Playgirl’s Mr Movember!

I don’t know about the rest of you, but I can always tell when a bloke is only growing a moustache for Movember.  For some reason the dignity and gravitas that usually accompanies a genuine nose-muffler, the type grown by ringmasters, philosophers and maths teachers is completely missing. Movember mo-growers either carry it with the grace, aplomb and subtly of an oversized novelty sombrero, brashly waving it around as if to say ‘I’m a wild and crazy guy I want to make party-party’. Or they especially furtive about it, ducking their heads when they catch you checking out their face-friend and giving you sheepish looks through their eyelashes which say ‘I don’t usually look like this’.  

The former I can deal with using the same patient good nature that I use to deal with other people’s ribald dads but the latter I find infuriating because they don’t seem to realise that their bashful moustache makes them about 34% more attractive to me. It makes me so sad that the first day of summer that things gonna be long gone and the city’s make-out appeal is gonna slam right back down to ‘minimal’ until the drunken Christmas parties roll around.

Annyway, I thought I do a little tribute to the most popular ‘tache styles I’ve seen this year. I have obvious favourites, despite loving them all. As my model I have used English actor, J.J. Fields below;

J.J.s pretty awesome permanent moustache honestly make me think, ‘Is there anything wrong with marrying someone based solely on their facial hair?’ The answer is no!

The Bryan Ferry

Although similar in appearance, this thing should not be confused with the Shifty Sam, because it’s  about a billion times more  sophisticated in a never-to-be-attempted-by anyone-other-than-a-thin-attractive-70’s-crooner-or-F. Scott-Fitzgerald kind of way. Just look at J.J. in this baby, he looks like Indiana Jones if he had decided to take art history instead. These things are so classy they have to be rinsed in champagne and styled with tiny silver combs. If I was even  half as well maintained as I should be to deserve a guy sporting one of these,  I’d have to be Audrey fucking Hepburn*

Notable Examples: Bryan Ferry, Clarke Gable, Sammy Davis Jnr. 

Chopper Gringo Hulk Hughes the 70’s Porn and Tennis Star

‘Oh look at me! I’m 100% man oozing with frustratingly charming machismo. I’ve got absolutely no imagination or sense of humour, but I’m great at making out! I’ve never really understood irony but some girl with a fringe and glasses told me my ‘tache was ‘ironic’, and that’s expanded my pick-up range by 20%! I’ll keep milking this fad until it disappears and use the phrase ‘moustache rides’ indiscriminately! Come on ladies, you know I’ll win you over eventually!’

And they do, they always do.

Notable Examples: That dude in Dead Wood, Bubble-O-Bill, and Nick Cave

Patches McGee

Whilst there are a lot of sensory memories about high school which I may still find sexy but patchy pubey facial hair is not one of them. There’s something about this one reminds me of that kid in at school who developed too quickly and had man hips, appalling skin and a shadowy moustache before most other kids could turn 13. Although we should all be impressed with the fact that many men can grow a credible nose-neighbour within a month, there are many who try and fail, miserably. I suggest that these guys don’t bother looking like teenaged nightmares and make generous donations to their more hirsute fellows.

Notable examples: The Woman for Le Tigre, boys from the Brewery Coffee shop on Erskine Street, Leonardo DiCaprio. 

Shifty Sam

Nothing says ‘I’m trying to smell you while you’re not looking’ than a shifty Sam. Even J.J. looks like a sexual harasser in one of these. These kind of thin, wispy snail trails are favoured by office creeps, adult book store owners and the skinny weird villain in costume dramas. But what’s not to like about that? I always said that the best thing about creeps is their perseverance and tenacity.

Notable examples:   Chris Cornell,  John Waters, Crispin Glover (ok, he doesn’t really have one but if he did it would be weird).

Captain Flourish

This is truly the king of all moustaches! It’s majestic, rugged, stately, regal and manly all at the same time. I like these best when they are growing on charming old-timey Southern Gentlemen who say things like ‘I say, well, I say, its mighty fine to meet ya, miss Jo-Maybelleline, would you care for a mint julep and the deed to the plantation in my heart? If you would do me the honour of takin’ it, well, I’d be mighty obliged’.

However, the Captain Flourish may need more than a month to really get going. I don’t think it’s possible to grow a mo in secret, but if you could, it should be this one. Then on the first of November you unveil this beauty and let us all bask in its glory for the next thirty days, a memory to treasure for the rest of my life.

Notable Examples: Corey Stoll, Tom Hardy in Bronson, Mel Gibson in his 'I'm Completely Mad with a beard now' phase. 

Finally, as I woman I felt that I’d been put at disadvantage with Movemeber, being unable to really participate (not that I don’t try, the results are underwhelming). That was until I heard about this lady. I think her story is pretty cool, I think she’s pretty cool. I’ve said it before, I wish I had a credible tache... 

Also also also, before I forget, y'all should really head over to Movember Australia's official site, where you can donate, play games and check out more amateur mos online! Exciting!

*I am currently more like Katherine Hepburn, but the really old Katherine Hepburn who turned up to the Oscars wearing her gardening clothes, covered in dirt.

NO ENTIENDO LO QUE HABLA! (I DON'T UNDERSTAND WHAT YOU’RE TALKING ABOUT!)

I may seem to you guys to be a well-bred, learned and well-rounded lady, brimming to the upturned pinkie with sophisticatedliness. But this is simply not true. I know a selection of things very well (deli meats, Rolling Stones music, Harry Potter, filmographies of English and American character actors and Star Wars), the rest I pick at like a giant life buffet.  This being the sitch, I sometimes embarrass myself by not knowing something that a lot of other people know.
Case in point: I was having a conversation with my friend, Colonel Beardsley, about strip clubs and how I’d never been to one. The Colonel had been to ‘one of these hell holes’ and offered to take me, saying that he would be Virgil to my Dante. This is the point that the conversation stopped making sense to me because I, like at least a bunch of other people, have never read Dante’s Inferno. Even though it was a really very good analogy at the time and probably would have made someone slightly better read than I chortle knowingly whilst smoking a pipe, I drew a blank and looked like a moron.

Luckily I have the ability to retain some information to a point of freakishness, and I really do enjoy discovering new things to learn, squirrelling facts and data till it can be put to good use. So I have totally saved that Dante one for a time where I can bring it out and look clever at a party.

Do other people do this? Talk about things they haven’t read, seen or experienced just to keep up with the rest of the world?  Good, you’re all fakey fakes like me. Here are some things I haven’t read/seen/heard/experienced that I only understand from absorption:

Hip-Hop: As a child of the 90s I know a disturbingly little about hip-hop. Seriously, if you asked me who my favourite hip-hop artist was I would say Kanye West or Snoop because I have no fucking clue about anyone else. I manage to get away with this whole discrepancy by singing along to the sample, enthusiastically making finger guns, going 'oh yeeahh, o'course' during music discussions and dropping like it’s hot at any opportunity. Now that I have admitted to this I will probably get invited to way less parties.

Superannuation: Let me see if I’ve got this right. Rather than being conscientious about my savings, my job will steal money for me and save it should I live till later, instead of letting me spending it now on stuff I need like food and iPhone covers? This means that when I’m old I can spend it all on investment art and guitars? That’s what my parents seem to have done.  I don’t really understand my health insurance either because I’m a human ‘being a grown up’ fail.

Twin Peaks: It’s like Northern Exposure but with murder right?

Fifty Shades of Grey: I would be more interested in the names of fifty shades of grey paint chips than I would be in this whole phenomenon. Really, it sounds like a really boring and serious version of Secretary. Snooze. But! Just because I haven’t read it doesn’t mean I can’t Wikipedia it to get the main plot points and make jokes about BDSM-enjoying, confused, submissive ingénues at its expense right? Same goes for Hunger Games, which is kinda like Hard Target but with kids. 

Deer Hunter: In my limited understanding Deer Hunter means 1.Christopher Walken, 2. red bandanas, 3.screaming in Asian languages and 4.Russian roulette. I can say ‘going all Deer Hunter’ for one or any combination of these things, yes? Note for 2. ‘Rambo-ing up’ is also appropriate if your target is justifiably muscle bound or ironically puny.

