Causal Sexism

A teeny little thing happened recently and has been niggling away at me ever since. It's not even a thing that happened really. It's just something someone said. A single word in fact. A throwaway single syllable that has left me in a state of… I don’t know what ever since. See what you make of this.

I've been trying out a new garage recently. Or should that be motor mechanics? Garage is a weird one for Brits; it's the little room where you put your car, it's the place where oily people in overalls make your car better and it may even be a place where petrol and/or diesel for your car is obtained. And even some sort of music, I am given to understand.

Anyway, this is beside the point. I took my car to a new garage for to get it serviced and MOT'd. MOTted. Motted. Signed off as roadworthy. The main person there, we'll call him John, was friendly, did a good job on the vehicle and didn't charge me a fortune. So far so good. But he did also call me love.

Now, whoa there. Easy. Before you jump ahead, this isn't your common or garden casual sexism article here. Though it may well include casual sexism, and probably does, that's not the whole of the story. So let's return to our tale.

Yes, so he called me love a few times. Just casually in that sort of way he almost certainly says mate to other sorts of people, naming no names and gendering no genders. It was delivered, I have no doubt, with absolutely no thought of perpetuating the patriarchy, keeping the sisters down and or even a doomed attempt to flirt with the customer. The Ocelot is not at home to Dame Flirt in any case. It was just a throwaway term that he probably uses on lots, if not all, female humans.

Now, standard practice would be for the recipient of the aforementioned love, in these days of zero tolerance to casual sexism, to dwell upon John's love as the tool of oppression it is, and rightly so Maybe have a word with him about what century this is. Maybe quietly seethe about it to friends later. Maybe write an overly long self-regarding blog, I don't know. But your friendly neighbourhood Ocelot was momentarily pleased, for the Ocelot is differently gendered from the vast majority, and thus constantly frets about being accepted as female in day-to-day transactions, and not chased across the moors by outraged citizens wielding torches and pitchforks. And for someone who is regularly 'sirred' on the phone (usually by overseas call centre operators) it was thus a strangely validating incident, and yet one that was also, of course, a bit sexist.

So I am, much like Natalie Imbrugliuglia, torn. I should be irked and annoyed and peeved at John's sexosity, but I am also a bit grateful that at least one stranger that day accepted me for my apparent gender. Of course, one cannot possibly know how others see oneself in terms of gender identity, not without engaging the services of a first-year psychology student with a clipboard and a questionnaire who constantly follows one around at a discrete distance and asks anyone that one has encountered on the street or in a shop what they made of one, genderwise. Incidentally, I have no idea why I have started using one all of a sudden. It may be in an attempt to use a gender neutral term that avoids the foulness of it, the plurality of they and bonkersness of zhe.

Many among the differently gendered strive for total transition. 100% confirmation of the gender to which they identify. Sometimes this is called passing or going stealth or simply fitting in. Some folks achieve this goal with great success, either through luck of genetics and physical features, transitioning at a young age (something increasingly common, though perhaps a bittersweet pill for older folks who switched sides later in life after the ravages of puberty had left their mark), or simply through massive amounts of practice, therapy, medication, surgery and ongoing cosmetic treatments. Some others are happy to exist somewhere in between the monolithic poles of M and F, and this self-identification as gender non-binary is an increasingly acceptable option in recent years, and rightly so.

But for a lot of the differently gendered, an occasional confirmation that society accepts who one (there I go again) wants to be is a welcome pellet of encouragement. In a life where one may be constantly fretting about walking funny, talking funny, looking funny, it's nice every now and again to get a bit of a thumbs-up from someone, though they know it not, who says yes, you're fitting in. Even if it is a bit of casually sexist chitchat from an oily fossil who's just been fiddling with your sparkplugs.

It's a weird situation. I am literally holding two opposing opinions of the incident at the same time. Which might make me some sort of philosopher. Or nut. Or vacillating wuss. It's like Schrödinger's Casual Sexism. Or maybe Causal Sexism. It both is and is not insulting. Both is and is not validating of different states of being. Or transition. Or identity. Argh.

I do know it's bloody confusing though.



Actually, now I come to think of it, he may have called me sweetheart. Is that better or worse?

The Chocolate Ocelot's 2016 Fringe - Day Eight

FRIDAY 12TH AUGUST 2016


Big Bite-Size Breakfast Show
QueenDome @ Pleasance Dome
Good morning Edinburgh! Three funny, eccentric, thought-provoking menus of Bite-Size Plays with free coffee, croissant, strawberries!
The Ocelot says: Horribly early (for us), but very well worth it. My thanks to friends Gordon and Anna for the anniversary gift of a Fringe voucher which we spent on this. Had no idea what to expect as we plodded into the Pleasance Dome with a lot of old people (it was way too early for the under-30 Fringe crowd), and were handed tea, coffee, croissant and a single strawberry, all of which made shuffling into the auditorium and sitting down extra perilous. What we got was six short scenes, varying from outright comedy sketch (Chugging for Kittens) to grim, twisty drama (two-man prisoner thriller Broken). The mood change between scenes is sometimes a bit jarring, but it's certainly an excellent showcase of the range of the Bite Size Plays cast. I rather liked the kidnappers/pineapple sketch and the Hamlet was gay sketch. They cycle through different 'menus' of sketches every three days, so conceivably you could go three times. High quality, good value for money. 5/5

Escape from the Planet of the Day That Time Forgot
Downstairs @ Assembly Roxy
A professor with a rocket in his cellar, his female ward and his eager assistant – together they find themselves on a distant planet before escaping to... where exactly?! A new British B-movie inspired affair, with sinister plant life, Norse gods, time travel, dinosaurs and a whole pile of pluck!
The Ocelot says: Once again indulging my love of Gavin Robertson shows, this is far closer to Fantastical Voyage and Thunderbirds FAB than the psycho drama of The Six Sided Man (also on this Fringe). With a three-person cast, there was more variety of characters, as the professor (Robertson), his female ward (Katharine Hurst) and Geordie assistant (Simon Nader) fly into space in an ironing board rocket (good prop work) and encounter Triffids and evil Norse gods before escaping back in time. A little light of pace and in need of a better climax (the third act with the dinosaurs feels like a separate episode and ends on a non-cliffhanger), but the vocal and physical work was excellent. Good use of the stacked grey boxes as fortresses, tunnels, talking walls and space helmets. My favourite performances were Simon Nader's Shatnerian Loki and the entire cast's prowling dinosaurs. 4/5

