendency to try and be a bit shocking or politically incorrect for the sake of a cheap laugh or to make themselves heard in a loud newsroom. Also the newsroom can be an extremely high-stress environment, which means reporters sometimes blow off steam in slightly inappropriate ways because they're exhausted, sad, stressed or generally shocked by some of the things they've seen and have to write about.

This doesn't mean you have to let people say offensive things around you and get away with it - by all means tell them to fuck off and/or refute their grossness by a calm recitation of the facts. I have had cause to do both of these things relatively recently when I was irritated by a colleague sounding off about gay rights issues and it was received with a sheepish and well-humoured "yeah maybe" by the person I was addressing, with whom I'm on good terms. Alternatively, if you're a work experience student trying not to rock the boat perhaps you could just ignore it, roll your eyes and Get On With Your Day.

In any case, I don't think this student does her case any favours by relating this as an example of disgusting sexist behaviour:

"Men were also continuously and unnecessarily sexist, waiting for me to walk through doors and leave the elevator before them"

I mean... really? That's a fucking crime now, is it? I understand people have different personal irritants (I hate it when people call me "sweetheart" or "love") but... come on. I hold doors open for old people and let them get out of the elevator before me - must I now be arrested for a hate crime? Sure, maybe these sorts of behaviours are hangovers from outdated patriarchal attitudes but some of the nicest, leftiest and most right-on people I know have, on occasion, waited for me to walk through doorways first if we're walking along a corridor together and I don't feel the need to push them to the ground and scream "sexist pig!"

It's quite possible that I've just been corrupted by a sexist, racist and homophobic patriarchal society and can no longer recognise offensive, oppressive behaviour when it's right in front of me. Alternatively it's possible that the student who wrote this article has been living in a university bubble for most of her adult life so far and faces a nasty wake up call when she has to go out into the real world and deal with real people who don't necessarily share her beliefs or attitudes and may sometimes offend her, deliberately or not. I know which theory I'd put my money on.

Things that are making me meh right now

1. Basically everything not listed below.

Things that are making me happy right now.

1. Cider. Haven't had any for ages (I mean, it's a summer drink, let's be reasonable) and suddenly the fridge is full of it and there's no wine in the house and... I think you can see where I'm going with this.

2. Listening to Andy singing and playing this Adele song on the guitar, literally as I type this. Yeah, I'm surprised too.

3. The Michael Caine retrospective I seem to be in the middle of it. I'm still in the 1970s but can't wait to get to Dirty Rotten Scoundrels.

4. My job, at least for the next, ooh, four to five weeks.

Personally I prefer brunettes

"There are blondes and blondes and it is almost a joke word nowadays. All blondes have their points, except perhaps the metallic ones who are as blonde as a Zulu under the bleach and as to disposition as soft as a sidewalk. There is the small cute blonde who cheeps and twitters, and the big statuesque blonde who straight-arms you with an ice-blue glare. There is the blonde who gives you the up-from-under look and smells lovely and shimmers and hangs on your arm and is always very, very tired when you take her home. She makes that helpless gesture and has that goddamned headache and you would like to slug her except that you found about the headache before you invested too much time and money and hope in her. Because the headache will always be there, a weapon that never wears out and is as deadly as the bravo’s rapier or Lucrezia’s poison vial. There is the soft and willing alcoholic blonde who doesn’t care what she wears as long as it is mink or where she goes as long as it is the Starlight Roof and there is plenty of dry champagne. There is the small perky blonde who is a little pale and wants to pay her own way and is full of sunshine and common sense and knows judo from the ground up and can toss a truck driver over her shoulder without missing more than one sentence out of the editorial in the Saturday Review. There is the pale, pale blonde with anemia of some non-fatal but incurable type. She very languid and very shadowy and she speaks softly out of nowhere and you can’t lay a finger on her because in the first place you don’t want to and in the second place she is reading the Wasteland or Dante in the original, or Kafka or Kierkegaard or studying Provencal. She adores music and when the New York Philharmonic is playing Hindesmith she can tell you which one of the six bass viols came in a quarter of a beat too late. I hear Toscanini can also. That makes two of them. And lastly there is the gorgeous show piece who will outlast three kingpin racketeers and then marry a couple of millionaires at a million a head and end up with a pale rose villa at Cap d’Antibes, and Alfa Romeo town car complete with pilot and co-pilot, and a stable of shopworn aristocrats, all of whom she will treat with the affectionate absentmindedness of an elderly duke saying good night to his butler."

(Raymond Chandler, The Long Goodbye)

Conversations with my sister

Sister: [Stroking my nose] Have you had a nose job?
Me: Um... no.
Sister: [To Her Husband] Look at Kate's nose. It looks so straight.
Sister's Husband: It does look better than I remember.
Me: ....

Things I learned while attending the Avon Descent on Saturday

1. One should always take a rain jacket and/or umbrella to the Avon Descent.

2. It is equally important to remember to take said rain jacket and/or umbrella out of the car when you arrive at your destination.

3. A flimsy yellow rain poncho can, in an emergency, be used by two people if you are prepared to huddle close together on some very uncomfortable rocks and tear a second head hole in the poncho.

4. Although you will both get quite wet.

What do I get?

An old favourite that was born to clear out the Monday morning blues. I remember having this on my iPod once when I was in London and racing from one train to catch another. Now when I listen to it I still remember pounding up those steps with my winter coat in my arms. Can't remember if I made the train, though.