American politics: Everything I know about current American politics I’ve picked up from Bad Lip Reading. Mitt Romney =disturbingly stupid. Rick Perry = 'Save a Pretzel for the gas jets'.  Santorum= ewwww. Obama = knows how to drive the car. Fantastic. As Keanu once said ‘I know kung-fu’.

The Break Up Diary

So I started writing this when Tom and Katie split, which was what, like two weeks ago? And now I sit down afresh and the news has passed. Thankfully, this whole RPatz/Kirsten Stewart* implosion has happened so this is all still valid. (BTW in other celebrity news, Michelle Williams’s getting engaged to Jason Segal, and I really approve of that because if I can’t marry him, it might as well be her as she seems sane. Moreover, I think he’d make a really nice stepdad, so go them!)

Annywaay.

Breaking up with people, or them breaking up with you, kinda sucks. Regardless of whether you’re having all your personal Scientology sex secrets are being dragged through the headlines of Ninemsn or just setting fire to each other’s stuff in the back yard of your fibro, when someone decides they don’t like you as much as they did - or you arrive at that decision about your partner -  feelings get hurt, egos get bruised and people are sad.

Coping mechanisms! Figure out your way of handling this shit. Katie Holmes and RPatz** were sensible enough to extract themselves from their situation with as little drama as possible. Kirsten Stewart, in her 22 years of wisdom,  has decided to traipse out her infidelity as publicly as possible like the rest of us actually give a shit, like it’s world flippin’ news. Tom Cruise chose to throw money at the problem*** and continue being crazy, a business plan that has certainly been good to him in the past.

You might choose to tragicraft, experiment with your sexual orientation for a while, or become a cat burglar and destroy a department store for fun. You could also let yourself go in a spectacular pancake flop of hairy jumpery gross.  I chose to keep a diary. Below are some excerpts from the last heinous break up I underwent.

Day 1: Cried in the shower, cried on the way to work. Was told to go home because of the crying. Mother and sister watched me cry and eat. Met a friend in similar position. We cried. The waiter didn’t ask, he just poured the wine and walked away…

…Day 5: Went for incredibly long walks. Began drinking, eating and dressing like John Goodman. Have been crying so hard I think I have dehydrated myself. The purple giraffe put me to bed…

…Day 12: Decided to pack up everything he’d ever given me into a box under the bed. Found it really hard to heat up chocolate pudding with the microwave down there. Went to sister’s to do other stereotypically cliché breakup things. Watching Steel Magnolias is very boring. Ice cream and pizza is not. Ha fucking ha…

…Day 15 Monday: Have finally stopped crying all the time. This is good. May be able to regain dignity now and stop buying frozen Bavarians in bulk...

 You may have noticed a bit of a theme running through that - oh the eating I did! That’s not really a recommended coping mechanism, binge eating. I made it worse for myself by having a nervous condition which makes me throw-up when I’m stressed. That particular emotional stop-gap ended up being an incredible waste of money, equivalent to making a children’s piñata out of fifty dollar notes.  

But this diary thing really helped me. I re-read  passages and chortled myself back into reality. At the end, when you are further away from the horror of realising that someone doesn’t want to kiss you anymore, you can start to have fun because some break ups are kind of hilarious, funny because they can be so amazingly tragic.

I think it’s important to enjoy some of the operatic, deep and ridiculous tragedy of a breaking up; cancelling the romantic holiday you dreamt up, returning your hypothetical wedding dress, killing off a family of imaginary children you’ve housed in your fantasy the castle in the sky. Treat your break up like a temporary end of the world! It’s sad, this is sad, you’re allowed to be sad, so do it!

Enjoy that for a couple of weeks then get your shit together and start behaving like a grown up again. Regardless of feeling frequently confounded, slightly destroyed and a smidgeon relieved, there’s a good reason this has happened. Maybe you’re going to be better off, maybe they will come back when the timing is better or maybe you were just supposed to learn something. Cos think about it, you rarely break up with the person you are meant to be with in the end.

