Dancing on my own (because you are an idiot)

Of course I’ll craft you a better Monday! Simply dance to this.

Recently, I was semi-chatted up at a party, and so outraged by the proceedings of this, very drunk, person, that I have been unable to contain myself any longer.

I have no idea how my chat-up stats compare with the rest of the female population. Perhaps I have been actively chatted up fewer times on average, due to the fact that, on any given dance floor or bar, I am literally below the eye-line of almost every eligible individual.

Or maybe, the blurred and distant face I present in fact works to my advantage. Who knows.

Now. I have been out with some rather lovely people. So, please, don’t take any of this to mean that I am beyond being charmed. I am in fact, easier to charm than most. Tell me a pun. Sing me something. Say I have nice hair. BAM! I am yours.

However. There is something I have observed in chat up situations which I really don’t like. There is often a moment where one of the party demands submission.

Not outright – I don’t frequent that kind of establishment – but the moment where the person you are talking to does one of the following, with a view to finally go in for the kill:

i. Tells a story in which they are the hero, and which demands immediate awe and praise.

And then, I TOTALLY SAVED HER LIFE!!!

ii. Relates a time when they got an award/were asked to perform with Kanye West/ were immortalised by Titian/ bought an art gallery or yacht for a person in need.

iii. Lets you know, in no uncertain terms, EXACTLY HOW MUCH THEY EARN. Or, if you are unfortunate enough to mix with extraordinarily wealthy Londoners, the zone, postcode and house type (‘a gorgeous little detatched townhouse) of the building lucky enough to accommodate their groaning hoard of gold.

iv. See above, but with personal endowment, physical strength, automobile, or recently promoted-to position.

Don’t get me wrong – personal details are all very well, but I have – more than once- been serenaded from the proverbial balcony of a cocktail party with the opening line: ‘Well of course, I earn (insert obscene sum)’.

Perhaps I simply look like a gold digger.

Other hilarious opening gambits include:

v.Insulting other women, or women as a gender. HOT. I wonder why you’re still single.

vi. Depending on where I am, insulting men as a gender. Also, hot. Wow. I’m not even a man. WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT?

vii.Insulting me. No, you read that right. Lots of men (I think perhaps primarily men who read that charming novella ‘The Game’ which is essentially a tome enabling men to pressure women into sex by reducing their self esteem) think that insulting me is a sure fire way to get me home. Whatever happened to the cliched formula of compliments? Who banned those?

viii. Charming me with tales of past violence. Fights are seductive only in a very limited set of circumstances. This probably isn’t one of those.

ix. Making sure I am aware that yes, I might be intelligent, and maybe even funny, but that you are so, so, so much cleverer than me, and probably funnier. You are almost undoubtedly smarter than me, but it would help ever so much if I confirmed it for you, verbally, by putting myself down.

Because nobody wants a clever girl, amiright? They are so boring, and high maintenance, because they might just know what they want. They might respect themselves, read around the subject of self, and understand the machinations of the world in a way that allows them to navigate it without a guiding hand. (Ironically, none of those particularly apply to me.)

Granted, this may be something to do with my most vocal (and only) fanbase being middle aged men, whom, I suppose, do want to prove that the extra twenty years they are sporting have been well spent. All credit to them, and their multiple promotions, successes on the battlefield and witty repartee.

Harsh? I probably am being. Certainly, my looks are not sufficiently Hellenic to be this choosy (a fact once pointed out to me as a chatup line.

However, lets be clear. Even if I am not any of these, people (women? that’s a can of worms) as a whole are allowed to be clever, sexy, funny, independent, and happy, and maintain their desirability.

And certainly, them being so is not a threat to anyone else’s desirability. Its ok to have a partner who is a better cook, a more efficient shopper, a peerless typist. I would like my ideal dates to be brilliant at everything, and I would be happy for them. (Hence, my current incredible luck, having found someone superlative in all things.)

Most of all, though, I would want them to have the confidence to celebrate me as I am, and themselves as they are, without either of us having to come out the worse.

And on that note, the indignation is over, the high horse put out to pasture, and I am going to clean the kitchen, because it looks as if I have bombed it with flour.

Cabbages and Kings (and raw garlic)

Your eyes do not deceive you:

I am so tired I can barely see, and simply refuse to believe that there are four more days before I find two seats together on the train, curl into a ball for four hours, and unfold myself in Edinburgh, where I am assured the weather outside really is frightful.

In the interim, I have been doing many, many things.

Sneaky crafts, involving vast amounts of shredded paper, 14ft of silk ribbon, ample cursing and craft glue.

And sweet lord have I been eating.

Primarily, I have been eating a lot of salad.

Now, I despise lettuce, because it tastes like nothing at all.Cabbage, however, is delicious and fantastical and actually tastes of food.

 

This is Chinese cabbage. Mine was not.

 

I dressed it in all the ways possible, from ”Chinese” (5 spice, lime juice, honey, soy sauce, salt, red chilli flakes, garlic, FYI) to ”Italian” (garlic, mixed herbs, balsamic vinegar, olive oil, salt, pepper). Both, I would mix with cucumber and sometimes really sweet tiny tomatoes. And then…QUORN.

I know, I know. Quorn is weird, end-times, clinical food, designed by people without souls.

 

Remain unconvinced. Fine. I admit, freely, that Quorn FAKE HAM is weird, as is all of the true faux meat things. However. Quorn fillets microwave in three minutes. They are high protein, and very low fat, and guess what, fellas – they taste OF NOTHING.

Now, for many people, tastelessness is a terrible thing. For those of us over invested in seasoning, however, it is a blessing. You can make quorn taste like amazing stir fry, or amazing Italian ‘chicken’ if you will, and it takes less time than it takes most people to change outfits, hail a taxi, or cancel a subscription to  FHM.

In short, it is delicious and healthy. It also frees up calorific space, if you will pardon the women’s magazine vocabulary, for things like Jamie Oliver’s Xmas waffles.

 

 

They live here.

I was in fact made these waffles, as if the world was not luxurious enough, by my GF’s cousins. They were the most wonderful hostesses, in a weekend which involved Christmas tree purchasing, prosecco, and mythical quantities of delicious food.

Prior to that, however, I went to the national theatre to see ‘Juno and the Paycock’. I enjoyed it immensely, even more so, perhaps, for only seeing the first half.

It is an incredibly messy, lumpy play, peppered with formal set pieces. The space was perhaps too large – the cast were forced to stride across their ‘meagre flat’ as if it were a ballroom.

The acoustics contorted the accents, somehow slowing down the delivery. However, it was rather wonderful, viciously funny, and absolutely beautiful.

There was then an emergency pudding wrapping summit meeting in the Southbank Centre, a train with 1000 children on it, and all sorts of smug about spending an entire day striding around London in heels.

That, and I have advance news of the best Christmas present ever. As we speak, I am looking out my opera gloves.

So, until next time, I leave you, where we ought all always to be, with the Walrus and the Carpenter:

It is taken from my all time favourite dramatisation of the Alice stories. A truly wonderful TV version, which I still treasure on VHS.

The it visually intriguing, and suitably trippy. This is what it is like inside my head: