OR
‘Letters to fuckwits’

Mild-mannered commuter. Patient shopper. Mousey Nine-to-fiver. Silent Queuer. Sweet-natured colleague. Personable acquaintance. Docile pavement-user.

Yes, yes, I have you fooled. You think I’m that - you think I am, and the cast-down eyes and meek stride convince you that you’re right. You think I mean you no harm; but sadly, I do. I mean you very much harm indeed.

At least, I think that’s what the rest of the world can see.

Of course, anyone who’s walked with me, worked with me, lived with me knows about my flashes of homicidal rage. They’re momentary, magnificent, and of course, completely and utterly rational - in that it’s clear that they’re very annoying, completely in the wrong, and possibly deserve to be sent next-day delivery to Siberia. And then exploded with a straw like Ribena cartons.

See, I never actually argue with them or say anything, or even “tut” (or any some such significant action) at all.

But I think such detailed, vicious, verbose diatribes against them - boy, I tell you, if any of these people with the ability to turn their headphones up so high you can hear a loud clear tch-tch-tch-tch-tch-tch-tch from the other end of the carriage can also read minds, then gosh they’re going to be sorry they wake up in the morning.

I wonder if someday I’m going to snap - and actually open my mouth and berate the litter-droppers, social-morons, slow-walking, volume-cocks that seem to populate my world…

And, I have to say, who seem to populate it particularly when I’ve had a crappy day (or may plausibly have the Ladytensions).

Still. They never get said, they never have been said, they never will be said.

I just wanted to let rip here, instead - let’s face it, if your blog isn’t your duvet, and you can’t let something go underneath it and trap some people’s heads under there to appreciate it, what is the true point of the medium?

To the lady at Brighton station who wandered past the single queue that fed the cash machines (some five people long) stood directly behind someone using one of the machines, and then leapt to it once they left…

God LORD, woman. This is just the Way that we DO it! This is way we queue! We’re British! I mean come on - how long have you lived in this country? About 55 years, right? Because by the looks of you, you’re about 55.

Oh - you’re 40? Oh gosh I AM sorry. But come now. Surely you’ve noticed that this is the way people queue in a civilised society. For a multiple outlet facility, you form ONE queue, if you can imagine - No, hang on, you don’t NEED to, because there’s one RIGHT HERE, which you JUST WALKED PAST…

Well, you get the idea.

Then of course there were the large number of ridiculously dressed first-year students walking at blimey-my-legs-are-combat-pant-strapped-together-aren’t-I-kewl? pace.

And with one of them shouting ‘JERMYMAR!’ in my ear as I overtook them, and still shouting ‘JERMYMAR!’ two minutes later when I caught up to Jemima - with green hair, carefully structured ‘non-caring layered look’ (made in China, only £30.00 from Top Shop) and faux-rock chick chic, that screamed ‘I developed a personality only last week’ almost as loudly as the anti-war badges that speckled her £150 gift-from-daddy-bag - it was only someone’s hand pulling my arm into a god-we’re-almost-thirty-aren’t-we shop (to buy an extension lead and some of those coat hooks that fit neatly over doors, yes) that stopped me sarcasming

Hey! R tard! Two things! Well three, if you count that you’re an idiot. But

b) You try too hard, stop it. And
c) Your dumbfuck mate’s been yelling at you for five minutes.

I don’t know if will ever say any of these things out loud. Ever ever ever.

Partly because they’re really quite abrasive and might upset someone, some of them; partly because I clearly enjoy saying them in my head so much; and mainly because I’m a gigantic pussy who would clearly never say anything this rude to anyone.

No no, if I pull a hissy fit; because of bad days, idiots, circumstances, hormones - it’s going to be at my friends, or my beloved.

Obv.

The rest of the world may well think I’m an angel. Because outwardly, I’m really surprisingly calm, when you take into account that my universe is clearly filled with the most irritating people it is possible to imagine.