*Kirsten, seriously, what the hell did you think you were doing? You are what, the highest paid actress in Hollywood right now, how did you think you could do anything secretly? Surely you’ve worked out you can’t eat a sammich without someone taking photos of you, how the fuck did you think you’d get away with an affair with a married guy!?! SERIOUSLY, YOU ARE A MORON!

** Apparently he’s ‘inconsolable’ and ‘distraught’, and that’s totally understandable, cos he’ll never find love again or anything like that, cos he’s so unappealing, and I’m a giant spotted elephant named Fritz.

***He must have put down a bit of cash to avoid a crazy divorce circus, I know it’s none of my business, but he must have.

Knickers to that I say...

During my last move I had a rare opportunity to count my all my underwear, should the zombie apocalypse arrive I am glad to say I have enough underwear for 30 days before I have to find an abandoned laundromat. I was surprised by the lack of variety and, frankly, the complete lack of ‘fanciness’ in my collection but after all, I am a pragmatic utilitarian. Maybe you’re a petty bourgeois with a satin box full of lace camiknicks and corsets, or a Calvinist with a bundle of hessian bloomers and thistle undershirts, I sure as hell don’t care, but I can tell you…

What your underpants say about you!

G-Sting
Everyone has some bogus reason for why these non-pants exist, so lemme dispel some G-string myths for you;
1. They are good for dancing. Yeah, maybe, but what if you jump to wide and slice yourself in half?
2. They’re sexier than normal undies. Yeah maybe back in Striptease/Showgirls/80’s/90’s land these might have been the better option, considering that the alternative was some sort of puckered floral high cut nightmare your grandma wouldn’t wear. These days we have boy leg Brazil cut camiknicker things which provide both coverage and underbum and are subtle and sophisticated. Thongs are a juvenile kind of sexy you’d see in Zoo or some shit so if you’re a grown arse lady leave them to children. Moreover while it may be considered a good idea to wear your whale tail stickin’ out of your jeans, have you considered that denim is like butt sand paper? You’re going to hurt yourself.
3. They look better under tight things. Great you’re wearing a g-string! Brilliant! So instead of just seeing where your underpants end I can now see every contour of your butt, every cellulite dimple, every mole, every goose bump. That’s much better than a VPL and not a nauseating over share at all!
The bottom line: Not for me.

Cotton Tails
Are you sixty? If not don’t do it. Nothing says ‘I want no willies near me ever’ like panties that go up to your arm pit. Under normal circumstances you can probably get away with wearing these once a fortnight. Any more than that and you might as well embroider ‘Closed’ on the front so no one misses the message.
The bottom line: Better start that cat collection now buddy.



Boy-Leg
You are a person; you live in the world and buy knickers there. You also must be frustrated at the fact that you have a constant VPL, unless you buy those special non-stick scan-pan silicone grippy pants… they are the bestest.
The bottom line: Captain Sensible.










Actual Boy's Underpants
Oooh look at you! You have a boyfriend! Ooooh you spend more time at his place than your own! Oooh you’re so entrenched in his life that you actually share intimate apparel! You’re so smugly in love! Ooooohh oohohooohh!
You make me sick.
Okay whatever, so more than likely you’ve borrowed these from the boyf (fine), keep them as a memento from previous boyf (a bit sad) or you buy men’s undies cos they are so darn comfy (completely understandable).
The bottom line: You’ve figured out an ingenious way to steal cocktail franks and plums.

No Pants
Wow, that’s a game change. Are you sure you want to do that? While everyone should go free at least once a year, being pants-less makes me so nervous I can’t ever really enjoy it. What if your pants aren’t as opaque as you think they are? What if you sit in poison? What if you find yourself upside down for some reason? It’s just too risky! Wearing no underwear is an incredibly powerful secret, and like the codes for the nukes, it would be catastrophic if it falls into the wrong hands. If you do tell someone, expect them to have a strong reaction, otherwise keep it to yourself. Seriously, the news would break like avian flu.
The bottom line:There isn’t one. When you go commando, chaos reigns.