Thoughts I had while getting increasingly tipsy and watching the fucking awful movie The Wedding Date:

1. Hey, what ever happened to Debra Messing?...

2. ... Or Dermot Mulroney?

3. Oh wow.

4. Oh WOW.

5. What is the wardrobe department doing to Debra Messing? Man, they must hate her. Maybe even more than her agent, who presumably allowed her to be in this movie.

6. But that girl playing her sister is all kinds of hot. Jesus. Forget Messing and Mulroney - whatever happened to her?

7. I am really embarrassed to be watching this movie right now....

8. ... And I am very much pro-sex industry. Whores for all, is my motto.

9. Soooo they've fallen in love in... two(?) days, right? For... kind of no reason, other than that they're both conventionally attractive people? I actually missed the part where either of them seemed remotely loveable. Or is this a fake out and something's going to drive them apart...? Maybe she'll end up with that bartender, he was kind of cute...

10. Nope. That's just... That just happened, I guess. Jesus, there's FORTY MINUTES LEFT

11. I do kind of love this song, thought.

12. Man, although now I wish I was watching that movie, One Fine Day, with George Clooney and Michelle  Pfeiffer - that was so, so much better than this. And it wasn't very good.

13. Actually I'd rather watch a movie staring Debra Messing's sassy brunette friend. She seems like she's got some shit going on. Also I like her hair.

14. So, this is kind of like a reverse Pretty Woman, right? Except Debra Messing is a... broke Richard Gear and Dermot Mulroney is like a classy Julia Roberts, with... money?

15. Um, and did he just imply that he has an amazing-looking cock? I mean, uh, did that happen or did I just fall asleep and dream it?

16. I bet he does, though. His hair is enchanting and full of secrets. I bet he grooms his undercarriage like he grooms that baby. Unless it's a wig. Oh, don't make it a wig.

17. No. NO. NO. Dear Romantic Comedies: Enough with the 'wacky' chase scenes, please: They are not funny. They are not clever. They are fucked. Regards, Everyone.

18. I can't believe this movie isn't over yet.

19. Oh of COURSE he's the best man now. Like I AM SO SURE THAT'S JUST HOW THINGS WORK. ("Everyone, we're just going to need you to all take one step to the right and then on with the show...")

20. HOW MUCH TIME HAS PASSED IN THIS MOVIE? Because Debra Messing has seriously worn 30 outfits and 'love' has ostensibly blossomed. But everyone keeps referring to it as "the weekend"? How long can one weekend feasibly be?

21. If I'd listened to TT I would be having a drink with him at the Cheeky Sparrow right now, instead of sitting in my tracksuit pants, drinking wine and railing at ONE OF THE WORST MOVIES I HAVE EVER SEEN IN MY LIFE. Sometimes I regret my life choices.

Last words

Which is more important: the first line of a book or the last?

In many respects, of course, the first line is all important because it can be what determines whether a reader continues reading. Done badly, the first line of a book is an instant turn-off, the equivalent of finding out that cute boy you like has deeply held religious beliefs. Done right, the first line of a book is an advertisement for all the rest of what is to come: a promise that the book will deliver if only the reader can make it through the next 100, 200, 300 or 800 pages.

I don't go in for Charles Dickens chiefly because he tended towards the 800 page mark and was, let's be frank, Verbose As Fuck, but he got it right with A Tale of Two Cities:

"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair."

Or Raymond Chandler in The Big Sleep. Who could read this opening paragraph and put this fucker down? Who would want to?

"It was about eleven o'clock in the morning, mid October, with the sun not shining and a look of hard wet rain in the clearness of the foothills. I was wearing my powder-blue suit, with dark blue shirt, tie and display handkerchief, black brogues, black wool socks with dark blue clocks on them. I was neat, clean, shaved and sober, and I didn't care who knew it. I was everything the well-dressed private detective ought to be. I was calling on four million dollars."

The opening line of Joseph Yeller's Catch 22, still probably the single funniest book I've ever read or hope to read, doesn't make a hell of a lot of sense at first but it sure made me want to read on:

"It was love at first sight. The first time Yossarian saw the chaplain he fell madly in love with him."

And Sylvia Plath nailed the tone of her strange, sad perfect little book, The Bell Jar, with just the first sentence:

"It was a queer, sultry summer, the summer they electrocuted the Rosenbergs, and I didn't know what I was doing in New York."

A snappy one liner can be good too and personally I have always had a soft spot for Samuel Beckett's Murphy...

"The sun shone, having no alternative, on the nothing new."

Or Ray Bradbury's classic, Fahrenheit 451:

"It was a pleasure to burn."

But I'm dancing around my point and being disingenuous because I don't believe the first line of a book is all important: for me it's always been about the ending: the bit that stays with you after you close the book and lean back, digesting the fates of the characters you've spent the past few hours/days/weeks following. Last lines are the ones that stay with me and I can forgive some dodgy plotting, iffy characterisation and worse if the payoff is a killer ending. Graham Greene's The End of the Affair has a snoozefest of a start ("A story has no beginning or end: arbitrarily one chooses.... zzzzzzzzzzz") but is one of my all time favourite books in large part because it has one of my all-time favourite final passages:

"I wrote at the start that this was a record of hate, and walking there beside Henry towards the evening glass of beer, I found the one prayer that seemed to serve the winter mood: O God, You've done enough, You've robbed me of enough, I'm too tired and old to learn to love, leave me alone for ever."