I may write some more letters to fuckwits. It’s somewhat theraputic…

Dear man-with-a-first-class-season-ticket.

For the Love of Kinnock, what the HELL is wrong with you?

I mean…

Yes. Sliming Herbs.

For all your sliming needs.

*Shudders*

Not tempted? Oh come on, it’s only £3.95…

For £3.95 you can feel free to slime.
See that silhouettey lady? She Slimy.
Etc.

I know everyone’s probably already seen this, about 9 years ago or something but I was interested in this simple Gender Genie based on masculine/feminine keywords.

I just think it’s interesting - I put about 12 example posts into the thing, and it said that half of them were most likely written by a man, and half of them were most likely written by a woman. How terribly androgenous.

Even then, when it said ‘male’ or ‘female’, the numbers of male/female indicator words were always very close. So it would be 455 male signifiers to 460 female. Things like that. But occasionally it would swing right out one way or the other.

I wonder if everyone is the same - a mixture of male and female styles of writing, or whether some of us big-tittied leg-waxers have the power and the privilage of being able to talk like a man! Oooh!

Hm. Now have put it that way, I wonder whether it’s really something to be proud of.
Or whether I was proud of it in the first place.

But I do wonder - how would my favourite bloggers fare?
Does the mixture of how male or female their writing is make me like people’s writing more or less?
On a random sample on 10 posts, how do people fare in general?
Do they ‘write like their gender’?
Does it actually MEAN anything at all?

And if I put THIS post through the Gender Genie, will it be female or male?
(Answer? Male, apparently. Now, would that result stay the same if I copied the words ‘periods’, ‘babies’, ‘breasts’ and ’shopping’ several dozen times between here and the end of the post?)

‘periods’, ‘babies’, ‘breasts’ and ’shopping’ ‘periods’, ‘babies’, ‘breasts’ ’shopping’ ‘periods’, ‘babies’, ‘breasts’ and ’shopping’ ‘periods’, ‘babies’, ‘breasts’ and ’shopping’ ‘periods’, ‘babies’, ‘breasts’ ’shopping’ ‘periods’, ‘babies’, ‘breasts’ ’shopping’ ‘periods’, ‘babies’, ‘breasts’ and ’shopping’ ‘periods’, ‘babies’, ‘breasts’ and ’shopping’ ‘periods’, ‘babies’, ‘breasts’ ’shopping’ ‘periods’, ‘babies’, ‘breasts’ and ’shopping’ ‘oh why am I not married yet?’

(Oh, I have just tried it, and it was STILL more likely to be written by a man.)
(Perv)

Oh just go and try it.

For all those people who said it would be ok - having my legs waxed - you were right. Having my legs waxed was fine.

For all of you who wondered whether you might have it done, because you quite fancied it, you should. You should have your legs waxed.

Having your legs waxed hurts like having plasters ripped off. Hurty plasters, yes, especially when they get near the ankle, near the bone, but otherwise you’ll be fine. Find someone who’ll do it fast, and do it well, and you never regret it. The having of your legs waxed, I mean.

So that’s what happened. I walked in and announced that I, Anna Pickard, had come to have my legs waxed.

I didn’t say it like that, of course, I would have sounded like a dick.

I kind of meeped “annafourfortylegs?” at the swarthy man behind the nail bar, and was swiftly sent downstairs to The Torture Chamber of The Nice If Slightly Orange Ladies. The Den of No Shame.

To have my legs waxed.

“I’ll leave you to take your jeans off” Chirruped the pretty young woman in the sterile looking room “Half leg is it my name’s astah dunt worry you’ll be fine your friend said she’d wait up stairs it was half leg wunt it not whole leg?” she twittered, not seeming to leave the room so I could remove anything, so I removed them all the same. “I like your mate she’s nice int she she’s like another woman who comes in I like her as well we talk about men god I could talk about men all day, it was half leg, yeah? Well, you’ll need to hitch up your top to be on the safe side I throw wax everywhere me.”