Creeper gotta creep

Public transport is a great democratiser. The rich, the poor, the strange and the normal will all eventually find themselves traveling together cheek by jowl in metal oblongs. But in the case of public transport ‘all walks of life’ includes not only the walkers but skulkers, shufflers and worst of all creepers.

Chances are if you caught public transport and have a vagina* you’ve been creeped on public transport. You'll be sitting on the train, minding your own business and you’ll suddenly discover that the seat next to you has been filled by the kind of dude you’d usually cross the street to avoid. He’ll sit next to you and start doing something wildly inappropriate, absolutely disgusting and frankly confusing, thus rendering you really uncomfortable.

Me and my sisters have had my fair share of creeper experiences. Dingo once had a dude talk at her for a solid hour before grabbing her hand and licking it. She stood up in the middle of the carriage and shouted ‘this man is licking me! Somebody please help’ and no one did anything! I got stuck on a broken down train with a dude who just got out on prison who began reading Anne of the Island over my shoulder, out loud. I don’t think it’s unreasonable to think this kind of stuff is not on.

It doesn’t help that we are conditioned to be a bit skittish these days. A stranger asks me the time and I’m already making a fist with my keys. However, with a creeper there’s usually something, a crazed look in the eye, a prison tattoo or a peculiar smell which sends a clear message ‘this dude is a not someone I wish engage with’.

Maybe sometimes we’re over reacting and misconstrue a friendly conversation as a prelude to cutting off our head and putting it a plastic bag. Clever creepers know this and use this against us. You say to someone ‘I don’t wish to be rude but I don’t feel like talking, I’m reading my book’ and they accuse you of branding them a rapist just because they were being social.

Whilst everyone is entitled to the benefit of the doubt, and a person could be made awkward by personality, situation, social ineptitude and emotional health, the point is that you know when you feel venerable or consider behaviour inappropriate and you have every right not to put up with it. We all should be allowed to say no, we should be allowed to keep our personal space personal and we should be allowed feel safe.

If you wish to escape the clutches of the creeper, the following tactics should work;

-Pretend not to be able to speak English. This one is chancy as it is completely foiled if you phone rings, if they speak the language that you are pretending to know or if you are with a mate. Actually, that works better, cos if you insist that you can’t communicate with the creeper but continue a completely normal conversation in plain English with your friend they may just get the jist that you aren’t interested in how they lost their hook hand in a turkey factory.

-The Jenna Marbles face.

-Call a friend and have a conversation about how you’re being made really uncomfortable by this guy sitting next to you on the train and yes, he does smell like rotten vegetables and wee and absolutely, you’re calling the police as soon as you hang up, but just in case you are carrying your Taser today.

-Come prepared with something like a book, laptop or headphones.Even better if your headphones are obviously not connected to anything.

-Change carriages. I know that this is not really fair, as we have as much right to be in a space as they do without being made to be uncomfortable but if it’s a choice between your safety and peace of mind than making a point that may easily be missed then just move.

*look this is from my experience. I'm not saying that all dudes on trains are creepers or the all creepers are dudes on trains. I am especially not saying that it's only dudes that creep, I have been creeped by ladies too, and I also know a couple of dudes who have been creeped upon. My point is that these sentiments are fluid... suspiciously warm, beany smelling, mysterious fluid.

Pour vinegar on the thorn in your cardboard heart... whoa! That's depressing!

Google is a wonderfun thing. I’d like to think if I was unemployed, or in hospital for a long period of time (say for argument I had suffered a terrible fall after trying to jump my Shetland pony, Morgrim the Wonderhorse, over a matchbox in a steeplechase) I would happily wile away the long futile hours in traction with only my left hand in tact by going on the Google and looking up things.

I love that Google will just hand me interesting things to look up. Hey there Joe, did you know it’s the 100th anniversary of water? Find out what it’s made of! It’s a distraction engine.

Yesterday, of course, it decided to tell me all about Valentine’s Day, and the ensuing five minute Wikipaedia break lead to the discovery of a twee little tradition known as the Vinegar Valentine.

