Question

If a colleague is in danger of driving me to insanity could it be termed self defence if I repeatedly stapled him or her in the head?

Theoretically

On Saturday I bought what I believe to be the single most expensive item of clothing I have ever bought: a beautiful red Alannah Hill dress that I cannot find a picture of (ie: it is neither of the AH dresses pictured above, which are also very cute)

It was more expensive than any pair of shoes I own, more expensive than the handful of very pretty silk dresses hanging in my closet and more expensive even than the so-ridiculously-expensive-I-won't-even-tell-you-how-much-but-it-was-worth-it seamed silk stockings I acquired back when I decided to turn myself into a 1950s-style floozy.

Before I made this latest and greatest of acquisitions I sat down with The Boyfriend to discuss over lunch at the Belgian Beer Cafe, as a sensible Girlfriend sometimes does when she wants to pre-emptively ease her guilt. I showed him change room photos of me in the dress, discussed the NUMEROUS places I could wear it and whined for a bit about how it had been aaaages since I bought anything (grateful he hadn't been home when the amazon.com boxes arrived). Andy, being equal parts charming and disinterested shrugged his shoulders, said I could do what I wanted with my own money and then sweetly asked if I could go and order him some hot chips from the bar.

The only bit Andy didn't get, as he explained to me while dunking chips into aoli (god they do it well at the BBC), is why I was so excited about my impending acquisition. To Andy, clothes are just clothes: some of them look better than others but they are still just clothes. To me, as I explained while stuffing my gob with chips, every new outfit - particularly a radically new outfit unlike anything you already own - is a new chance to reinvent yourself.

This is not a new realisation of mine.

Many years ago a (now ex) boyfriend convinced me to buy an adorable 1920s-style bucket hat. The hat was beautiful but not, strictly speaking, very practical. I was not, I told the boyfriend apologetically, really A Hat Person. Wisely he responded with the observation that if I bought the hat I would become a hat person. In essence, if I bought it (the hat), it (the hat-implied lifestyle) would come.

He was right and he was wrong but the thought has stuck with me ever since.

This dress, for instance, gives me a little glimmer of hope that I could yet become one of the Alannah Hill girls depicted in the ads: hair bouffed, lipsticked smile genuine, spending my days faffing about on a garden swing or looking like I'm about to have tea with the Mad Hatter. Instead of, say, spending 10 hours in front of a computer five to six days a week, typing until my eyes glaze and my wrists start to throb.

Get Back on the Horse

The phrase 'get back on the horse' has always had a certain piquancy for me. Except piquancy isn't the right world at all. What I mean to say is that it Pisses Me Off.

It's been said to me (and others) a few times over the years, usually in times of personal distress, and every time I want to say that’s shit. Instead I smile, nod and waste for the next platitude to be rolled out so I can ignore that one too.

The thing about this particular phrase is that it doesn’t even make sense. Supposedly it comes from the adage ‘you have to get back on the horse that threw you’. Brilliant idea. You’ve been hurt once doing a particular activity so instead of abandoning said activity you’re supposed to give it another crack and hope, in the face of reason, things will turn out differently this time. What next? ‘Put your hand back in the fire?'

When I was 10-years-old or so I had my first bad fall from a horse. And if only I had ignored popular opinion about these sort of things and stayed on the ground it would have done me a lot of good.

The whole thing was stupid and pretty much my own fault: at my weekly riding lesson I'd insisted on going around the paddock just one more time. Almost immediately I lost control of the pony (a beautifully-natured palomino called Bindi, who would later be sold by my teacher to the riding school at Claremont Showgrounds, where, in a move that intensely depressed at the time, she was given a new name).

Of course it's easy to romanticise lost loves and, with hindsight, I can see that Bindi had her problems - she suffered from delusions of grandeur, for a start. She must have. Because when I lost control and she could no longer feel the pressure of my hands on the reins she decided she quite fancied trying to jump the four foot high electric fence that edged one side of the paddock. I'm sure it seemed like a good idea at the time. It wasn’t. Bindi brought down the fence, which burnt into both her lovely little legs and my exposed pre-adolescently-soft arms. I was so entangled in the wire of the fence that when my teacher picked me up from the ground she got an electric charge off my hands. I stood up to learn that the seat of my jodhpurs had been torn off.

Once she had established I was more or less okay my teacher sent her son to the stables to bring back another horse, Crackington, for me to ride back (Bindi having retired to a distant corner of the paddock, from where she and I regarded each other with mutual suspicion.) Crackington was the pride of my teacher’s stable – a beautiful chocolate brown block of a horse too tall, lovely and valuable for any of us who attended the weekly lessons to ride before now. My teacher's son led Crackington back and I was helped onto his enormous 17-hands-high back.

I slipped the reins along Crackington’s neck and over his head so my teacher could take them, happy to cede control now that I could feel my left arm beginning to throb, resting my hands on his withers, which shifted under me as he followed my teacher forward.