Erin McGathy: Love You Loudly
Ballroom @ Gilded Balloon at the Counting House
Erin McGathy (This Feels Terrible, Drunk History, Community) presents a comedy show about love, guts, despair and wearing wedding dresses covered in candy for approval.
The Ocelot says: I'll admit I put this on the list purely because of Harmontown, the podcast in which Erin McGathy makes a semi-regular appearance as TV creator Dan Harmon's girlfriend and then wife (and now ex-wife). Though billed as comedy, this painfully honest (see the period/sex/bedsheets story), personal show bravely recounts various disastrous relationships in which she sometimes emerges as the archetypal crazy stalker girlfriend and sometimes as a damaged person in need of a hug and a good therapist. It has a happy ending though, so fingers crossed that this, her first Fringe show, will not be her last. 4/5

Driftwood
Palais du Variete @ Assembly George Square Gardens
In this colourful and turbulent concoction of pure joy and intimacy, watch Casus bring a blank canvas to life and reveal our innate need for human contact. This is a circus show that does not let you forget that to feel is to be human and in a moment of danger, a grasping hold is survival.
The Ocelot says: I do like a good bit of physical acrobatic stuff, and the spiegeltent in George Square is the perfect venue to see this 5-person troupe of superb athletes use each other in a variety of breathtaking stunts/dances/exercise (I'm not sure what the right term is). And my word they are strong, lifting each other up three people high, swinging and catching each other, twirling from the trapeze and generally looking like the sort of humans you'd offer up to visiting aliens as a justification for our existence. I also liked that one of the women did as much of the heavy lifting as the larger chaps. You go girl. 5/5

Alexis Dubus Verses The World
Voodoo Rooms
Winner, Chortle Award 2015. More lyrical tales from the road mixed with iffy wordplay and first-rate bullshit. 'Does what great stand-ups do but does it in verse... Uniquely funny' ***** (Scotsman).
The Ocelot says: A bit like his spoken word show Cars and Girls from a few years ago, this is Alexis out of Gallic Marcel Lucont mode and appearing as himself (albeit in a green velvet suit), the guy from Great Missenden spinning rhymes and tales from his travels around the world. Charming and funny. I'm glad we were able to persuade CJ to come along to the Voodoo Rooms with me and give him a go. Looking forward to getting the CD of the show. 4/5

Dave Lemkin: The Village Hall

Ciao Roma

Lower Swell is having its summer festival! Come and be a part of the village as character comedian Dave Lemkin brings to life all the guest speakers: Colin Jackson, a self-employed management trainer (a former manager himself until a staff mutiny made his position untenable), Jaqueline Dulay, who you all know as the village's yoga teacher who leads a meditation on spirituality and overcoming violent thoughts, and finally local celebrity, former Tory bigwig, the Rt Hon. Dickie Daventry.

The Ocelot says: A bit more character comedy for us, this time underneath an Italian restaurant of all places. A late start didn't help, and the comedy caretaker who ushered us in was probably a bit too broad. But I enjoyed the rest of Dave Lemkin's characters to one degree or another, and couldn't help but go aaah when he brought his little cockerpoo puppy in as Dickie Daventry's dog Thatcher. Some of the costume changes were a bit too long, but the end results were pretty good (especially for Daventry). Amusingly/awkwardly, an entire row of old people left during the rude vicar section, citing not feeling well, though I suspect that they left due to the show being not as cosy as they had been led to believe, a perennial problem with comedy shows that perhaps don't make their adult content plain up front. 3/5

Shadows Over Improv
 The Frooty Goose @ Billy Connolly Memorial Theatre
The H P Lovecraft Improvisation Players put on a different sanity-stretching play every day, with suggestions from the audience. "A tentacular spectacular!" (shitsngiggles.com).
The Ocelot says: This evening's show at the gloomy BCMT was attended by a strange mixture of freaks and fools, ourselves included. Tonight's set-up from the audience was a setting (Peckham), an academic (a Business Studies lecturer) and a strange item from outer space (I shouted out 'kettle' but they heard it as 'cattle'). Thus we witnessed the strange tale of cows from the stars infiltrating the Peckham city farm, their peculiar coloured milk turning all who drank it mad. The improvised play ended with a dark ritual conducted at Brockwell lido to summon a bovine elder god from its depths, thus retroactively titling tonight's story The Call of Cowthulhu. 5/5

Axis of Awesome: Won't Ever Not Stop Giving Up
Debating Hall @ Gilded Balloon Teviot
Jordan, Lee and Benny are back with a brand new hour of world-class musical comedy. They've toured all over the earth and their videos have over 200 million hits online. They've even got a plaque from YouTube. A plaque!
The Ocelot says: We went to see this on the strength of their Four Chords song which we saw on YouTube. And what a great way to end our week at this year's Fringe. A packed enthusiastic crowd, great comic music and just a lovely vibe. I will admit unapologetically to being extra interested in seeing how lead man turned lead woman Jordan performed, and also how she was treated by fellows AoA members Lee and Benny and by the audience. She looked great, sounded great and got a lot of love from everyone. Hurrah for Jordan! Transitioning publicly used to be a horribly intrusive, traumatic experience, but thanks to brave people like her (and her friends being super cool), it makes it more normal and easier for other folks. Check out their song The Elephant In The Room for a guide to what is and is not acceptable to ask a trans (sorry, bald) person. I got their latest CD and a very rare (I hate photos of my stupid face) photo of me and the band afterwards. 5/5

Quirky Incident
I did an awesome forced march from the George Square (one of the more southerly venues) to the Voodoo Rooms (in the north) in about 30 minutes, and even had time to get a slice of yummy pizza from the Udderbelly square on the way (actually not on the way but I really wanted that pizza). In the rain too. I am some kind of a walking god/goddess/gender-non-binary deity.

Finally
OK, that's it. EdFringe 2016 over for me, Herself and CJ. My thanks to guest stars Ian, Mitchell, Clive, Paul, Laura and James. I promised not to go on too long and failed, as we all knew I would. Hope you liked the crappy reviews, stupid made-up shows and tolerated my timid criticisms and gushy gushings. Till next year, or maybe not.

Pause for thought

I think I had my first Menopause Bonding Moment last week, but I'm not sure.

My workplace is predominantly male, and of those females that are present, very few are over 40. Those that are tend to work in HR, catering and admin, and not the awesome hot-house of Science and Nerdery that is my department. Consequently the only (other) woman over 40 actually in my open-plan office of about 150 people is the nice admin lady who sits in the furthest corner of our floor. She is pleasant and friendly, though we've never had much of a chance to chat. I do know that she fraternises (sororises?) with her opposite numbers in the other offices; I've often seen what appears to be all the admin staff - that's to say, half a dozen middle-aged women - lunching together in a local restaurant, doubtless to discuss the travails of work and Life Outside Work.

But I've never have a chance to bond with any of them myself, until now. Maybe.

What happened was this. I happened to pass the Nice Admin Lady in the office one morning last week. I was a bit out of breath from rushing in late, and she may have seemed a little overheated herself. I think I probably made some sort of nonsense 'Phew it's a bit warm' comment, probably blowing my hair out of my eyes to punctuate the remark (What is that called, when you stick your bottom lip out and puff straight up your forehead? Does it have a name? I'm calling it fringe-puffing until someone comes up with something better). And she came back with something like 'Yes, it is warm, isn't it? It's probably just my age'.