For those of you who don’t know what this is (and haven't already clicked through) participate in this scenario. Imagine this, the dude that you like, let’s say for my example, the tall cute beardy one from Commercial Kings, Rhett, wants to meet you on Valentine’s Day. You see him approach; he might even be wearing a subtle red shirt for the occasion. From the sheepish, promising smile that you know is only for you, you can tell that the small pink envelope he’s handing you is the magical key to all the wonders of a long term, serious and outlook-changing relationship that is seconds form being yours.

You giggle demurely as you snatch the espial out of his hand and tear it open only to find this...

What a slap in the left, right, lower and all other ventricles. I can't think of a more delightfully weird and wonderful way to tell someone that you hate them than give them a card on a day usually reserved for love, niceness and special sexy underpants. I cannot believe that someone would actually give someone this and not expect to be paper cut eviscerated.

I mean Valentine’s Day was concerning enough but I had no idea that instead of just being plum ignored I could be handed a deceptive, hope-raising item which will then viciously lampoon all my character flaws in a concise little card with an unflattering and painstakingly accurate caricature.

The vinegar valentines I’ve found have been olde worldy, stuff like ‘shiftless man’, the ‘bookworm’ and the ‘busybody’. It seems like such a weird thing that in a time where snark is the go to attitude, people swear in wedding vows and people play sarcastic songs at funerals, I surprises me that these haven’t replaced genuine romantic cards. Why don’t we give in nasty cards to the ‘constant status updater’, the ‘competitive dieter’ or the ‘glued to your iPhone guy’. The person who comes up with the best one in the comments gets a Kit Kat

Costume Drama-Mama

Ladies of a particular generation and type! It’s Sunday evening yet again, and I don’t know about you but I am feeling the undisputable adolescent twinge that only comes when the Sunday night ABC costume drama should be only two hours away.

The first costume drama I remember watching during that time slot was Pride & Prejudice back in 1996 when I was 9, the one where Colin Darcy comes out of the lake wearing the wet shirt. After that I assumed that all costume dramas were enriching epic romances which were as good for the intellect as they were the soul. However, now that I am older, and perhaps wiser, I can see how insidious they really are, and how they given me a slightly skewed perception of romance and life.

Unrealistic Expectations I have developed by watching costume dramas through my formulative/adolescent years

1.All English dudes are handsome gentlemen who explain themselves eventually.

It’s true that there’s no ‘he’s just not that into you’ in costume dramas. If you are the heroine, everyone is into you, and they're all really hot in a sexually repressed way. All you have to do is pick the one with the most money. Even if a dude appears to actively dislike you, it’s only because he’s so besotted with you. Being incredibly rude, ignoring you and making your father bankrupt is the only thing keeping his propriety.

And at the end, once you’ve emerged unscathed from the siege of death, disenfranchisement and misunderstandings that constitute your life, you will get an explanation so eloquent and lovely and convenient that all the suffering worth it. Unless you’re Tess of the d’Ubervilles, because by that time, you’re already dead.

2. Your life as it is would be really great if it was transferred into that setting

You’ve seen Lost in Austen, where a modern girl goes into Pride & Prejudice land and manages to fuck everything up so amazingly that she can’t possibly fix it and Jane ends up Mrs Collins? Well the experience on the whole would be something worse than that.

Whilst I would be the daughter of a wealthy Industrialist, with two older sisters married, an allowance of 50,000 pound a year and a house in town, I would also probably be far too old to be married, far too single to be proprieties, far too sarcastic to be demure, and far too well educated to be content. I can’t play the piano forte, embroider or sing and I think I’d get so bored I’d start racing the servants for fun.

3.Bad guys are obvious from the beginning

A musical sting, an odd filming angle, a nose and a beard skulking around a corner. Oh, that must be the bad guy! I wonder who he’s about to beat with a cane or knock up or send to Australia? Dickensian baddies are just so obviously bad they make the lipstick on pantomime dames look subtle. When I moved to the city I was so busy listening for bassoons and watching out for pock-marked men with club feet lurking in doorways, I could get pick pocketed by green camels and not notice.