“Half leg!”

“Just pop up on the table and relax you’ll be fine it’s like I was saying to someone earlier today havin your legs waxed is as easy as pullin off plasters easier maybe so it’s nothing to worry about because I’m very fast, you know, very fast, and it’ll be over before you know it, legs waxed, innit!”

And, to be fair, by this point, she had already started.

In fact, she was maybe halfway through the first leg, and the incessant talking washing over me to the point where I was preoccupied, anaesthatised to the shrep shrep shrep of the strips against my leg. The leg that she was waxing. The waxing of the leg that had turned out to be, if not pleasant, then certainly not torturous.

 
 
 

 
Of course, I would be lying if I said I wasn’t a little surprised when she suddenly started ripping out my pubic hair.

 
If you could just tip your leg this way? [SHREP! SHREP! SHREP!] And just a little more that way. [SHREPPP!]

I think absent thoughts about holidays and books and pubs and vodka tonics and

And now if you just turn it out that way a little that’s great, and

And I wonder whether we have enough eggs in the fridge for an omelette and good GOD what IS she doing down there? Is that wax? Yes! Yes it is, does that mean she’s going to ohfuckingHELL! THAT’S NOT MY LOWER LEG! Should I say something? Does she KNOW that’s not my lower leg? Yes, well, I’m guessing she does, I mean, you have to have some kind of medical training to WAAAH! SERIOUSLY! Fucking WAH, Motherfucker!

I’m slightly in shock. I’m not saying anything, because I’m slightly in shock. I think it’s possibly quite natural to be in shock when someone is - OH FOR THE LOVE OF - well you get the idea.

My main worry is that there is, quite clearly, whether I want this or not, nothing that anyone can do about this now, apart from God, Elton John’s scalpologist, or a magical maker of miracle merkins.

If I say stop, then what am I going to be left with?
Something that looks like a cat who’s just had an operation.
I stop her before she gets too far.

“Are you alright? Not in pain, are ya?”

Nonono, I say. Not pain.

Shock, maybe…

A few minutes of conversation and clearly crossed-wiry-hairs pass.

“Oh, right. Now yes, actually, maybe i was thinking of my five o’clock.”

All water under the bridge, I say. All wax under the panty, water under the bridge.

Let’s move on.

We shall never speak of this again.

____________________________________________

And Yes, yes, I know, whatever: TMI.

Well, one person’s Too Much Information is another woman’s TLPH, that’s what I say.

[Also, if you are one of my parents; just a warning - you might want to stop reading about 27 paragraphs ago. Cheers]

Today, let the word ring forth, I am having legs waxed for the first time.

Partly because my sensitive skin can’t take the razors any more, and partly because I am going on a big holiday in a few number of weeks and I want a test run, and partly because I am having a year of doing things I think I probably should have got round to years ago, and partly because when I asked about epilators here on the site my comment box became a howling hall of ‘NOoooooo!‘. So I am having my legs waxed today.

I am not scared. wellI am scared, but not of the pain. Pain is not a not a problem.

I’m just scared of beauticians.

To this end, I managed to find a waxing companion, a master of the waxual arts, and am going to get waxed today with this kind friend (and also, of course, blogger).

The end of last week…

She: ‘So. what do you want done? I need to know just so I can book. What do you want done?’

Me: ‘Oh right, yes. My legs, please. I would like my legs done. I would like them Waxed.’

I feel impressively girly. This is the kind of thing that women say when they are talking with other women about women things.

She: ‘Half leg, whole leg or three quarter leg?’

Me: ‘Sorry, what?’

It’s all sounding like the counter at KFC. You think you’ve made your decision, and all of a sudden you reach the spotty teenager at the front and it’s choices, choices, choices. Before I panic and ask for a Bargain Family Bucket, she clarifies. Sorry, ‘clarifies’.