And I thought, wait - does she mean she's having a hot flush? Is this a menopause conversation? Is that what we're having? OK, not a conversation, as it just consisted of one sentence apiece and a fringe-puff, but still. Had I just had my first Menopause Bonding Moment?

If I had, that begged the further question: did she say that because she assumed that I'm of the right age and gender to be a bit menopausal myself? Had I, for want of a less insecure term, passed? Was she automatically thinking 'That Nice Middle-Aged Ocelot over there is probably prime menopause material, much like myself. I will confide my hot flushiness to her'? That'd be cool, right? Her totally accepting me as the gender with which I present? Not so cool for her with the hot flushes, but still.

But wait a minute. Maybe I hadn't passed. Maybe she would have said the same thing to one of the younger women in the office, or the younger men? Maybe she's just the sort of person to overshare the every tick of their biological clock. Maybe I had just missed her confessing to one of the 20-year old grads in long shorts and an ironic Pac-Man t-shirt that she'd had a really good poo after breakfast. I don't know.

Or maybe she just confided in me on account of my being a friendly person who she thinks she can relate to, me being the only person even vaguely the same age and gender as her in the entire office. Maybe I should've come back with something supportive like 'Oh poor you, have you tried Menopace(tm) and a nice bag of frozen peas on the back of the neck?' (medical note: I know nothing menopause relief). Jeez, maybe even as we speak she's writing a blog about the unsupportiveness of that Not So Nice Middle-Aged Ocelot across the floor from her. I don't know. I can't know.

Or maybe she just made some bollocks up on the spot and was just saying it was hot. Apparently some people just talk nonsense and don't analyse the crap out of it later.

Gah! Why can't I know what she meant? I'm in neurotic trans-limbo here (note: first appeared in Giant Size Man-Thing #6, 1975). Am considering emailing her a post-encounter survey:

Dear Nice Admin Lady,

Thank you for taking the time to speak to me earlier. As part of my ongoing efforts to improve understanding in the office, I would be grateful if you could spare a minute to respond to this simple questionnaire.

When you said 'Yes, it is warm, isn't it? It's probably just my age', did you mean (select the response that most closely matches your feelings):

A   I did indeed feel warm, and I attribute that sensation to the onset of the menopause and thus tacitly imply that you too are biologically susceptible to this stage of maturity. Please join me and the rest of the ladies for lunch.
B   I simply felt warm on account of the weather rather than the menopause, and though I have correctly deduced that you are not susceptible to that condition yourself nor will you ever be, I am maintaining the illusion that you are biologically so susceptible, because I am a Nice Admin Lady.
C   I may or may not feel warm, but it seems appropriate for women of our age to make an ironic comment about the menopause. I liked how you did the fringe-puff.
D   I was just making some shit up to pass the time of day.
E   None of the above (please supply your own response in less than 50 words).

Yours,
The Ocelot

The Chocolate Ocelot's 2015 Fringe: Day Three

Monday 10th August 2015

Up with the lark. A fairly late-rising lark. Probably a lark that's been out late trilling and tralalalaing with its mates until all hours and now feels a little fragile.

Time for some Proper Culchure, so armed with a Transport for Edinburgh app (Herself) and a 17-year old city map (yours truly), we say hello to the public bus system and make our way over the Water of Leith to Dean Village.

M C Escher exhibition

Modern Art Gallery

Not a Neil Diamond lyric

Hands, drawing hands
MC Escher in the house
Flat lizard, real lizard, flat lizard
Impossible stairs and Möbius ants
Not a Dutch DJ after all
Nice beard though
Felt queasy walking downstairs after.


Oh, and the gallery cafe, while as stupidly expensive as its counterpart at the National Museum, does a moderately better cup of tea and an infinitely superior shortbread. In your face, National Museum of Scotland.

Trans Scripts

Pleasance

Six actors relate the experiences of real-life transwomen (why no transmen?) from America, Australia and Britain. Written by Paul Lucas.

Each life story is told in fragments, with each performer just doing a few lines at the time, while the others recline. It's very nicely choreographed.

Pretty sure most of the actors are trans themselves. Transactors?

Not sure I like the word trans. It's just a prefix. The grammar nazi in me dislikes it for its incompleteness.

Everyone's tale was different. Some had a fairly easy transition, some continue to suffer. Some are ballsy fighters, some are wounded and suicidal. For some the face and boobs are all important to everyday life as a woman, for others it's all about the vagina. Some want to disappear and go stealth, some are proud to own their differentness out loud. Everyone's got a different path and a different destination. Or none at all.

All in all a good show. I guess it's kind of Vagina Monologuesy. Vaginal Monological?

Spoke to actress Jay Knowles in the Pleasance courtyard afterwards. Mutual complementing of eyelashes and nails. She so pretty though; felt kinda daggy next to her.

Blam!

Pleasance Grand

While Herself and CJ went off for some magic with Colin Cloud: Kills, I joined the throng for this physical tour-de-force.

All a bit Jacques Lecoq

Time for mime
Four office drones let loose their inner child
A desktop Die Hard
A water-cooler romance
Avengers meets Magic Mike
I left wanting to hurdle a partition

Lazy Susan: Double Act

Pleasance Dome

Good to see the one who looks a bit like Scully and the one looks a bit like Rosanna Arquette for a second year. Lots of silly faces and funny voices. And eating of carrots.

Wasn't sure if the two characters in one of the sketches were South African or Australian though.
They should go far, but I'd hate to see their act ruined by being given a BBC vehicle with proper costume and a full supporting cast. Much of their charm, like a lot of character sketch shows that I like, is down to it being just them and a box full of crap wigs.

Josh Widdicombe joined the queue for the show just after I described him to Herself as the love child of Boris Johnson and Ron Perlman. Perhaps I've discovered a new super-power: Remarkable Comedian Summoning.

The Story Beast

Pleasance


Now, I put John Henry Falle's rough slouching Story Beast down as a must see a long time back after seeing him at McNeil and Pamphilon Go 8-Bit earlier this year (a description of their show may be found here). I urge you to seek out his All The Kings And Queens Of England on YouTube post-haste.

He had me at 'the reign of the Shadow Men'.

Last night's show included a splendid semi-Saxon rendition of Beowulf, some Welsh mythlore that had CJ all of a twitter, an examination of the dire consequences of a literal Teddy Bear's Picnic, and - surrounded by a teeny tiny dollies all over the stage floor, a murder mystery that might best be described as The Doom That Came To Toytown.

Literary references and copious perspiration abound.

The last 10 minutes contain an unexpected bonus of which I shall speak no more.

Fin

And so to bed.
Well actually, and so to the last episode of Daredevil, accompanied by biscuits and champagne.