I mean.... fuck. Fuck. I'm lying on the floor over here, Graham. For brevity there's the likes of Gone with the Wind ("After all, tomorrow is another day"), The Catcher in the Rye ("It's funny. Don't ever tell anybody anything. If you do, you start missing everybody") and even bloody Catch 22 again ("The knife came down, missing him by inches, and he took off").

For all of these reasons, I found this Guardian list of the 10 best closing lines in literature pretty interesting, if also obviously infuriating. Some of the choices are, I must be honest, bullshit. And some of the omissions are glaring. Where is my Greene? My Eugenides? My Forster (Oh, Maurice!), my Chandler, again (this time for The Long Goodbye, by far my favourite Chandler and hands down the one with the best ending). Anyway, you can read the ones they came up with by following the link above. But, given that I've just wanked on for a bit about how the ending is all that matters, let me leave you with two of my favourites, both of which (phew) did make it into the Guardian's short list.

Some loveliness from The Wuthering Heights, the only Bronte novel I ever really loved (at least if you don't count some random adaptation I once saw of The Tenant of Wildfell Hall that starred a young and basically unbelievably beautiful Rupert Graves - I don't really remember the plot but I could draw a diagram of his cheekbones):

"I lingered round them, under that benign sky; watched the moths fluttering among the heath, and hare-bells; listened to the soft wind breathing through the grass; and wondered how anyone could ever imagine unquiet slumbers for the sleepers in that quiet earth."

Oh, swoon. I mean I know Heathcliff was kind of an abusive dick sometimes but Cathy was a pill so, you know, I sort of thought they were amazing together.

And best of all, some final sad words from the narrator of F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby - on and off again my favourite book for much of the past ten years for all the obvious reasons (read: it's brilliant)...

"And as I sat there, brooding on the old, unknown world, I thought of Gatsby's wonder when he first picked out the green light at the end of Daisy's dock. He had come a long way to this blue lawn and his dream must have seemed so close that he could hardly fail to grasp it. He did not know that it was already behind him, somewhere back in that vast obscurity beyond the city, where the dark fields of the republic rolled on under the night. Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgastic future that year by year recedes before us. It eluded us then, but that's no matter - tomorrow we will run faster, stretch our our arms farther... And one fine morning - So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past."

Step up, indeed

So I was almost certainly always going to go and see Step Up: Revolution. I love cheese. I love dancing. I love cheesy dance movies. But this completely charming article on why the movie is greater than the sum of its parts (yes, really) has pushed me over the edge to the point where I have Locked This Shit In. Plus said article contains this wonderful line, which made me laugh much more than I think it should:

Like so many of you, I've seen and loved Step Up. I love early C-Tates, I love his sweatpants, and I love that scene in the club where everyone somehow knows the same dance and he gloriously pops his collar. 

If you haven't seen Step Up, it's true: that moment really is fucking glorious. Meanwhile, it pleases me more than I can say that when I texted my friend A (a surprisingly straight friend who is also a lover of all things cheesy dance-related and the gentleman who kept me company at both Step Up 3D and the Footloose remake) to see if he was keen he not only was immediately on board but he knew the movie's Perth release date off the top of his head. This, obviously, is why we are friends.

Wear it

About ten years ago my then-boyfriend (and yeah for some reason my extremely small number of ex-boyfriends seem to be coming up a lot lately, don't know what's up with that) convinced me to buy a black 1920s-style hat with a charming velvet bow. It was a beautiful hat from a proper milliner and I loved it and wanted it but I had my concerns. He convinced me with these words: "If you buy it, you'll become a hat person." I never did become a hat person but I still have the bloody hat, sitting in my wardrobe, waiting for me to grow a pair of balls and wear the fucker already. For this reason, maybe, I very much enjoyed this post - and more importantly, the comments attached to it - over on The Sartorialist about items of clothing purchased but never worn. (For the record I did wear the hat once... to a friend's 1920s theme party).

Bad things I should probably regret having done

Looking up my ex-ex-boyfriend on Facebook and perusing photos of him and his band. Ah, Jason, your super awkward onstage stance tells me you probably haven't changed a wink. On the plus side, your girlfriend seems super cute so, um, well played, Sir. Next step: resist the temptation to track down his band's EP and see if it can possibly be as bad in reality as it is in my head. Yes, I'm sorry, I am the worst.

Why...

... did I wake up this morning thinking about this scene from The Trip? And why does it still make me laugh?

Things I am loving about working in the city (for now) instead of out in the suburbs (like usual):

1. The morning commute. I don't know why I enjoy walking the two blocks from the carpark to my job, earphones in ears, but I do. I've always enjoyed watching people on their way to work, seeing what they're wearing and how they entertain themselves at traffic lights, in morning cafes while waiting for their coffees etc. I know: I'm such a loser. I'd love to catch public transport in but unfortunately I need to have my car with me for work purposes just in case. Boo.

2. The coffee. Most of the time I work in a suburb with two coffee shops within walking distance. One does awful coffee, the other is... fine. Good on a good day. Here I can't take two steps without running into a coffee shop that does a mean soy mocha.

3. The company. I can catch up with people - properly catch up in a lunch break or after work, using my legs to propel me along the footpath, not jump in my car and drive 15 minutes to get to somewhere decent. I have had more coffee catch-ups and post work wine snifters in the past three weeks than I have in Quite Some Time. It's basically the best thing.

4. The shopping. This is not a good thing, really. For various reasons (read: I am broke) I'm supposed to be tightening the ol' purse strings at the moment. In particular this means no buying dresses or stockings or books or any of the other things I spend too much money on. Still, just the act of being able to walk down the road and buy something dull-but-essential (batteries! undies!) is pretty great. Simple pleasures.