She: ‘How much of your leg? Just up to the knee, all the way up to your bottom, or somewhere inbetween?’

‘What? Somewhere inbetween my bottom?’

She: ‘Well, they also do that, yes, but let’s stick with the leg thing for now…’

I am confused. I have been part of the hair-removal community for a quite a long time and apart from a brief and regrettable curious four minutes in my mid-teens that led to shaving rash somewhere that shall not be mentioned by name on this ladylike organ - (save for admitting that I chose the term ‘ladylike organ’ somewhat deliberately). And a similar if less itchy experimental phase of toe shaving, which has led to low level sandal-shame ever since.

Me: ‘Just the bottom, I think.’

She: ‘Well, if you’re sure…’

Me: ‘Oh no, hang on, the Bottom Half of my Leg. This is what I mean. Not my bottom. The bottom half of my leg. They are the normal bit that gets ‘done’, aren’t they? Should I also get the other half of my legs done, do you think? Is that what proper women DO? I have only ever worried about hirsute claves, not the other bits. Not the top half, or my knees. Who has hairy knees? Are hairy thighs a big problem for women? Really?’

She: ‘They can be. Sometimes the backs of the thighs can be surprisingly hairy.’

I sit and worry for a few minutes. I go to the bathroom and try and get a good angle on the back of my thighs. I pull several muscles in my waist, and almost fall over the toilet. Having left my own mirror in my handbag, I stop short of standing on a sink and getting a good view on the large mirror in the bathroom. It is a communal washroom after all.

Eventually, I feel forced to admit that looking at the back of my thighs is not as easy as you might have thought. Failing, I phone my beloved. He reassures me that the backs of my thighs are not gorilla-esque, or not so much that he has noticed. He hasn’t ever glanced the back of my thighs and thought ‘my, that could do with combing’, at any rate. This is good news.

I come back to find the conversation labelled ‘girl’ flashing on my screen.

She: ‘Sorry, did you want a bikini as well?’

Me: ‘As in removal of intimate hair rather than item of clothing?’

‘Yes’

Me: ‘No.’

She: ‘Sure? It’s…’

Me: ‘It’s my first time, poppet. I know I said I wasn’t afraid of the pain… But let’s not take the piss, shall we?’

At this point, she tries to convince me of the merits of waxing lady bits.

And, in fact, other bits (a conversion-attempt that shall not under any circumstances, please note, be continued by Anyone in the comment box. I am blushing enough writing this in the first place, I will have no truck with any below-the-belt box-plucking comment boxers, thank you very much. Especially not from men who want to tell the world how much they enjoy a bit of punani remeniscent of pre-pubescence - not noticing that no one here cares much for what they have to say or, in fact, them).

She trieds to convince me. It is a long and thorough argument that encompasses underwear, sensation, sensuality, sensationalist gossip, and issues closely related to the hairy back-of-thigh issues in a way that I can’t go into myself without coughing and mumbling ‘Yeswellyougettheidea’.

[NB: I emailed this to my correspondent, to check whether this was all fine in terms of accuracy and representation. I thought I had done well, representing her as worldly and myself as rather green, and even prided myself on preserving everyone's dignity and reputation by managing to miss out the bit where she'd extolled the virtues of arse-waxing. She sent a quick note back saying it was all fine apart from the fact that I'd 'left out the bit about arse-waxing'.

Now, clearly I only have to whisper 'arse-wax' and I want a large crack to appear from below and swallow me up whol, so please let us not ever speak of this again]

So, at length and with passion, she tried her very ladyest to convince me of the efficacy and good sense of the ripping of hair from intimate places.

And of course failed miserably.

It’s ankles to knees for me, my friends. I’m brave. Not That brave.

The live experience I occasionally try to claim as my first gig:
The Violent Femmes

My actual first gig:
Sting.

I have a private rule about not going into cheap CD shops. Ever.