Glove Puppet Gender Identity

As some of you may know, Herself is a physiotherapist. Sometimes she has patients (she hates it when I call them 'wellness customers') that can strain a PT's ability to cajole them into doing their allotted exercises. In a giggly fit of foolishness a few months ago, the two of us imagined using a glove puppet assistant on the ward, pour encouragez les patients. Said puppet would have a cutesy Sesame Street voice and be sad (cue down-turned hand) when exercises were not complied with, and happy (cue joyous jiggling and cries of 'Yayyy!') when they were. Much like the emotional blackmail of the Bad Idea Bears in Avenue Q.

Fast forward a couple of months to Herself's birthday and and I present her with Petey Pig the physio's pal, outfitted in a proper wee tunic by the talented Ada Infinity.

Petey, geddit? Like Beattie in the British Telecom ads. Oh, please yourself.

This week, Petey's assistance with a recalcitrant younger patient was requested by one of Herself's colleagues, and he was duly paraded through the ward to the amusement of all. Yesterday I asked how Petey Pig was doing, and I learnt that that she is now called Physio Pig by the therapists on the ward.

She?

At first I was annoyed; how dare these people not only rename, but regender our pig? How dare they inflict their notions of identity on our porcine pal? He doesn't want to be female! Clearly he's a boy - he's called Petey! Do you see?

But then I thought, waitaminute. Wait a root-grubbing minute. Wasn't that exactly what I was doing in the first place? Imposing my choice of identity on him/her/hir based on a cute pun? I'm just as guilty. Who knows what damage I've been doing with my narrow notions of glove puppet gender?

Better by far to let Petey/Physio/TBC Pig choose their own role, whether it be male, female, somewhere in between or something else entirely. So tonight we're just going to have to sit down together and explain that it's OK to be whoever you choose, and not to let other people decide for you, even if they created you, clothed you and provided you with rudimentary animation and a squeaky voice.

Then tomorrow we'll have to discuss the physical challenges of only having two fuzzy fore-trotters and no back legs, not mention having a big hand up your bottom.

A Trader Among Us

Spring is here, and for me at least that also means the start of the show season, after my long winter’s nap. I was at my first wargame show of the year only last weekend. Perhaps you were there too and we chatted, but quite possibly not, as I fall into that peculiar category of Non-Male Gamer.

To spare blushes all round, let’s call this particular show Fracas ’14, following the tried and trusted formula of ‘something fighty + the year’ (which raises the dire spectre of a show called Combat 18 in four years’ time). If there really is a Fracas wargames show somewhere in the world, please let me apologise now. At any rate, this show took place in a school or sports centre somewhere in the UK, and I was there in my official capacity of ‘trader’s hanger-on’. This means I get the tea and bacon sandwiches, bang on endlessly about Doctor Who, and occasionally hand small metal figures over to customers in return for money. My time as anything remotely resembling a booth babe are sadly several years, and pounds, behind me.

The first thing that happens as I walk into the show hall is that the folks on the entrance table won’t let me pay. It’s under a fiver, but they tell me women and children go free. Try as I might, the ticket chaps won’t take my money and just wave me inside. Why complain about that, you may well ask? You just got in free – surely that’s a result. Yes, true, but I really would like to pay my way. I’m not in financial difficulty and I don’t need ‘ladies night’ style inducements to come into this predominantly male domain. I know about pillboxes and tanks, for goodness’ sake! I know sculptors and painters and scenery designers. I’ve written combat rules and can measure the blast radius of a mortar attack in inches at a glance. I’ve even read Anthony Beevor’s phone book-sized Stalingrad from cover to cover and only very occasionally nodded off.

What I’m trying to say - with possibly a hint of stereotypical hysterics - is that it is conceivably possible for persons of the female persuasion to actually want to come to a games show. Not all women are there simply to be dragged around a hall full of demo games and trade stands on a Sunday afternoon by their husband/boyfriend/sons, helpfully carrying a large bag full of recently-purchased polystyrene scenery while their menfolk root around the bring and buy for an old box of Descent On Crete. Some, like me, might want to be there in their own right.

But here’s the really funny thing about going to a show that I’ve noticed. Women develop the super-power of invisibility the moment they walk into the hall. Other women can see each other - they wave hello from behind trade stands to familiar faces in a ‘fancy seeing you here again isn’t it a bit chilly’ sort of way. But for many men, women are evidently invisible or see-through or, I don’t know, cloaked like the Predator. I know this is true because I’ve experienced it on countless occasions myself.

I’ll be stood there behind the trade stand with my male chum, playing the delicate cat-and-mouse game of customer engagement: say hello too briskly and you may spook them off, say nothing and they may drift away unloved and unenhanced by our fine products. It’s like fishing for skittish human beings. One or two chaps are loitering around the stand, eyeing the goods in a potentially purchasey manner. One of them is already talking to my chum, possibly asking him when we’re bringing out a heavy weapons crew for our range or asking for a rules clarification. And I’ll be stood there right next him, trying to catch the eye of one of the other guys on the other side of the table, giving the half-smile and raised eyebrows of the time-honoured non-verbal ‘can I help you’ opening.

But do they notice? Do they make eye contact? Do we chat about release schedules and rule supplements and ranged attacks? No, not very often, to be honest. I’m knocking on six foot tall and  wearing my ‘hello my name is Helena please talk to me’ t-shirt, which I got specially made as an ice-breaker, so by all rights, they should be able to see me. But apparently not. They would rather mill around waiting for their chance to talk to the chap next to me, so I can only conclude that my mysterious invisibility powers - which would be frankly awesome if they worked at any other time - have kicked in once again.

Now, I’ve exaggerated for comic effect of course. But not by much. Some guys will quite happily come over and engage with me. Some will converse about the agony of dry-brushing Skaven fur or the relative merits of the Liberator vs Scorpio. Some offer me fudge. And a few have been hilariously unable to raise their gaze from a point approximately twelve inches below my eyes. But hey, at least they can see me, or at least a part of me.

This sounds like a big long whine, but it’s really not intended as such. I’m just saying: do come over if you see me behind the stand. I’m the tall strangely-shaped one. Do not be afraid. Talk to me. I will talk back to you. Perhaps you will buy something from me and we will emerge from our brief encounter satisfied (you) and enriched (me). At the very least I will know that I’m no longer invisible.

But you know the best bit about being a woman at a games show? The loos. They’re always empty! I was talking to another woman after Colours at Newbury racecourse last year and we realised that we practically had the ladies to ourselves for the entire weekend. She had all the ones on the left, I had all the ones on the right. Luxury.

An edited version of this article first appeared in Miniature Wargames #372, March 2014

A Much More Interesting Conversation

Many years ago I planned out my ideal dinner party guests. Except it wasn’t really a dinner party because a) I can’t cook, b) I loathe dinner parties (more later) and c) I really only eat chocolate biscuits.