Later I would conclude that one of the strands of the electric fence must have touched the frog of Crackington’s hoof - that soft little triangle of flesh that groomers know to avoid, the closest a horse will ever get to a fingertip. Otherwise it’s tough to imagine what would make 17-hands of dark brown muscle lose his shit as thoroughly as Crackington did then, ridding me of all my romantic notions about him as he reared and I slid out of the saddle.

Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.

I walked the long walk back from the bottom paddock to the stableyard, my ten-year-old arse hanging out the hole in my jodhpurs, the burns on my arm stinging like a bitch, blood on my right hand and cheek from I-didn’t-know-where.

Hee

This made me laugh.

Flying sigh

I know that I give a lot of grief to people who can't behave themselves on planes. But there is a reason for this. The way that we behave in airplanes is indicative of the way we behave in real life. Actually being in a plane is a lot like life: it's a bit boring, sometimes entertaining and definitely best spent a little bit tipsy. Having recently returned from an interstate trip that brought me into close proximity with a wide variety of douchebag fellow passengers, I propose said douche's can be divided into one of four categories.

The Chatterbox

Hey are you leaving home or coming home? Me too. I've been in Cairns for a fortnight, great weather but I'm exhausted. Why is your meal so early? Oh why are you vegetarian? Are you going to try to sleep? Me too but I never can. What do you think about- No. Just not. Just shut the fuck up. This thing I'm doing with my hands and my eyes? It's called reading, not listening.

The Aisle Sleeper

Self explanatory for anyone who has ever faced the choice of straddling the bulging belly of an aisle-sleeping fatty fat fat fat who has left his tray table down and festooned with his SHIT, just in order to get out of a window seat, or shaking a complete stranger awake.

The Selfish Cunt

The most wide-ranging of the categories. This may be as simple as the dick who is rude to the flight attendants or the dick brain who treats the empty seat between the two of you as his own personal kingdom. Take your feet off the seats, dude, or I will stab you with this plastic fork.

Me

The perfect passenger. Obviously.

So many questions

Allowing the lines between work and play to blur is always a risk. I know this, honestly I do. So why then did I not only get utterly trashed with work contacts last night but (oh Christ) ask one of those contacts what he would like to do with the giant fake boobs of a mutual acquantaince. And why did he TELL me?

Recent revelations

* Brisbane is not as boring as I thought it would be, though it is still quite boring
* I should not EVER leave voicemail messages for work contacts while drunk
* I should certainly not ever wake up the hotel manager at 1am to drunkenly plead for the broadband password... which he had already given me eight hours earlier
* I do not work well with a hangover
* I am a bit over it

I am off to Brisbane for a few days for work and will be unlikely to blog. In my absence, I give you Mr Larkin and Ms Taylor.

Annus Mirabilis
(Philip Larkin)

Sexual intercourse began
In nineteen sixty-three
(which was rather late for me) -
Between the end of the Chatterley ban
And the Beatles' first LP.

Up to then there'd only been
A sort of bargaining,
A wrangle for the ring,
A shame that started at sixteen
And spread to everything.

Then all at once the quarrel sank:
Everyone felt the same,
And every life became
A brilliant breaking of the bank,
A quite unlosable game.

So life was never better than
In nineteen sixty-three
(Though just too late for me) -
Between the end of the Chatterley ban
And the Beatles' first LP.

Is it just me or is genuinely odd...

That the women driving the car into which I reversed this morning did not appear to care?

Fuck me...

... somebody get this guy a book deal. Greatest celebrity interview ever.

Say it now: awwwww

There are some shitty days when you can cheer yourself up with wine, with friends or the prospect or a weekend nearly arrived. Then there are really, really, really totally fucked days that require an overload of cute dog just to get by. Enjoy.

Overheard in Perth (I am 100 per cent serious)

"I accidently oiled up my bum."

Apologies...

...for being a slack-arse blogger once again. I would like to say I've been putting the final touches on the novel, or jet-skiing with sharks or something but the truth is more prosaic: I've been doing... stuff. Boring stuff, fun stuff, work-related stuff and non-work-related stuff. Oh and I was in the Pilbara. Yeah. That happened.

Today...

... I am so fucking over it.

Question:

What is it about boys in suits that is so goddamn irresistible?I see men in suits at work every day and it does very little for me. But a beautiful skinny rake like this with a pouty baby face and an expression that makes him looks like he's about to say "Sweetheart, ÿou've got great fucking tits?" De-lightful.

(Pic courtesy of The Sartorialist)

27-years-old: the review so far

My year of being 27-years-old has inexplicably begun with a wealth of presents at my door. I wake up to find a truly uncharacteristic but beautiful Adidas tracksuit being laid beside me. On my door handle there swings a paper bag containing a necklace as smooth and lovely as a coastal shelf. A knock on the door heralds the arrival of a soy mocha, chocolate croissant and flowers. I have eaten more cake than you could poke a steak knife at and am practically sitting knee-deep in lovely presents by 12pm. Does this herald the dawning of a new year full of macademia-nut-festooned toffee cakes, snow domes, pony brooches and croissants for all? Too early to say but I'm onboard.