4.Ioan Gruffudd can act

He can’t. He just can’t. We all wanted it to be true to give us an excuse to demand his sculptured cheek bones and expressive eyebrows be in more things. Well, we got that what we wanted didn’t we, Rise of the Silver Surfer exists and we only have ourselves to blame. And you know what, I watched Hornblower the other week and not only does his name have hilarious homoerotic implications, he comes across as a bit of a weeny. Sorry.

5.Woman may be soppy objects for barter but at least we had lovely things

Are you kidding me with this one? Women those days had about four dresses that were supposed to last them years of their lives. They bathed infrequently and had no such thing as deodorant, shampoo, toilet paper or feminine hygiene products. Their silk, lace and linen dresses may have been beautiful masterpieces of haberdasherical engineering but they would have smelt worse than a dead tramp in January. More to the point, your hat offered little or no sun protection.

For an authentic experience of the Georgian wardrobe, wrangle your way into the BBC costume department. After years and years of being passed from Emma Thompson to Billy Piper to Gemma Arteron to Julia Sawalha, reused in endless productions from Fanny Hill to Watership Downs* those dresses would probably be so crusty with sweat, make up and soup from the catering van they would varily stand up by themselves.

*Before you say anything, I know, it's about rabbits, okay?!

Curse of the Cool Kids

So I’m catching the train to Parramatta to go see The Muppets (which was just delightful by the way) and it’s hot and sweaty and full of grown-up people who just wanted to get the heck away from their work-a-day lives and relax for a 48 hours. A train of hardworking, world weary adults which qualify as proper humans.

The train pulls up to Central and six or seven youths get on, in the blush of fifteen and very serious sunburn. The girls are wearing only their bikinis and shorts, the boys aren’t wearing shirts. No one appears to be carrying a bag or sunscreen. They have clearly spent their day at the beach. Bastards. But it gets worse. One has a cigarette behind his ear, another was swearing a lot, this one’s made a snarly remark to an old woman and another has an unorthodox piercing. I'm on the train with a bunch of cool kids.

Suddenly I am seized by a sudden cold panic. Am I sweating profusely? Am I making that squirrel face again? Is there anything about the way I look right now that these kids could use against me? Why is this happening here? I have been out of high school for more than six years! I am a grown ass lady. I rent things and have a special card with my face on it which gets me in and out of my place of work. I worry about my vegetable intake and discuss energy costs. But the presence of cool kids slingshots me back to a nerdy 13 year old again, the prefect target.

The cool kids at my school drank first, fought first and fucked first. They were the kids that stole things and got expelled for setting fire to people’s rats tales. Not only were they delinquents but they were cunning. Not witty, but thorough, there’s only so many times someone can ‘accidentally’ stab you with a compass until you crumble. Their taunting could reduce to one to absolute dust, and once a teenager knows how to upset you, they will continue to do it until you end up having to repeat P.E.

Maybe you weren’t the kind of youth that got picked on, but I was 1^st Lieutenant of the Superdork squad for the majority of the time (that’s right, wasn’t cool enough to be Captain). High test scoring, student representing sanctimonious little spocky git, who’s really easy to rile up. So needless to say, the cool kids took me down with the keenness I deserved.

Oh gosh, one of them is looking at me! What do I do? Look away or stare them down? If I stare they might think I’m making some sort of misguided cougar attempt. Good, how embarrassing, especially given their teenaged girl friend is as unlumpy and tanned as a card board tube! Look away! Search in bag! Yes search for something in your giant nanna hand bag, maybe you’ll find your hearing medicine in there

Shouldn’t they be terrified of the fact that I older than them? Does that count for anything anymore? When did kids stop respecting their elders? Did I just refer to myself as an elder? Oh my god, I'm freaking out! It used to be when I was younger that you would pretty much break your back trying to get out of the way of a grown up, but now they just stand around with their unburdened, unfettered, unspoilt lives...

Oh god, one’s looking at me! Quick, conspicuously check phone. I’m cool, I have a phone! No messages, they’ll never know as long as you fill out those complicated forms in your bag. Yes, your grown up complicated rentals application forms… yeah, that’s impressive. Not.