The weirdest part is that it works

An anonymous letter I received in the post this morning at my job (it had a stamp and everything):

"I don't mind your feminist articles in the paper but do we have to look at that ugly mug shot of yours. Looks like a lesbian without doubt. Seen better heads on cocks. Also have seen more cocks on TV lately than tits let alone fannies."

As much as this has done nothing to ease my own genuine self-consciousness about my quite bad headshot - and I feel like the author kind of lost his way towards the end of the letter - I must thank him/her for the wonderful phrase "seen better heads on cocks", which I plan to use liberally in conversation.

That Girl

You know That Girl. She's the one who laughs at what she's reading on her laptop and waits for you to ask her what's so funny. When you don't ask she tells you anyway. She laughs quietly at her own jokes and very loudly at everyone else's. She has an opinion on everything anyone else is talking about and wants to share it. If you don't react she assumes you haven't heard her and repeats herself. So you learn to react. Without making eye contact. That Girl inserts herself into conversations that have nothing to do with her. Sometimes she assumes she knows what other people are talking about. Often she is wrong. That Girl cannot read the social cues that would tell her what other people think about her behaviour. Sometimes it is hard to tell if That Girl is stupid or just a bit lonely. That Girl would probably describe herself as having a really good sense of humour. That Girl is delusional.

Summer Daze

I've never been a huge fan of the beach. But faaaaawk this photo from 1918 makes it look fun.

Top Five named Alannah Hill clothing items, as voted by me

1. The Long Sad Day cardigan
2. He Talks to Stars top
3. I'm Slipping Under cardigan
4. Melancholy Love belt
5. He's Having an Affair! cardigan

(If you have no idea what I'm talking about you can check out the Alannah Hill website, but only if you buy me something pretty).

Buttons Are Hard, or Scenes From A Cafe

Him: Your button's come undone.
Me: Oh, it's, um... supposed to be that way.
Him: Oh.
Me: Should I... do it up?
Him: No, it's fine.

Lindsay did it

Just in case I am ever found with a stiletto heel through my heart, a single hair belonging to Alexander Skarsgaard, Scott Speedman or Javier Bardem resting on my chest, and no apparent motive or suspect for my untimely death... dear readers, please direct the police to this blog.

Well,

What did you do with your weekend?

Ok so...

... I swear I'm going to stop posting links to articles on The Hairpin, put on my shoes and go to dinner already but first I have to say that this made me laugh quite a bit. Also GOD how I do love Scott Speedman.

Ex Schmex

I once went out with a guy* who had been - and, over the course of our romance I kinda increasingly got the impression almost certainly still was - half in love with his "best friend", a cool redhead indie pixie-type who was maybe mostly gay but had also sort of gone out with this guy for awhile. I don't know. It was a super weird relationship (theirs, not ours) that involved getting matching black cat tattoos (both of them), having said tattoo removed (him), accusing the other person of... rape? (her). Yeah that's right: just the usual, the ol' casual rape charge between friends. Who hasn't been there? Anyway, I can't say I ever wanted to sit down and shoot the shit with this girl. Or any of my (short list of) boyfriends' ex-girlfriends. But this charming article courtesy of The Hairpin actually makes it sound like a pretty great idea.

*Fun fact: this guy is now going out with a friend-of-a-friend-of-a-friend (Perth, eh?) who seems perfectly nice and normal, thus putting an end to my theory he just had really shitty taste in women.

Slut

Have you ever been called a slut? I haven't. At least - and this is a big "at least" - not to my face. But I know I've called at least one other girl a slut, albeit not to her face. I feel bad about that, not because she ever knew about it (and for the record, Lisa, I still hate your guts) but because I strongly believe that "slut" is an ugly hate-filled, shaming and generally gross word to use as an insult*. I had a neat reminder of why I feel this way today when I stumbled over this great Tomato Nation essay, written by the wonderful Sars more than a decade ago. This is the gist of it -

"Slut" is for liking it. "Slut" is for wanting it. "Slut" is for going after it. Men hunt, women gather; men chase, women wait. Look it up, slut. "Slut" is for kissing boys with tongue. "Slut" is for kissing lots of different boys with tongue. "Slut" is for craving kissing lots of different boys with tongue. That's not right, you know. It says so in the Bible, and in social hygiene films. "Slut" is for loving sex. "Slut" is for needing sex.

- but you can read the whole thing here. And you should.

N.B: Has occurred to me that a friend of mine who sometimes reads this blog has a wife called Lisa. Jeepers. Hopefully this goes without saying, Young Ant, but the Lisa referred to above is not your charming wife. That is all.

* Using the word "slut" it in a sex-positive way, however, doesn't bother me in the slightest. And for my money using it among friends is Game On: I called Lindsay a slut just the other day via text message and her reply ("filthy slut to you, sirah!) did rather make me laugh.

Probably

Every now and again I am filled with the urge to move back to London, where I spent a very enjoyable 18 months of my life many a year ago. The thing that stops me is the realisation, slowly acquired, that moving to another country does not mean I get to leave behind all the things about my life I don't particularly care for. Which is to say that Kate in London is basically Kate in Perth, just...  in a different city. (Albeit an awesome city. God I love London.) I mention this now because this wonderful photo, courtesy of The Sartorialist, makes me want to pack my bags and move to Paris immediately. Instead I have to take several deep breaths and remind myself that moving to Paris will not turn me into a willowy, alabaster-skinned hottie with a great skirt and a mad set of pins. Probably.