Not because I believe them to be intrinsically bad, and evil and/or wrong, but instead because they are dangerous places for me, personally, to be in - so I make sure I never, ever go in them, apart from when I have a very necassary specific purchase to make or it is the day after payday. Unfortunately yesterday was both.

I went in because I’d heard a Violent Femmes song on the radio and, not knowing where or when I mislaid my Violent Femmes LP, Cassette or CD, I decided I would go and buy another one.

So off we popped to Fop, our friendly local cut-price CDery.

On arrival, I discovered that they didn’t have the album I wanted, but only a ‘remastered, enlarged 3-CD anniversary special!’, whihc as well as the plain and simple 10-track album I wanted, featured 32 other tracks of demos and live songs, absolutely none of which I wanted, nor probably would ever listen to.

But I mainly didn’t buy it because, at £15, I decided that it was too expensive. The one thing I went there to buy (please take note) was Too Expensive at £15.

So I put it back down, and spent £48 on stuff that it had never before (or since, sadly) crossed my mind to listen to before that moment.

Stupid, stupid, stupid. That’s me banned from cheap CDeries for the next few months, then. And bra shops too, actually. And also Boots.

Bad Anna. BAD.

God, I’m hungover.

Hungover, tired, and have the first verse of a very, very bad song going through my head.

I have not actually seen the ‘first’ three Star Wars movies - (by which I mean the ones that were made most recently but were, apparently, the preludes to the ones made ages ago with that bloke with his head in the bucket and the little bug-eyed blond in pyjamas who couldn’t act).

I’ve seen the first two of the actually-first three Star Wars movies (by which I mean the ones mentioned above that were made first but consecutively ‘plot’-wise set later), and will admit to liking the middle one with the green Muppet (not Kermit) the most, or at least a large amount more than I enjoyed the first one (fourth one?) with the swingtop bin and Carrie Fisher on clearly far too many drugs.

Though to be honest, I wasn’t that hot on any of them - obviously, or I would have bothered to watch the third one. With the evil teddybears in.

I realise, of course, accusations could be levelled (dear reader) of my intentionally trying to put the wind up geeks, but come now - would I do that?! *Flutters eyelashes*

Oooh, here’s a fun game!…

You know, a few years ago, I saw an artwork by a woman who simply wrote down the history of the world as she remembered it, with only the bits she remembered included, and no reference to anything else allowed. I thought this was a good idea. I will try and tell the story of the Star Wars films I HAVE seen, from memory, bearing in mind I’ve only seen them once about 12 years ago.

And have an appalling memory

THE FIRST TWO FILMS OF THE STAR WARS TRILOGY AS I REMEMBER THEM

So. There’s a bug-eyed blonde kid in the desert, and he’s hanging out in his crib with his friend, a gay robot.

Suddenly - a swingtop bin appears! He opens his mouth, and spewing forth comes an image of Carrie Fisher, bending over. The blonde kid watches as Carrie Fisher bends over, over, and over again. She has clearly taken too many drugs.

The robots go walking through the desert and are shot at by small angry creatures that may (or may not) be Orks. They are kidnapped into slavery, I think. At some point, Indiana Jones appears with a large retarded bear, and together they pick up the bug-eyed bad-actor-boy, the swingtop bin and the gay robot, and save Carrie Fisher, who has taken too many drugs.

At some point during this, we are introduced to the asthmatic man with his head in a bucket with Issues.

His name is Darth Vader, and he is angry with the world to the point that he’s never managed to quite move out of his goth-phase. He can kill people by waving at them.

Darth is Luke’s father. Luke is the bug-eyed kid in pyjamas who can’t act. It’s all coming back to me now, apart from the script, luckily, because it’s terrible.

There is a green Muppet who talks just like Frank Oz and teaches Luke to use ‘the Force’ which is basically some kind of telekinetic parlour trick. He also teaches Luke to throw an apple in the air and cut it into slices. I think. Or that was the opening titles of classic eighties cartoon Dogtanian. Whatever. Similar things.