But I did enjoy the mental exercise or choosing my absolute favourite people to invite. I limited myself to actual real living people, so the Fonz, Colonel Wilma Deering from Buck Rogers and K-9 were out, as sadly was Bill Hicks shortly thereafter (although if I ever did one of  those dreadful ‘famous person I’d have a one-to-one phone call with’ adverts from a few years ago, it would be Hicks. I’d tell him to get his pancreas checked way early. And do more Goat Boy routines).

So my revised dinner party guest list is currently: comics godfather Stan Lee, martial arts legend Jackie Chan, comedian and TV pioneer Eddie Izzard and Stephen ‘Oh Alan!’ Fry. Though I’m tempted to drop Fry, not only because he seems to have been adopted by the entire nation when he used to be the secret special friend of we chosen few (see also the pre-Office Ricky Gervais) but mainly because I suspect he wouldn’t be able to go a whole evening without tweeting his every thought at the table, which I consider to be a social vulgarity of the first order.

I’m looking forward to my dinner party, not because of the food, God knows, but because I know, I absolutely know, I’d have something in common with each and every one of them. I would certainly have plenty to say to each of them, even if it’s no more than a stream of stuttering, fawning adulation bordering on the stalky, but hey, the onus to get a court order would be on them, not me. As far as I’m concerned, the evening would be a roaring success.

Not so dinner parties in real life. At least not in my experience. Here’s a fictional, hypothetical, just-suppose dinner that took place fictionally, hypothetically, just-supposedly last night:

Herself has been invited to a workmate’s leaving meal thing at a pub and has asked if I can come along, in a charitable act of getting me to meet more people. She has realised, I think, that I kind of stopped making new friends some years ago, about the time I realised I could legitimately call myself a grumpy middle-aged person and could frankly no longer be arsed to put up with people I don’t get on with (see: the vast majority of the human race). But being a more balanced and socially adept individual, she took it upon herself to introduce me to her friends / workmates / people she kind of knows at work. Which is lovely of her. But.

I have never met said workmate before, though I am informed I have met one or two of the others at previous similar occasions, but I cannot quite remember them. They are all called Nikki, as far as I can tell. And yes, they are all women. This may have some relevance to my subsequent experience, but not in the obvious way.

Also, they all know each other. They all work together. I am the only friend / sig. oth. / +1 present. For a normal, rounded outgoing sort of cove, this would not present a problem, but I am acutely aware of my differences to real people at the best of times; spending time with a number of (let’s call them proper actual) women who already exist as a social group can sometimes make me feel more different than similar. Ironically, after all my many and various personal modifications over the years, I still often feel more at home with a bunch of bearded wargamers than I do breasted wombmongers. It’s to do with background and shared history, I suppose.

OK, but let’s put my personal whiny difficulties joining in with mono-gendered social groups to one side, and examine the more general pitfalls of the dinner party. Surely I am not alone in considering these events to be littered with difficulties?

Firstly, being the only friend / sig. oth. / +1 present. You don’t know anyone! And they all know each other! You’d have to be a darn sight more outgoing and/or interesting to others than me if you want to do anything more the entire evening than continually lean over to your partner and whisper “Who’s Jackie again?” and “Was that Vicky who had the thing removed?”*. It’s like watching an episode of a long-running soap without knowing any of the character names or back histories. Also it’s a boring real-life soap about real people with hardly any murders, amnesiac twins or secret vampire lovers.

So last night I attempted to engage the nearest non-partner at the dinner table in conversation about food intolerances, as I had just caught a passing comment about her ‘not doing wheat’. Pretty firm ground for me I thought; I can talk my way through an entertaining anaphylactic anecdote or two. And yes, we did have a nice little chat about gluten and goat cheese, as you do, but I swear the second the chat reached a bit of a lull, she turned back to talk to her real mates at the other end of the table. At this point I realised I had mainly been doing all the talking – it wasn’t so much a chat as a faintly manic monologue directed at a single unwilling victim, like a long-postponed ‘catch-up call’ from a parent.

And OK sure, I understand that people want to chat to their mates when they’re out, I’ve done that myself enough times, but man, the way she turned away so abruptly was so definite, so very ‘bored now’. As she turned away, I had a second or two to find something to occupy myself with at this now silent end of the table, so I pretended to examine the surface of the dinner table (it was either that or straighten the cutlery out, again) and ended up stroking the smoothly worn driftwood effect with rather more intensity than intended. If any of the others had looked my way at that moment, the scene could not have more surely confirmed my status as the weirdo friend of a friend.

Which brings me onto another thing – seating positions. At a dinner, you’re kind of limited to talking whoever you’re near to. In this case, my choice was a random selection of one or two strangers to my immediate left/right/front and my long-suffering partner / cheat-sheet to the on-going soap opera subplots being rehashed about us. There’s simply no guarantee that these strangers are going to prove interesting to the newcomer or vice versa. What we ought to be able to do at dinners, quite without giving offence, is to just up and shuffle round, maybe between courses, until you find someone with whom you have something to talk about (possibly prepositional positioning or amusing alliterative asides). 

This very thing happened to us at a civil ceremony reception a year or so ago; the young man in question at our table, someone nobody had met before, quite without ceremony or conscience just upped and moved to another table where he’d seen some of his younger, prettier acquaintances. At the time I thought ‘how rude’, but y’know, now I think he may have had something.

It would certainly save us from this particular situation: the sweet agony of being able to catch just a few tantalising snatches of A Much More Interesting Conversation at the other end of the table, with no polite way to either move one’s chair down to that end, or somehow join in by shouting interjections across the much closer but less relevant discussions of children/cars/celebrity dancing TV shows that are taking place in the no-man’s land between Interesting Person A and Desperate Loner B.

If we all wore badges that stated our major likes and dislikes at all times, parties would be much more rewarding. And possibly shorter. We really need to be able to mouse-over other folks in real life and bring their profiles up for inspection. Their likes, our mutual friends, the last film they saw. Maybe there’s an app for it.

But back to me. The end result of these various dinneracious difficulties of not-knowingness and seating stasis is that even before the food arrived, I wanted to leave. I wanted to get up, go home and watch telly, which at least had an excuse for not speaking directly to me. This is horrible and rude and unsociable of me, I know. But I was feeling lonely even with Herself right there next to me. These people were nice, but they were not my friends. They had friends already, right there. They could talk about work (which they all did together) or mutual friends (which they all knew) or past incidents (that they had all shared). All I had a story about a dodgy Go Ahead! bar and a burning urge to talk to someone, anyone, about A Game Of Thrones.

That can’t be right, can it? Sitting in a nice pub with what appeared to be nice people having nice food, and absolutely hating it. No-one to talk to. Nothing to talk about. Not their fault – they’re all decent enough people, even the bossy one who complained that her peas were burnt (for goodness’ sake), but I swear I was halfway through texting this very blog to my brother before I found there was no signal on my phone. Emergency Only. Even I balked at the thought of dialling 999 to discuss the weaker casting choices of X-Men: First Class.