Things I not-so-secretly like about being sick

1. Getting to use the phrase "keep my fluids up".
2. Watching trashy TV. Obvs.
3. Day-dreaming about getting super skinny, thanks to complete lack of appetite. I choose to ignore the licorice I sent Andy to the shops to acquire and plan to eat en masse upon his return.
4. Feeling sorry for myself. Sooky, sooky wah wah.

Things I think but do not say to the girl sitting next to me

Holy shit you are chewing your gum so loudly that, despite the fact there are half a dozen people around us typing, and noise coming from the TV I can still hear every fucking snap of that piece of gum being chewed and pummelled by your mouth. YOU'RE DOING IT WRONG.

Pros and cons

Pro: I've just rediscovered the very charming and somewhat inspirational website, What I Wore Today, whose owner essentially puts together a different outfit every day and takes a photo of it. I think maybe she's not supposed to wear the same combination of stuff more than once but I'm not sure. Anyway, it's very cute and interesting to see how she puts stuff together in a way you wouldn't necessarily expect.

Con: As a result of getting a little, uh, over-inspired by aforementioned blogger's ability to mix patterns I am currently wearing a floral blue dress, stripey pink cardigan and belt and some, um, pretty cracked out stockings and heels. By which I mean: I LOOK INSANE.

Thoughts I had while watching the truly awful, terrible, please-God-make-it-stop movie, Trojan War

1. Oh dear this movie is so quintessential eighties it's almost charming to look at her hairstyle and what he's wearing and how... ohdearlordno this movie was made in 1997?
2. Seriously? I can't move on. 1997? What is he wearing? Is that a jacket or a house coat. There are no words.
3. Oh, shit, he's the love interest? Jesus wept. I came of age in the nineties and... no. Just no.
4. Although Jennifer Love Hewitt was kind of cute back in the day, no?
5. So, is this movie sort of... racist?
6. Do girls actually refer to their boobs as "breasts"? Like, has anyone has in real life EVER said the words "my supple breasts?" Enquiring minds want to know.
7. Just to confirm: this guy? It's definitely THIS GUY, right? Because he looks like he's 12.
8. Oh, fuck, apparently he's six years older than me. Now I don't know what to think.
9. Yeah this movie is definitely mildly to moderately racist in a way that makes me imagine the writers sitting around a desk saying aloud "Mexicans, eh? Amiright?"
10. Big case of the Donna Martins going on here. Dear writers (monkeys?), it's not enough to have people say what an awesome guy whatshisface is: you actually need to show us SOME evidence of this fact. It's the same way everyone on 90210 used to talk about how gorgeous Donna was when the evidence, um, did not entirely support that theory.
11. Aw that's so sweet. What is more romantic than the dude you're crushing on finally realising (once you put on a slutty dress, obvs) that he'd rather share a chaste peck with you in the moonlight than nail the blonde hottie in someone else's toilet while a third party throws up in the toilet? Besides, you know, EVERYTHING.
12. I've wasted my life.

There are moments

"There are moments, Jeeves, when one asks oneself: 'Do trousers matter?'"

"The mood will pass, sir."

(PG Wodehouse, The Code of the Woosters)

Things I should never do again

Drink two big glasses of red and look at the RSPCA's Adopt a Pet website. I'M SORRY KITTIES I WANT YOU ALL.

Apropos of nothing

Every now and again I am reminded, simultaneously, of the reasons why I a) adore the lovely Nick Lezard as much as I do, and b) implied, or maybe actually said, so many years ago on our first acquaintance that he was a smug fucking cock. This column expresses that duality of emotions very well indeed. It's also rather amusing. Which is nice.

The worst people in the world #32

People who don't acknowledge you when you hold the fucking door open for them. Seriously, jerks, I'm not asking for much, I don't even need a verbal "thanks" but a head nod, a smile and some eye contact... two seconds of goddamn recognition that, yes, I am standing there with the door in my hand FOR YOUR FUCKING BENEFIT YOU DOZY FUCKING COW would not go astray. And, yes, two random bitches for whom I held the door today, I am speaking to you.

He didn't even offer to buy me a drink

I've been thinking about boobs lately thanks to two weird incidents. In the first, some dude at a bar told me I had nice tits. Then today I learned, from the guy who is doing my old job, that a former contact of mine had said something to him about my boobs.

Hmm. 

Now, before I go on, I must at least try and convince you, readers, that I'm not trying to pull off a humble brag here by dressing up compliments about my boobs as my Cross To Bear. I think my boobs are perfectly lovely, I'm awfully fond of them, and as far as I'm concerned they deserve all the compliments they get... which are not actually all that frequent actually, although this may or may not be because I spend much of my time jaunting about with McPhee, whose own rack is, to put it politely, extremely impressive. Bitch has got a great set of cans, is all I'm saying.

But I digress.

The thing that got me thinking was my reaction to the two incidents. The one at the bar, although it made me kinda embarassed and a bit uncomfortable, didn't particularly bother me. The dude was drunk and I was at a crowded bar surrounded by friends so I didn't feel intimidated. I think I smiled, muttered "uh, thanks" and promptly turned bright red.