Later, Carrie Fisher in a bikini gets molested by a large pile of mucus, and Indiana Jones is dropped into concrete - a condition which I am to understand he makes a full recovery from later, possibly with the help of some teddy bears who may or may not be related to his pet (mentioned previously).

Luke’s asthma-dad with the bucketface and Issues gets very cross, and chops something off Luke - I’m thinking a hand. Whether this is punishment meted out for the not-acting-good thing I may never know.

Some other stuff happens.

THE END

I may do that more often. Films from memory. It should be a ‘thing’.

Anyway, that was never going to be the point of this post. The point of this post was going to be the fact that I spent an enormous amount of last week playing Lego Star Wars on the PS2 - it’s based on the other (most recent) three movies that I haven’t seen at all, rather than the ones detailed above that I’ve clearly spent a lot of time and energy focussing on.

My point was going to be just that it was a good game, albeit one for 3 years old and up, which is frankly around my level of game. It’s lots of running around and collecting things.
It is very good, and apparently based very closely on the movies, although I clearly wouldn’t know.

Although the game itself is quite short, there is much fun to be had in ‘freeplay’ mode, in which you get to choose to be any character you like, also based exactly on all the characters in the film.

I particularly like the cute little goth with the red face and the two-ended glowstick. Oh, and the funny-looking rabbit they pick up on ‘Naboooooo’ (which is a planet).

Anyway, that was what this post was going to say, before I got led off describing films from memory, which has frankly amused me so much that there isn’t any more room for anything else.

Now I’m trying to think of other films I can describe from memory.

Maybe the Godfather Trilogy…

THE GODFATHER TRILOGY AS I REMEMBER IT

Charlton Heston has eaten all the pies. It is the day of his daughter’s wedding and lots of swarthy men in dark suits are wandering around a garden looking like mobsters. It turns out they’re mobsters.

In his private offices, Charlton Heston says - Oh no, hang on, it’s not Charlton Heston at all. It’s Marlon Brando. The ‘pies’ part still stands, though.

Marlon Brando, in his private offices, says ‘You come to my daughter’s wedding…’ This may possibly be the only line of dialogue in the whole film. It’s certainly the only one I can remember.

And he doesn’t actually say ‘You come to my daughter’s wedding’, he says ‘CHOOF NUFFUCK LUMP NORFOLK WUFFWUFF’, and continues to talk like that for the remaining 47 hours he appears onscreen. This is called Acting.

A man with a very tight perm gets shot…

Nothing cheers me so much as the random and unexpected use of ‘words from down the back of the English-language-sofa’ first thing on a Monday morning.

I sat down at my desk, turned on my computer, logged on to my unsurprising homepage and was greeted by a story rolling across the breaking news ticker with the headline

I was uppity, bumptious - Blunkett

Never mind what the rest of the story was, it wasn’t that thrilling (see?) but it was quite the most English, cute little headline I could ever hope to read at that dreadful hour of the day. Also, I think that Uppity Bumptious might be a small village in Norfolk. I could be wrong.

I started thinking about my train ride. ‘I was jiggly, grumpsome - Pickard‘. ‘I was skittish, narky - Anna, this morning‘.

Then later, during a completely unrelated search for an amusing word for underwear, I happened upon this fitting wikipedia article on inherently funny words. It contains such magnificently po-faced sentences as

“An old Internet phenomenon involved taking lines from the Star Wars movies and replacing one word from the line with the word “pants”, with comedic effect. [6] This suggests that “pants” may be an inherently funny word.”

And frankly, since it’s very utterance in the sentence above had me sniggering for several minutes, I have to admit they’re right.

also on the word duck. Although I’m not sure that I agree it works with *every* word beginning with k, as suggested several times in the thing. But of course come words are inherently funny.

And I think - for me anyway, bumptious is one.

As is ‘Norks’.

And ‘Flank’.