So where does the fault lie? Yes me, obviously. Shyness and intolerance and over-awareness of differentness to be sure. But also the whole set-up of dinners and dinner parties, especially for the newcomer or stranger. You don’t know anyone there. They know everyone else. You can only speak to the ones you’re randomly sat closest to. It’s a noisy pub so you can hardly hear anyone anyway (though that may also just be me). There’s no shared purpose save to eat and drink – no band to watch or game to cheer on. No play to critique or film to enjoy. You can’t even mooch off into the kitchen like at a real party or start read the spines of the host’s books in their spare room (surely not just me?).

No, you’re stuck there until the food’s done and at least one other person says it’s time to go (and don’t even get me started on the horrors of ‘just splitting the bill’ with the fatties and the boozers), with only the bare bones of a self-hating blog to sustain you through the evening. I should stop going along to these sorts of things, I really should. But maybe the next one will be OK. Next time I might be sat next to a really interesting person, possibly a renowned cross-dressing martial artist-cum-comic writer. We can but hope.

Tomorrow I go to a comic con. In theory there should be many of My People with whom I can converse and I should have no complaints. In practice I suspect my social inadequacy and ill-concealed misanthropy will produce a different but no less disappointing experience. Watch this space.

* It wasn’t.

Passing Judgement

Imagine it’s - I dunno - 1940. You’re in Nazi Germany, parachuted in as a British spy. For the past six months you’ve managed to move amongst the Germans undetected – speaking, dressing, eating as one of them. You’re pretty sure you’ve got away with it, seeing as how you’re still at liberty and in possession of all your finger- and toenails. Then one day you get a coded message from Whitehall to meet another agent at Der Blaue Engel coffee house in Berlin. You turn up and find that the agent is dressed in lederhose and insisting on ordering a stein of foaming beer at 9 o’clock in the morning. You wince – this chap’s fitting in as well as Churchill at a Hitlerjugend rally.


You nervously trot over to his table and exchange codewords. He’s your contact alright, but By Timothy, what does he look like? It’s a miracle he hasn’t been hauled off by the Gestapo already. As it is, you can feel the curious stares of the coffee house’s other patrons flicking over at him. And if they’re looking at him, it’s only a matter of time before they turn their attentions to you.


You speak to him in a low voice. He replies in English-accented O-level German, constantly getting his endings wrong and flinging verbs around like wet fish. He seems to be totally oblivious to his incongruous mode of dress, and once more loudly orders EINEN BIER BITTE from the bemused waiter.


And here’s your problem – if this chap carries on as he is, he’s going to blow his cover with disastrous consequences. Moreover, by associating with him, your cover is in imminent danger of being blown into the bargain. Just by sitting next to him, you’re exposing those little inconsistencies in your own German clothing, those tell-tale glitches in your own German speech. Tiny give-aways that would have escaped everybody’s notice, were it not for the fact that you are sat next to someone who might as well be holding an enormous sign saying (in German, naturlich) LOOK AT ME – I’M NOT WHAT YOU THINK I AM. Worse still, the poor fellow is either totally unaware of his inability to blend in, or he’s in some sort of denial about the situation, or else he does know deep down but is so desperately desperate to be an ace spy that he’s willing to risk disastrous exposure in his flawed attempts to pass undiscovered.


What do you do? Continue to share a table with him until the sinister men in long leather coats turn up for you both? Hiss at him to shut the bloody hell up and point out what a terrible, terrible German he makes, all the while watching his sad little face crease up in shame. Or do you just make your excuses, get up from the table, walk away and Never Be Seen With Him Again?


OK, so much for the laboured spy metaphor. Did you work out what I’m really talking about? You did? Jolly well done. Reward yourself with the fattening snack of your choice.


Passing. It’s a term much in use among those of a transgendered persuasion. What it boils down to is ‘Passing as someone of your adopted gender such that none would suspect your birth sex.’ Getting everything right – the face, the body, the clothes, the walk, the voice, the personal history, even what topics you might talk about. For some, passing is paramount – they don’t want anything to give them away, not a stray facial hair, not a prominent supraorbital ridge, not a dropped octave nor an ill-chosen pair of thigh-boots. For others, it ain’t so important – they may be happy for people to know who they were, whether their chromosomes are XX or XY. Some folks have no choice in the matter – they’re never going to pass on account of insurmountable physical giveaways – no amount of surgery can sort out 6’4” of height, nor shoulders like a prop-forward. There’s only so much an artfully draped pashmina can disguise.


If you really want to pass, and you’ve got more or less the right sort of body to start off with, and you’ve put enough effort in, and spent enough money, and suffered enough discomfort, then yes, it is entirely conceivable that you could pull it off. Many have, so successfully that nobody knows their original past. Well done to them. Then there’s those that don’t pass for whatever reason – they’re too big, too stompy, too bony, too basso profundo, too damn bloke-in-a-dressy. And somewhere in between, there’s those of us who do kinda pass, on a good day with a following wind. If we spend enough time on our hair, and dress carefully, and constantly watch what we say, and make sure we don’t stand too close too many petite born females who make us look like hulking she-trolls.


And there’s the rub. When transgendered persons gather, there’s often a mixture of thems that pass, thems that don’t pass, and thems that kinda pass. And anyone on the outside looking in, let’s call them a bunch of drunken men staggering past you in the street, are going to clock the thems that don’t pass, call them out, and then probably take a second look at the thems that kinda pass, and call them out too.


Coz for a group of TGs, you only pass as well as the least passable member of your group. See the problem? You might be a Kinda, getting by day to day, sneaking under the radar and talking your way past the security checkpoints, but as soon as you get together with a Don’t, there’s that nagging voice in the back of your head saying ‘She’s giving you away, the big blokey tranny. Walk away. Don’t be seen with her in public. She’s an embarrassment.’


I feel bad even thinking about thinking it, but I know I’ve done just that. Of course I flatter myself that I qualify as a Kinda, all 5’11” of me with my stupid hair and funny voice and face that can’t stop pulling the most unmistakeably male expressions. Not to mention my compulsion to harp on about World War Bloody Two far too much. But on a good day I like to think I’m getting away with it, fooling the Gestapo and enjoying my Kaffee at Der Blaue Engel. And then I meet up with another transgender person, someone who for whatever reason just isn’t pulling it off. Maybe it’s the short skirt fit only for a teenager, or the overdone make-up, or the voice like a lost Mitchell brother, or the constant references to tuning their motorbike. Whatever it is, they’re blowing it, and by extension they're blowing it for me too.


And these are nice people, people who might have been or are still going through a hard time, transitioning from male to female. But golly gosh, sometimes it’s hard being with them in public, you know? That’s rotten of me. Rotten and selfish and snobby, but it’s horribly, secretly true. Doubtless there are a few of thems that pass out there who have seen me, clocked me, and made a beeline for the door before I give them away, just as I fear the Don’ts give me away. Maybe. I dunno. But I’m neurotic and vain and evidently given to writing my every petty thought down for the entertainment of others, so I wouldn’t put much stock in anything I say. I’m clearly one of those needy types.


Right, I’m off to work on my voice.


Deep breath, palm on chest and say ‘Ah’.


P.S. I tried to work in a reference to The Dirty Dozen: The Next Mission where they realize, halfway through disguising themselves as German soldiers, that one of them is black, so they bandage up his face. So if you could be so kind as to mentally cut and paste that reference into one of the above paragraphs where it will do the most good, I’d be terribly grateful.

Rifled Buttocks

Long-time readers will already be aware of my many apparel-based grievances, such as my blood-sucking shoes and those ever-disappointing handbags, but today I’d like to discuss an issue that both annoys and intrigues me; that of the rifled buttocks.

This phenomenon only occurs when wearing a tightish skirt with little or none of the slidey slippage sewn within that I now realise is vital to the successful snug-skirt wearer. What happens, each and every time, is that the damned thing starts to revolve around my bottom in a clockwise direction as soon as I walk. Well, it’s clockwise to my point of view – it depends on where you’re observing the motion from, I suppose. I have the bird’s-eye view of course. Should anyone manage the rare feat of manoeuvring themselves into a position where said motion appears to be anti-clockwise from their perspective, very well done to them, but prepare for a slap licketty-split.

Anyhoo, back the unwelcome revolution of the aforementioned. I swear I can’t take more than twelve steps before the seams have crawled round to the left and the splitty bit at the back is halfway round my right leg. It’s always the same clockwise direction without fail, though for all I know it would be anti-clockwise were I to cross the Equator. God knows what would happen were I to straddle the Equator. One dreads to speculate.

Doubtless this consistent right-to-left activity is a result of my extreme rightiness, by which I mean a physical bias towards overdevelopment on my right hand side, not a worrying tendency towards fascism, though some would maintain I’m guilty of that too. For example, you may recall a previous reference to my long right arm, which juts out from jacket- and coat sleeves a good inch and a half further than my left; my hairier right leg (no sniggers, please) which requires rather more attention from Ma Venus than the left; and my larger right bosom, which is particularly curious given that my chestal area is largely the work of a third party who clearly decided it was best to maintain my natural starboard-side freakishness. Thanks Doctor Boob. No, really.

But back to my buttocks and the amazing revolving skirt. It occurs to me that the only possible reason for this phenomenon is that my buttocks and upper thighs are in some way rifled, possibly with tiny hairs invisible to the naked eye that spiral around the body in such a way as to create a helical ‘garment super-highway’ that any sufficiently tight item of bottom-clothing is compelled to follow. It further occurs to me that in the right circumstances therefore, this rifling effect of my buttocks could project a skirt further and more accurately than any smoothbore backside, much in the same way that rifles are themselves more effective than less sophisticated muskets.

Of course, such an experiment would require that my body be somehow elevated and tilted upon a special kind of gimballed tripod so that my lower area could be aimed properly, whilst simultaneously enabling the requisite ambulatory motion necessary to generate the necessary gyroscopic effect. Furthermore, some sort of linear force would be required to provide the forward projection with sufficient velocity, but modesty of course forbids me from suggesting any obvious source of propulsion.

The practical applications of the Rifled Buttock Skirt Launcher continue to elude me for the moment, though I am leaning towards some sort of entanglement projectile much in the style of the gaucho bolas or Spider-Man’s web-shooters. At any rate, I’m confident that the solution, once cracked, will be of invaluable use to the freedom-loving peoples of the World. It’s only right and proper that I turn my curse into a gift that could benefit mankind, much in the style of the X-Men. Suggestions for my superhero name are welcome.

Tall Tales

Before we kick off, an apology. I should have started writing this an hour ago, but Certain People deliberately distracted me by bringing Bejewelled Blitz up on Facebook. If you’re one of the fortunate few for whom the portentous words ‘One… Minute.” mean nothing, then be thankful you still have a semblance of a life.

On with the show. Today we are remembering the tall girl from the other end of the office, who left us some weeks ago. I don’t mean she’s dead, although she may well be by now – I never saw her leave the building that last day, just spotted the big leaving card and the balloons on her desk, which was cleared that afternoon. For all I know, she’d put herself forward for some sort of voluntary euthanasia as part of the company’s draconian cut-backs, a bit like the Renewal ceremony in Logan’s Run but without the opal fruit-coloured gowns and exploding people.

Hurrah – a geek movie reference by the second paragraph. Certain People will be pleased.

For now, let us assume that the tall girl left in good health and is currently pursuing a rewarding career elsewhere in the highly successful high street banking sector. Ahem.

I feel a bit bad just calling her the tall girl. Let’s give her a name. Vertegra. Vertegra Prescott.

So, Vertegra Prescott left. I only ever spoke to her the once, to buy a charity butterfly cake for fifty whole pence, but still her departure has affected me keenly. When I say she was tall, I mean she was hovering somewhere around the six foot mark, so she wasn’t some kind of hulking ogress, but definitely above average in a pleasantly slim, non-hunched over sort of way. She may even have worn heels, Gawd bless her.

Why is this a particular blow to me? Coz with Vertegra Prescott’s departure, I’m left in the unenviable position of tallest woman in the office, by a good few inches. There’s one young lady who almost comes up to my level, if I wear my sensible flat pumps and take a pumice stone to the rough skin on my feet, but the rumour is she’s moving to the Netherlands, doubtless a land of wide-shouldered giantesses guaranteed to make her look petite by comparison. I imagine it’s the cheese.

This leaves me towering above my fellow she-workers by a head, a fact which is never more apparent then when I use the ladies’ loo and find myself at the sink, bracketed on either side by titchy five foot fourers, brushing their lovely hair in the shadow of my bulk. I feel like a wallopy teacher surrounded by her kids.

I blame the company’s recruitment policy – we employ a sizeable number of people from India, for whom, if the evidence of my eyes is to be believed, there is a strict ‘only employ women who have to stretch up for the lift buttons’ policy. Ever seen that Hole In The Wall programme on BBC One? I suspect our HR people use a similar approach during the interview process, except that the shape of the gap the prospective employee has to pass through is that of a doll-like homunculus.

The problem here is that I do not need to stand out any more than I already do, thank you very much. Being the tallest female in the office is just one more telltale giveaway I could well do without, in addition to already being the only woman who can carry her Tupperware box of stationery (another rant for another time) in one ape-like paw, and the only one who can do a passable rendition of Lee Marvin’s I Was Born Under A Wandering Star. I knew that inter-departmental karaoke contest was a mistake.