The second incident, in contrast, really did bother me and make me feel downright... uncomfortable. The work contact in question wasn't a friend of mine - I'd probably only met him once or twice - and I'd never even come close to flirting with him because... ew. But for whatever reason, upon meeting my replacement for the first time and in a professional situation this guy felt completely comfortable talking about my boobs. As far as he knew my replacement, in addition to being a colleague, could also have been my best friend, my boyfriend or my brother. I can only imagine how said colleague, who is lovely and far too sweet for this shit, reacted at the time. Nervous laughter, presumably.

I'm really not sure what point I'm trying to make here: that I feel more comfortable with guys being kinda sleazy to my face than behind my back? Not, um, exactly. That it's strange and kinda fucked up that some dudes think it's perfectly normal to discuss a woman's boobs with one of her colleagues without fear of recrimination just because he's talking to another dude? I... don't know. Maybe. All I know is that my boobs and I feel vaguely hurt and sad and weirded out by the whole thing. Also I'm maybe now going to have to start about investing in a whole bunch of high-necked jumpers and bulky scarves to pad out my work uniform. Boo. Hiss.

N.B: It goes without saying that the woman above, the super cute Kelly Brook, is not me. Nor do my boobs resemble hers. But in a world where most of the women I see in magazines or whatever are super skinny with either no boobs or fake boobs it's sometimes awfully nice to see a hottie cruising around in a dress with a natural pair of big boobs. Um, nice tits, Kelly, I guess is what I'm trying to say.

Things that may have helped me enjoy the film Magic Mike more than I did...

... ALL THE BOOZE.

(N.B: Although I will say it was good, clean, schlocky fun)

I can't do that, Dave

Please note that for some reason my computer or, more likely, Blogspot is messing with me so that parts of some of my blog posts get randomly sort of... highlighted in white for no good reason. Like the post below. I'm sort of half arsedly trying to figure out what's wrong but for now just, um, ignore it with my apologies. I would consider bitching about what an outrage this is but since I'm paying exactly fuck all for the service it seems a trifle rich.

Token Smokin' Hottie: Andrew Garfield

I received an interesting message from my friend Jayne the other day, reading simply: Is Andrew Garfield  in the Venn Diagram? I vote yes.

Jayne and I, you see, have very different taste in boys. She likes them fit and muscular enough to (I'm editorialising now) throw her around like a rag doll, should circumstances permit. I prefer them scruffy and skinny enough to disappear when they turn sideways. Still every now and again the stars align and the circles of our respective Venn diagrams overlap, most notably in the case of Swedish hottie Alexander Skarsgaard.

But... Andrew Garfield? This I hadn't expected. I'd noticed him, idly, in The Social Network and thought he was cute but other than being vaguely aware he was going out with the seems-so-charming Emma Stone I hadn't thought about him since.  Then blammo he wandered onscreen in The Amazing Spider Man and I was smitten. (Meanwhile let me point out that The Amazing Spider Man is not a great movie. I was coaxed in against my will and it was, you know, fine and perfectly okay but all that was good about that movie can be laid at the feet of Andrew Garfield who was, it must be said, too good for the material. )


Did you ever have that thing where you had a crush on someone and your friends just Did Not Get It. You'd be babbling on about his smile or what he'd said to you ("hey, you dropped your pen") and they'd be all "him, really?" That's Andrew Garfield. Looking at the photo of him I've put in above the thing is... I don't particularly fancy him. He's got good bone structure, sure, but his eyes are maybe on the small side, his nose is semi-goblinesque and his hair looks FUCKING INSANE. 

But that is the secret of Andrew Garfield: he is greater than the sum of his parts. Walking and talking around onscreen he is adorable and charming, subtly sexy without trying to hard and simultaneously, I don't know... goofy? If I have an achilles heel when it comes to boys it's all about the smile. I am a sucker for a killer grin and Andrew Garfield has one of the best smiles I've seen in quite the long time. (As an aside why am I still referring to him by his full name instead of just Andrew or Garfield? Andrew Garfield, Andrew Garfield, Andrew Garfield, somebody stop me).

The only time when my lust faltered during the movie's 136 minutes (seriously, Hollywood, action movies should not be longer than 2 hours and this trend is getting fucking insane please stop, I could have cut half an hour out of this movie with my eyes closed) was when Andrew Garfield (I can't stop now) took off his shirt to reveal he was, in fact, quite insanely buff. Put it back on, I hissed in my mind and, to my delight, he eventually obliged. Somewhere in another cinema, on another day and in another part of town I like to imagine Jayne was begging him to take it back off.

All of which is a very long-winded way of saying that Andrew Garfield is a pretty decent actor, a certified Kate-approved hottie and most definitely belongs smack back in the centre of the Kate and Jayne Venn Diagram of Lust.

I'm as jumpy as a puppet on a spring

I've never been able to get into Proust - I suppose I'm a bit too stupid - but in some respects this song is my madeleine back to my youth, watching my parents getting ready to go out.

Insert your own jeans vs genes joke here

Today has been a shitty day. I am laid low, frustrated, melancholy and terribly, terribly bored. So what a delight to get some good news in the form of (ultra-unverified, I'm not kidding: the original source of this yarn was the Daily Mail) suggestions skinny jeans are destroying men's sperm count. I say good news because, much as I feel for anyone who wants to have children and is unable to do so, I love a good pair of skinny jeans on an equally skinny chap with about as much enthusiasm as I generally dislike children*. The only possible downside of this snippet of news that I can see is that skinny boys may abandon their skinny jeans for fear of missing out on the chance to pass their skinny genes on to the next generation. THAT would be a true tragedy.


*Children directly related to me being the one and only exception. They're... fine.