In fact, all day, since that discovery, I have been thinking really quite hard trying to think of words that are, in themselves, funny.

And I can’t. I’m stuck. Nothing, yet, is overriding the small hamlet of Uppity Bumptious. Or, in fact, the word ‘Noodles’.

And yet Pants shall rise above them all.

Hee.

In the book I am currently reading, it is mentioned in passing that, in the brain, it is the ventromedial prefrontal cortex that plays a large part in decision-making. Yes, now you mention it, it IS a very clever book, but pointing that out wasn’t the reason for the post.
Honest.

The ventromedial prefrontal cortex part of the brain sits, word is, just behind the nose.

Suddenly, everything is explained.
All those unanswered questions are answered now.

I am incapable of making decisions …

… Because I have a big nose.

It all makes sense. It is entirely logical.

The choices to be made take a much longer time getting to the ventromedial prefrontal cortex because there is so much nose work through on the way; the layer between the actual decision making process and the rest of life is very thick; and the amount of snot and gristle in has to fight through on the way out means it takes so long, the next decision has begun to fight its way in, a third decision altogether has begun the processing process in the ventromedial prefrontal cortex itself, and everything gets very muddled - so the first decision has to be made again, and oh, it all gets very confusing.

So there we are. It’s not me being rubbish, it’s a physiological defect.

And if anyone wants me to be better at making decisions, I either need to have a nose reduction or have my brain turned around.

And while there are decisions, big and small, that constantly need to be taken, I’m unwilling to undergo plastic surgery (because I’ve grown accustomed to my face), and I’m not sure whether I want that to go down the brain-reversal-surgery route, because I haven’t got that many holiday days left this year.

I can’t decide.
(Big nose).

Suddenly late on a Thursday night, the incredible news is broken to me that in The List (I don’t know WHAT this list is exactly, though I think it might be composed by some people who work in marketing or something) my blog is listed as one of the UK’s most influential blogs of all the blogs in blogland!!!

This is excellent news!

I am influential!

I think quickly. I certainly do not FEEL influential. I cannot influence Jimmy the Freelancer on the desk next door to pick me up a sausage sandwich (while he is in the canteen anyway!).
I cannot influence the trains to be on time, or the price of nice cheese to substantially reduce.

Thinking more, I am deluged by memories of situations in which I am probably the least influential person I have ever met. And even if I did meet me, that would be quite an influential type thing to do, meaning that I made the me I met even less influential than the me I already am.

I’m not entirely sure I could be less influential if I tried.

When I stand in a shop, I cannot influence the sales assistants into understanding that ‘No, I’m fine thanks’ means ‘Oh Please piss off: You even make this clothes rail look fat, let alone the trousers I am about to pick up, please PLEASE just piss off, will you?‘.

I can’t influence my fringe to lie flat. I can’t influence bolognese sauce not to drop on my vest. I’m not sure I should count among any kind of list of influential…

But this isn’t about me, is it? This is, apparenly, about my blog. It is The Blog, that is influential. That is what I hadn’t thought through.

So all I need to do, is write some words on the blog. Maybe in big letters, though for now, caps and bold will have to do, so I CAN, instead of simply (as I HAVE previously) for A SAUSAGE SANDWICH PLEASE, I simply show Jimmy something on my screen, ‘accidentally’ exposing him to this page for a matter of split seconds, and lo! I will have influenced myself into sweet sausage-Shangri La.

Instead of simply grumping that the TRAIN isn’t running ON TIME, I simply have to wave my laptop bag vaguely in the direction of the driver’s cab, and lo! Magically we will pull into my desired station IMMEDIATELY.

If, dealing with PISSing annoying sales assistants OF Female (v thin) bent, I just need to flap my laptop lid in their general direction, and they will magically disappear.

It is wonderful news.

I never realised the benefits of being influential, the feeling of being influential, or, in fact, that such a minutea-centred site could be considered ‘influential’ by anyone of marketing bent, or in fact anyone at all, ever.