Oh thank goodness, I’m at my stop. How do I get past without them lampooning me or acknowledging my exsistance? Don’t they realise it’s hard to negotiate a skateboard strapped to a backpack?

‘Erm, excuse me’.

One kid turns around and looks absolutely aghast. ‘Oh, god, I’m sorry, beg your pardon Ma’am’

‘That’s alright… thanks’.

That’s right… I just got ma’amed… by a cool kid.

Ma’amed.

Hack Literature: The Celebrity Story

I just finished reading The Bryan Ferry Story by Rex Balfour (1976), an unauthorised biography about my equal 1st favourite rock-star

For those of you that don’t know who Bryan Ferry is, he’s the front man of the 1970’s rock band/ art project Roxy Music, with a simultaneous solo career that’s been going on for about 35 years now. He was the guy who caused a bit of trouble about ten years ago when he was misrepresented as a Nazi sympathiser, when in fact he had just expressed a liking for the work of Leni Riefenstahl. Not the same thing, but deffinately not great publicity...

Whilst they may be no argument as to Ferry’s musical innovation, inspiration and slight genius, this biography portrays him as the mad stylish reclusive wizard who single handily invented music. An all-round toadying piece of fanatic clap trap.

Moreover, the book was written only three years into Ferry’s career and since then he’s had many more hits, fox-hunting children, divorces and affairs, not to mention the whole Nazi thing, and I can’t help but think ‘wouldn’t it have been better if they had waited?’

Something I have learnt about biographies is that they should be all about mystery, scandal and intrigue. A Kim Kardashian book would just not be interesting because we already know EVERYTHING about her. I don’t think there’s anything I could find out in a book about her and her deepest darkest personal life that I couldn’t find out by simply walking past a news agent. Her life is not so much as open book as it is a large billboard on Broadway, and I don’t care.

Biographies are also all about timing.

It’s strange when young or uninteresting celebrities get biographies about them before they’ve had enough life lived to fill them. I just looked on line and discovered that Justin Bieber has a biography, Justin Bieber: First Step 2 Forever- My Story. Isn’t he about five? To fill a 100+ page book he would have had to start doing coke and getting divorced in kindergarten. All I’m asking is wait until the story is at least two thirds through.

Having said that, it would be wrong to say that celebrities should put out biographies until they are dead, in fact it’s probably good that they don’t, because we know how the story ends and because it means that they can do a big old money grubbing sequel when their lives go to shit. Take for example Rolling Stones Guitarist mark III Ronny Wood, whose biography Ronny came out for Christmas 2007. Not even a year later later he was in rehab, on sabbatical from the Stones, broke and divorced living with a 21 years Old Russian model. I can’t wait to read about that in Ronny 2: Oops, my bad.

I picked up where The Bryan Ferry Story ended in 1975 with another book, the autobiography of his erstwhile fiancé Jerry Hall, Telling Tall Tales. In this ‘book’ Hall goes into great detail about the cuckolding she did to poor Bryan with Mick Jagger, as well as everything she didn’t like about Ferry and how mean he was. Not only was this the airing dirty laundry to the equivalent of putting shitty undies on your doorknob, but it made her come off as a naive, foolish, mean, vain and self-sensationalising moron, which is a shame because I actually like her. Tell all, but don’t be cruel, or people will laugh derisively at the fact that the perfect home life you were so happy about by the end of your book will end in within 20 years.

By contrast Keith Richard’s Life is a beautiful book, one of the best autobiographies I’ve read. It’s told in the spare and wandering style of Richard’s own words, which aren’t half as confused as one would expect. Love, fame, fall-outs, appalling excess and deaths creep into the narrative in a quiet, funny way without wallowing in appalling excess or praising his fortunes. Richard’s neither attempts to rationalise or descends to self-pity.

In short, I would advise you to read this book, and if you are a celebrity considering a biography, I would advise you to wait for your life to become more interesting and so that the disadvantages of hindsight don’t come back to bite you in the arse. I would also recommend a good ghost writer, my services are available.