Verdict: Two thumbs up.

A pointer

As readers of impeccable taste (obviously) you should all probably be reading Nick Lezard's rather funny Down & Out column for New Statesman every week. But you should read this week's especially closely because I make a brief appearance. Gosh, aren't my cheeks red.

Conversation with a reader or How I Learned I Am Regarded in Some Circles as an Anti-Semite

READER: I really enjoyed your story in the weekend’s paper (on Roman Polanski’s extradition).
ME (chuffed, my head already expanding): Oh thanks. It’s always nice to-
READER: It seems to me that this kind of thing is just a case of Hollywood being full of jews.
ME: I… what?
READER: And I thought it was nice to see someone who wasn’t afraid to write a negative story about one of them.
ME: One of…?
READER: The jews.
ME: …
READER: Have you read a book by Paul Findley called “They Dared to Speak Out”?
ME: I haven’t.
READER: I could get you a copy if you wanted.
ME: No, no that’s okay… I mean, I’m sure I can find it at the library.

Partay down

I really enjoy a good house party. There is something about going to someone's house that feels more important than meeting down at the pub or heading out to dinner, as much as I do enjoy both of those things.

Similarly I enjoy throwing a house party. I don't do it very often, though, because, at the same time, I HATE throwing a party. Because everything seems fine until, say, the few days before the party. It is only then that, with the inevitability of love ending, bananas rotting and looks fading, I suddenly realise several things in quick succession:

1. I have forgotten to invite many, MANY people.
2. Not everybody enjoys listening to Belle and Sebastian for an entire night, particularly not when they're just trying to a)drunk b)get off with someone, yet I have no alternate music choices.
3. The only food I have in the house of cheese.
4. I might have eaten the cheese.

Special request

This is, for the benefit of a friend, a cut-and-paste job of an old Charlie Brooker column that I've talked about before. I know I wank on about Mr Brooker a fair bit but this is one of his best:

Supposing... it's time to smother romance in its sleep
Charlie Brooker, from The Guardian 2006

Hands up anyone who's had a great experience with romance. Now put your hands back down and stop lying. Romance never works. Romance never does what it says on the tin. Romance, ultimately, is bullshit.

If I sound jaded, it's because I am. I'm so sick and tired of love and its pitfalls I can scarcely lift my fingers to type. If love were a product, the queue at the faulty goods desk would stretch right round the universe and back. It doesn't work properly. The seams come apart and it's full of powdered glass.

Each fresh romance has two potential outcomes: 1. One of you falls heavily, and quickly, until this helpless, unattractive neediness sends the other running for the hills; or 2. by some miracle, your desperate neediness levels balance out, and you stay together for several years - until the love between you withers and dies, at which point one or both of you will stagger away, howling like a wolf with a hook in its gut, wounded beyond reason.

When you're smitten, romance is a thrilling high-wire act over a looming lake of woe. Your head's full of music; the first few steps are a joyful scamper. Then the skies darken, the breeze picks up, the tightrope shudders and you fight to retain your balance. In your heart of hearts, you know you're heading for a tumble, but you're out and exposed and there's no turning back - and who knows, maybe you'll make it?

Imbecile. Of course you won't. Instead, the rope snaps and suddenly you're plunged back into the monochrome work-a-day reality of flowers in the dustbin and dogs being sick on the pavement.

At this point, wandering in a post-romantic shock, things get even worse. Being numb and distant somehow renders you magically attractive to others. It's sod's law in action, and before you know it you're abusing the privilege. Hungering for another go on the tightrope, you hurl yourself at the nearest admirer, but since the love canary's recently flown your cage, you're selfish, robotic, and doomed to wipe your arse all over their soul. Congratulations: you've become an emotional vandal. And you'll do it again and again until you meet another special someone - only this time the tightrope's higher up and more precarious, and you're so scared of falling that your feet shake the moment you step aboard.

On and on and on it goes, and there's no end to it. This madness must be stopped. We can medicate depression into oblivion; why not romance? A preventative tablet, perhaps, or an adhesive patch that suppresses the relevant endorphins, which you can slap on your skin at the first sign of attraction, killing romance dead, stopping you in your tracks before you make a fool of yourself or a hapless Aunt Sally of another. And sizzled on the back of every packet, embossed on every patch, just to keep things melancholic and swoonsome, you'd find the last line from Graham Greene's The End of the Affair - the battered protagonist's final plea, which sums up the absolute aching awfulness of romance so eloquently it makes your heart nod along with tears in its eyes: "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."

Anyway. Next week: some jokes.