Hell, guys; this is front page news indeed - when we talk about the fact We Ate a Cheese Sandwich for lunch today, People Listen.

THAT’s how influential we are.

ffs.

[Oh, and of course initial style stolen from Another Influential Blogger. Though one further down on the list. I don't think you can steal from people above you on the list. I think you get kneecapped by the Technorstasi.]

I don’t really like lists.

Hello Pierre.

I don’t know who you are in the slightest. Just as you didn’t know, you couldn’t have known, that when you sent me something from my Amazon wishlist thing for no reason, the days I recieved it in were bit lonely, and a bit sad, and moping, but mainly very stressful, and busy, and long days. Or that your present would cheer me up so much.

But it did. So thank you.

I don’t know your email address, but I wanted to say how lovely it was of you to do that.

This happens every now and again - and this goes for all the other people who have ever done something ridiculously lovely for someone they don’t know at all.

Because sometimes I give in to the rest of the world and start to think, like them, that people are not wonderful. But they are. They’re lovely.

(And you know, it’s funny I should say that, because it was a toss up whether to post this or a long and ludicrously sweary rant about how it’s just not as ok for men to toilet themselves liberally in the street as they seem to think it is. Which wasn’t, I have to say, as hippyish or pro-human)

Anyway. Thank you. La CD (you can’t tell, but I’m pronouncing the letters ‘C’ and ‘D’ in a VERY French way)(also I don’t know if CD is le or la, but I’m guessing it’s feminine because it’s got a big hole in the middle) de Swingle Singers c’est tres, tres magnifique. Et aussi lovely.

Regards etc
anna

No, not you, the man on my train this morning.

The man sitting opposite me on the train this morning was an idiot, which I found very distracting, and quite put me off my book.

He was an idiot in several ways (believe me, most people are idiots to me at the time in the morning; am traditionally what you would call a ‘notmorningperson’) but the main way he was an idiot was in his choice of headwear.

On the very top of his round, shiny head, he wore his sunglasses.

Please bear in mind that (as you will read in the post below), when we got on the train this morning, it was dark (which is, I’m not sure if I remembered to mention below, both Bad, and also Wrong).

When he got off the train, it was also dark.

There was no point in the near future, as far as I could see, when it was going to be the right time to pull the sunglasses onto his face. Sorry, I should probably insert some extra words if I want to properly recreate my thought train at that massively grumpsome hour of the morning…

In fact, the more I examined him, the more I began to doubt that he had EVER pulled his idiot glasses onto his big idiot face.

Why might I think that?

Ah, no less than a layer of dust, settled gently on the lenses. Those glasses hadn’t moved. Possibly EVER.

If he moved them, there would be two clear, bright, white voids in the middle of his skull-tan.

In fact, they have probably been there so long that all that remains underneath are two small shade-shaped areas of thin, soft skin, where the body has wizened away for lack of direct sunlight and fresh air. The glasses are probably only there as armour to stop people who might want to poke into his head and kill him (what with him being an idiot).

He is now king of the bedarkglassed fools of Southern England. Though admittedly he is only a shade (HA!) ahead of the twig-like girls who sit on a post-dusk train, going through tunnels and shouting into mobile phones, wearing fake Gucci glasses twice the size of their face - the kind even Elton would wince at - because they mistakenly believe that people will be fooled into thinking they might be a celebrity. Look, you’re clearly not Nicole Ritchie, sweetheart; you’re riding the First Capital Connect to East Croydon - give over.

I’m not sure if I’ve mentioned this before, but not only am I a Notmorningperson: once I have been forced to be a Notmorningperson once in a day, I carry on determinedly being a Notmorningperson till bedtime.

I’d apologise for that fact, but I’m too notmorningperson right now to do so.
Gr.

Idiots, I tell you. They’re all idiots.
Not you, though. You’re alright.

I meant Them.

< Waves hand around, vaguely >