I’ve tried to disguise the obvious size differential with a number of cunning stratagems. First, jacking the adjustable seat at my desk down as far as it will go, even though this leaves my legs sprawling under the dividing partition beneath to play footsie with a frankly perilous Sargasso of power cables. Second, trying to only work with exceptionally tall men, this to be achieved by subtly measuring them as I stand by them in the lift. Third, and this is the trickiest bit so far, always going down to lunch at the same time as the statuesque Naomi Campbell-alike from the second floor. Thus far I’ve narrowed her luncheon timetable down to 12:20 – 12:27 and am zeroing in on perfect mealtime synchronisation. It’s working pretty well, except now I’m starting to feel fat and dumpy behind her in the queue for the till.

It’s a nightmare. My only choice, as far as I can tell, is to seek alternative employment in some arena that’s positively packed with looming six-foot plus muntresses. That or work exclusively with the blind. Blind and deaf.

Bloody Shoes, Stupid Bags

What follows is a somewhat random list of clothing-related issues that I currently harbour. You may well find the items discussed utterly trivial, but I can assure you that they occupy a disproportionate slice of my brain pie, displacing to a large degree my former encyclopaedic knowledge of Sgt Fury And His Howling Commandos. For example, as a result of learning the word pashmina, I can no longer recall the name of the Bavarian strongman from Baron Strucker’s Blitzkrieg Squad. Tch. If you take anything away from this, it will probably be that I am a rubbish girl. Anyways…

The blood price of shoes

In the old days, I lived mainly in trainers, or comfy lace-up shoes of the Clark’s variety. My time spent in heels was sporadic and fleeting, usually the odd evening party, so I had little experience of long term lady-shoe wearage. That has changed.

I am now the proud owner of two deformed little toes (currently assuming the form of tiny root vegetables shyly hiding under the bigger toes), and a heavily blistered right heel, courtesy of two year’s of solid pointy-shoe abuse. Never before has my wide-footedness been so painfully apparent as when I try to get through a day of wearing new work shoes without ending up limping the half-mile walk home from the train like that bit in Die Hard when John McClean has to walk across the broken glass.

My current chaussures de choix are a pair of dull-but-acceptable black pumps, of the flat and flimsy genus. Specially chosen from the mutant-flipper section of a SimplyBe catalogue, they look nice, go with anything, and have managed to rub my heel to a bloody mess within two days. My own fault really – I’d failed to adhere rigidly to this important rule- never wear new shoes two days running. In fact I’m going to modify that to only wear new shoes one day in five. That allows just enough time for my beleaguered footsie to regenerate before subjecting it to the cruellest of shoes all over again.

The problem is this – my right foot is substantially larger than my left, so any pair of matching shoes is bound to result in pain for the right or unacceptable looseness on the left. Something I never noticed with trainers, or socks. I’m not saying my right foot’s monstrously swollen, like the Elephant Man or one of those poor, vast women you occasionally see waddling down the street with a curiously lateral rocking motion. But it is bigger – probably just enough to doom me to walk around in circles should I ever find myself downed in a trackless desert, à la The Flight Of The Phoenix.

But I digress. What I’m driving at here is that, unlike any other item of clothing, the acquiring of new shoes carries with it for me an inevitable period of suffering. I certainly can’t remember the last time a new top cut into my ribs, or a pair of gloves induced spontaneous stigmata in my palms. But shoes, bloody shoes… the inside of my right pump is literally stained red from my ill-advised overwearing incident, a grim reminder of the blood-price I pay for pretty plates.

The irony is that they now fit very nicely thank you, so the pumps can now function as my primary comfy shoes while I slowly and painfully initiate a particularly stiff pair of new heels (like a brace of size seven faux-snakeskin vampires, they hunger insatiably for my footblood). What really galls me is that I know from experience that this golden summer of love between me and my pumps is fated to last but a short while, before they a) continue to stretch to the point that I actually walk out of them, probably while crossing a busy road, and b) start to fall to bits like the crummy pieces of sweatshoppery that they are. Oh for a pair of helpful elves to stitch me a proper pair of shoes overnight.

The rubbishness of handbags

Here’s the thing about handbags – they promise more than they can deliver.

Unsurprisingly, they’re definitely a case of form over substance, unlike say, the trusty but unfashionable rucksack. To wit – I’ve gone through three bags in two years for the simple reason that none of them are up to the task of carrying the number of items I deem absolutely necessary to my daily operations. Not a one has lasted more than six months before developing a serious rent in one compartment or another, usually whichever section I’ve chosen to contain my house-keys, which appear to have the cutting capacity of a small hacksaw.

I ask you, is it too much to find a decent bag with the following specifications?

• Shoulder strap – essential for hands-free bag supportage when rooting around for house-keys outside front door in driving rain.
• External stretchy pouch for brolly, so as not to make rest of bag contents damp.
• Matching external stretchy pouch for hairbrush – required at a moment’s notice.
• External sealable pocket for regularly-used items like train ticket, oyster card and ID badge (material to be thin enough that oyster card and ID badge can be waved against electronic readers without removing from pocket).
• Separate area for medical supplies – inhaler, Rennies, anti-histamines, plaster for wounded heel.
• Area for bare essential make-up – inevitably doomed to become saturated with loose powder, so must be kept separate. Accept that at some point the caps will come off eyeliner pencils and daub the interior with deep chocolaty smudges.
• Area for ever-growing collection of business cards – salons, drycleaners, garage, dentist, home-made cakes, maker of replica Judge Dredd badges. Can be combined with area for post-its, ever-blunt pencil, crappy pen stolen from Waldorf-Astoria, notebook depressingly empty of preparatory notes on Great Work.
• Large central section for general objects – tissues (minimum three to get through a sniffy train journey), current reading-on-train book, over-stuffed purse, personalised Swiss-army knife, sunglasses for concealing nazi-blue eyes from the sun.
• Mobile-phone-shaped mobile phone area – deep and snug enough so that bloody phone doesn’t immediately slip out and disappear under tissues.
• Secure zipped up bit for vital things – keys, memory sticks, portable screwdriver kit, six-sided dice, more keys.

Is that too much to ask? Is it? Apparently it is. Or rather it’s too much to ask for such a bag to last more than six months without falling to bits. My last but one bag saw out its final days held together on the inside by gaffer tape, but shhh – don’t tell anyone.


OK, that’s enough for now, but just to whet your appetite, here’s a run-down of future appearance-based issues I really need to address:

• What I don’t know about hair
• Clothes and what they’re called
• My one long arm
• One-day tights and the three-use rule
• Why I miss the 80’s
• My friend the waistcoat
• Fat-necked scarf girl
• Lovely stupid nails
• Evil shop dummies
• Trinny and Susannah
• The infinity jeans
• Smelly boots
• Why I can never wear a jacket again
• That make-up on the train thing