Overheard in the office, Thursday

"Hmmm... hmmm... okay, yes, I don't think we'd be interested in doing a story on that. No... no, I'm sorry we're just not interested in a story about your husband being in love with a Dutch backpacker."

Spy me to the moon

A distinctly odd interview this week from Jules Oliver, wife to celeb chef Jamie, in which she admitted she regularly snoops on her husbands emails, text messages and twitter to make sure he's not screwing around.

Putting aside the question of why anyone would publicly confess to a practice that, although I guess it's maybe not uncommon, makes you look hopelessly insecure this is a subject on which I Have Views That Require Airing. So, you know, fairly warned be thee, say I.

I did once snoop on a partner's emails many many years ago. At the time it felt semi-justified because I was looking for details about the strumpet bitch drug-addict probably-perfectly-nice girl he'd been quietly romancing on the side. Afterwards, when my need to Find All Of The Details had worn off I just felt lame and a bit pathetic. And, like so many snoopers before and after me, I didn't find anything that did me any good. (Actually I didn't find anything at all. Very frustrating, I assure you.)

My real problem with snooping, however, is that it robs your partner of the ability to have a private life and perpetuates the ludicrous idea that you should share everything with your partner, do everything with your partner and tell your partner everything. Sex columnist Dan Savage got it right when he said, so many columns ago I can't be bothered looking it up, that it's a relationship, not a deposition.

However good a relationship is, unless you are the most motherfucking boring person on the planet there are thoughts, ideas or desires you will have that you won't tell your partner about. And in my experience the easiest way to become a dull person and a worse partner is to surrender your personality at the door and forget to have a life outside your partner that not only makes you a more rounded person but at the very least gives you something to talk about when you're together. People who don't appear to have friends that aren't also friends with their partner make me very sad, is what I guess I'm saying, just as I get super depressed when friends appear unable to catch up for so much as a coffee or a drink or a movie without bringing their partner along for the ride ("Oh it's... Bob... again. What a surprise.")

In any seriously long term relationship there are - at least God I hope I'm not alone on this one - times when you just... don't like your partner very much. Times when you hate them a little bit maybe. Certainly there are times when you are so bored with them you could jump out the window for something to do. In a successful relationship (ie: one that lasts for a long time, I guess, and ideally ends with one of you dropping dead), these times are outweighed by the comparatively good times. In an unsuccessful relationship the bits that shit you outweigh the pleasures and comforts.These shitty times, the times when you are bored or frustrated or angry in your relationship, are the times when you need, most of all, to have a life outside your relationship. Otherwise you will very likely wind up wanting to pursue another relationship altogether.

In my current and past relationships there have been times when I bitched about my partners to friends, pondered leaving them aloud and flirted with people who were not them. Were these behaviourss particularly respectful to my partners at the time? Well, no, not really. Were they necessary? For me, yes, I really think they were. Or are.

Similarly I assume that both my current and past partners have, at various times, said things about me to their friends ("her boobs are shit") or said things not about me to other girls ("your boobs are amazing") that might crush me if I knew about them. But the important thing here - the point I'm trying to make - is that they don't crush me because I don't know about them. And, as far as I'm concerned, I really don't need to.

Give me success or take this desire away from me. One of the two.

This article about auditioning for the Boston Symphony Orchestra is long. Maybe too long. But it's worth it for the last line.

Because I am very mature...

... I definitely did not giggle to myself when I read Tony Abbott's comments about it being Un-Christian to "use the back door". For God's sake nobody let him google the term "saddlebacking".

Things I remember from a night on the turps that I maybe wish I didn't:

1. An argument with a colleague about whether The Go-Betweens were a great Australian band. I remember him saying "I'm sick of this Richard Kingsmill crap..." I don't remember what I said back but I'm sure it was incredibly rational and well argued.

2. Reading out smutty bits from Timothy Conigrave's wonderful autobiography Holding The Man on McPhee's couch.

3. The balloon! The steak knife! It wasn't my idea, I definitely remember that.

What does the worst hangover of recent memory feel like?

It feels like a churning stomach. It feels like a pounding behind your eyes that doesn't go away. It feels like embarrassment for not properly remembering all the conversations you had the night before. It feels like anxiety at what you might have said or done. It feels like relief for not doing what you'd feared. It feels like a waste of a Sunday.

How to break a journalist's heart: a reader's guide

"I read your story in the paper today. Well, I didn't read it all but I got the gist."

Token Smokin' Hottie: Fabian Cancellara

First of all, a quiet word of reassurance to Andy Schleck, lest he be sweating, to assure him that he remains my guilty cycling crush and if he was riding in this year's Tour de France this post would be about him. Awkward looking he may be, super skinny he certainly is and if you were to suggest that his nose is kind of big and his ears sort of... stick out, you wouldn't be exactly WRONG. Nevertheless I love the Schleckmeister to pieces and wish to assure all concerned that what follows does not diminish that love...

All that said Fabian Cancellara is kind of a hot piece of cycling arse, isn't he? Come on. Look at that face. Those muscles. That face. Can we get a close up on the face?

Cancellara always had a certain something-something but this year it seems like he's slimmed down a bit and, skinny boys being my kryponite, I have sat up and taken notice. Will this slimmed down frame be enough to make Cancellara (already awesome on the time-trialling) into a mountain climber to beat the likes of Wiggins or Evans? Seems highly doubtful - he's still pretty big for a climber - which I'm hoping will prompt him to lose even more weight by this time next year, thus exposing even more of the Cancellara cheekbones I have come to know and love and get those hip bones... yeah, yeah, okay, I know, I may... have some problems.

Cancellara appeals to me in the same way the likes of Roger Federer appeals to me: both men are awesome at what they do, which is always hot, and both have a certain rough European handsomness that is very appealing. Is it racist to fancy someone because they look kinda foreign? Let's say... no.

In some respects Cancellara embodies the very essence of what it is to be a token smokin' hottie: having no knowledge of his personality or temperament I fancy him purely on the strength of some solid bone structure, a cute smiles and a body that... well, I tend to think I'm not really into boys' bodies, per se, but in this case I'll make an exception. I could go on. I mean I really Could Go On but sadly the Tour de France is starting and I have... business to attend to.

Words I had to edit around or cut out of stories today

1. fuckwit
2. fucked
3. fuck
4. fucking

It was kind of a good day.

Token Smokin' Hottie: Paul Keating

I have two pictures hanging in my living room but the one that faces me when I curl up in 'my' corner of the couch is of Paul Keating. I'm looking at him right now. He's youngish in this photo, maybe in his thirties, speaking into a radio microphone, a big pair of earphones half on, half off his head. He looks, I'll be honest, readers, fucking amazing.

Keating. Oh KEATING. I love him so much. I could not love him more. And so of course, I live in constant hope/fear I'll be told to interview him for work and in the process make an absolute tit of myself. Kind of like the time I had to interview my nerdy crush Niall Ferguson (shut up) and blushed so hard the entire way through I could feel the heat radiating off my cheeks

The thing a lot of people who love Keating love about him is his wit, his put downs, and I'm no exception (if you need a refresher you can get a taste here).

But Keating's gift for barbs means some people (*cough* Andy *cough*) are critical of my Keating love and accuse him of being a big fat bully.

To which I say: have you read Keating's infamous 1992 Redfern speech? I mean have you READ it? Keating may have bullied other pollies in his time and tolerated exactly zero fools but I don't think that a man who can deliver a speech like that can be called cruel. What's that you say? You want to read an extract of this speech I'm talking about? Oh, well, okay if you insist.

"... As I said, it might help us if we non-Aboriginal Australians imagined ourselves dispossessed of land we had lived on for fifty thousand years - and then imagined ourselves told that it had never been ours. Imagine if ours was the oldest culture in the world and we were told that it was worthless. Imagine if we had resisted this settlement, suffered and died in the defence of our land, and then were told in history books that we had given up without a fight. Imagine if non-Aboriginal Australians had served their country in peace and war and were then ignored in history books. Imagine if our feats on sporting fields had inspired admiration and patriotism and yet did nothing to diminish prejudice... There is one thing today we cannot imagine. We cannot imagine that the descendants of people whose genius and resilience maintained a culture here through fifty thousand years or more, through cataclysmic changes to the climate and environment, and who then survived two centuries of dispossession and abuse, will be denied their place in the modern Australian nation. We cannot imagine that. We cannot imagine that we will fail."

I mean, come on. Come ON. That speech was made 20 years ago and have you ever heard a politician make a better one?

There seems to be a general kind of idea, perpetuated through dopey magazine articles and the like, that personality is more important for women fancying men than it is for men fancying women. Most of the time I think this is bullshit because I am as superficial as any boy I know. But at times I have to concur that personality can, just a little bit, outweigh other considerations. You see Current Day Keating is not a dreamboat. I'm not blind: dude is getting old and kinda... jowly. Even Young Keating, although undeniably slicky and kind of handsome, was not really physically my type. But would I, given the opportunity, throw it all away for a simply FILTHY weekend in a white sheeted hotel room with our former Prime Minister and an open mini-bar? Weeeeell, the answer to that question is between me and my diary, readers, but I can say this: I would give it a bloody long hard think.

“In the end, it was the Sunday afternoons he couldn't cope with, and that terrible listlessness which starts to set in at about 2:55, when you know that you've had all the baths you can usefully have that day, that however hard you stare at any given paragraph in the papers you will never actually read it, or use the revolutionary new pruning technique it describes, and that as you stare at the clock the hands will move relentlessly on to four o'clock, and you will enter the long dark teatime of the soul.” (Douglas Adams)

Methods for dealing with anxiety over starting what is kind of (but not exactly) a new job:

1. Ignore. Deny. Repress.
2. Spend your Sunday morning trying to get some work done ahead of time so you look super prepared. Realise your work is shit and you have no idea what you're doing. Freak out even more.
3. Um, drink?

Rock it

When I first heard about a Japanese-built robot that beats humans at rock, paper, scissors every time I thought it sounded a) kinda cool and b) like the first sign of a coming apocalypse in which artificially intelligent robots enslave us all (I for one welcome our new robot overlords...). Turns out the robot is just a big fat cheater.

Kinkery Fuckery

I've never understood girls who get upset by their partner's interest in porn but I do have friends who feel that way, for whatever weird and stupid reason (sorry chums but it really is pretty weird and stupid) and it does seem like there are people out there who think that porn is gross and wrong and represents the decay of society when seriously they should be more worried about shit like the viewing figures for Being Lara Bingle. So I kinda enjoyed this column at The Punch about how soft porn for women like 50 Shades of Grey is dismissed as harmless and/or liberating while porn for straight dudes involving tits and cunts is depraved and wrong and just a little bit icky. Also the author of the above article, Stephen Harrington, is a bit of a dish, no? I'm just saying.