What Is The Bechdel Test (And Why Should I Care)

I’m prostrate on the sofa watching Parks and Recreation back to back and cursing my inability to deal with hangovers.

‘The time really got away from me,’ I explain plaintively, ‘one minute it was 7pm, then 10, then boom, 4 in the morning.’

‘What did you guys get up to?’ asks Captain Tact.

‘Chatting, mostly.’

We also drank a bottle of amaretto and danced around the living room at length, singing at the tops of our voices - but I’m not ready to think about that yet.

‘What about?’

‘Social work, politics, the impact of social media on young people growing up, The Rapture’s new album...’

‘Congratulations, your conversation passed the Bechdel test.’

The Bechdel test, for those who have not come across it, is used to identify gender bias in films, telly and so on.

The test is simply to ask ‘do two or more women have a proper onscreen conversation about something other than a man?’

If the answer is yes, the show passes. Try it yourself - although 2013 arguably did better than previous years, a disconcerting amount of popular media fails.

Having said that, almost nobody in the media is representative of normal every day conversations, irrespective of gender. Film and TV characters are good or bad; intelligent or attractive. Sometimes there’s the twist that someone good was merely pretending to be horrible, or someone beautiful was actually quite intelligent, but by and large fictional characters are broadly drawn. 

I assume the reason for this is that writers don’t deal in the everyday – or not the everyday as it actually is. Fiction is supposed to provide an escape into another world, either one close to ours but better, or like ours but awful so we come out the other end going ‘golly gee, I’m sure glad I don’t live in the popular Liam Neeson film Taken!’

Either way the fictional world is not like your actual life, because why the hell would you watch that? You’re already living real life. Why would you want to watch average looking people with average real life jobs, talking about how their kids are getting on at school or cat pictures they’ve seen in the Metro? That isn’t an escape from reality, that’s rubbing it in your face.  We want a bit of excitement from our downtime, maybe romance and adventure - something to aspire to.

Whilst I absolutely agree TV and film are bad at showing realistic conversations between women, they’re often terrible at showing realistic conversations between anyone at all.  In fact, the level of unreality is so prevalent in terms of cast and content, it’s enough to make you wonder whether very beautiful people perhaps don’t have normal conversations.

Think about this. How often in your life do you see a human woman that looks like Beyonce, or Lucy Liu, or insert-other-beautiful-celebrity-of-your-choice-here?  Not often, unless you’re doing some Grade A stalking.  The beautiful ones exist in a bubble of others like them, people whose MO is to bewitch the world with their looks and do very little else (a theory supported by all episodes of 30 Rock featuring Jon Hamm).

Therefore, is it that much of stretch to suppose that the beautiful ones don’t have conversations about normal stuff? Maybe when female celebrities get drunk, they actually do spend the entire time talking about boys.  Sure, that sounds unlikely, but the tabloids would have a hard time finding ‘sources close to the star’ to reveal all her private relationship stuff if she spent her spare time bemoaning the lack of support given to Social Workers, or arguing about whether The Rapture’s new CD needs more cowbell like me and my normal looking friends. 

Perhaps TV and film consistently fails the Bechdel test because the women beautiful enough to be on TV also fail it.  After all, it can’t be because there is a perception held by the people making and paying for film and TV that audiences want to escape into a two dimensional world where women exist to talk about men, people of colour and the LGBT community exist to provide comic relief, and people with additional support needs do not exist at all.

Can it?

Autumn

After the overwhelming response to my last post (which was roundly ignored by everyone in the world) I have made the executive decision to continue ‘beauty blogging’ at least until the end of September on the grounds it might be useful for book 9 of the 12 Books project.

Today, dressing for autumn.

Here in Edinburgh, the average woman on the street (or on the streets involved in my work commute, at any rate) completed the autumn change-up on September 1st.

I am vaguely aware from the style supplement of the newspaper that fashion goes in seasons, which are loosely based around the weather. Some of you may remember the good old days when there were four quite disparate seasons, which were called spring, summer, autumn and winter. These days, of course, we only really have two and a bit seasons: autumn, winter, and a fortnight of sprimmer which is spread out on odd days here and there between April and August.

During sprimmer, a lot of women do their level best to pretend it’s nice enough outside to justify cotton dresses, sandals, and even a day or two of bare legs – although for the intervening days it’s necessary to supplement these items with cardigans, leggings, and mackintoshes. This is because sprimmer is unpredictable – a day will start off with blackened skies and thunder in the air, and by lunchtime it will have morphed into the most beautiful sunny day since records began.

Autumn is different. This is a season where you know what’s what: it might look nice outside but it definitely won’t be warm; if it looks like rain it’ll probably snow; and either way you’ll want waterproof shoes and an industrial strength brolly. Preferably adamantium.

As a result, the women I see on my daily walk to work are now clad in knee high boots, wool coats, scarves, jumpers and so on. They look fabulous.

Having said that, I haven’t conformed to the autumn change-up myself. Well I have a bit, but not really so as you’d notice. My main concession was to buy a pair of jeans that fit, because gale force winds are likely to be commonplace between now and next April so I won’t get away with wearing skirts every day.

What I tend to do in lieu of buying lots of new things when autumn hits is go to my bottom drawer and come back with another layer to add to the clothes I wear all year round. So for instance if I’m wearing one of my four dresses, I’ll have a long sleeved T-Shirt under there instead of a camisole. Either that or I’ll wear a cardigan over the top. Not both, though – that’s wintertime layering, baby.

The reasoning behind this is pretty exclusively financial, although there are elements of sizing tied in. Since I reached the dress size 16-18 mark (about...oh, 6 or 7 years ago) I have avoided buying new stuff where possible on the grounds I’m going to lose a bit of weight any day now, so there’s no point. My inner accountant claims this is canny, and the part of me that wants to indulge in retail therapy compensates by buying books I don’t have time to read; and occasionally updating the tech in my life under the guise of it being useful for freelance journalism purposes.

It’s probably just as well I’m conditioned not to update my wardrobe correctly, though, because have you seen what’s in for autumn? Neither had I until I looked it up just now, and I can tell you its high necked, 20s style dresses of the sort that only look reasonable on ladies the shape of Kiera Knightley; ponchos to give the impression you have no shape at all; and snakeskin.

Snakeskin? Really? What is this, 1972? Seemingly that rebirth of tastelessness originates somewhere in the vicinity of Jimmy Choo and Kate ‘nothing tastes as good as skinny feels’ Moss. Years of replacing food with Class A drugs will do strange things to a person’s perception of what looks good. I think I’ll take my chances with my 8 year old polo neck from the British Heart Foundation charity shop...

Anyone Still Here?

Hello, patient readers. Several apologies for neglecting this blog for an entire month, I am most embarrassed about it - especially after going down to one post a week, which ought to be pretty manageable.

The excuse, as you might expect, is the 12 Books in 12 Months blog, which I have been comparatively successful in updating every day should you be interested... there's stuff about the Fringe and Edinburgh Book Festivals, an interview with Mr Gum author Andy Stanton, and this weekend I'm embarking on THE GREAT KINDLE CHALLENGE where I read a book or two on the kindle to see if it can turn my head away from traditional print.

Other than that I have been bumbling away as usual, not quite managing to fit in all the things I want to do but getting around to some of them in a haphazard kind of way. Last week I actually made myself a timetable, which I mostly ignored, but getting so close to that level of organisation was pretty exciting. Today I hope to tidy up a bit and perhaps timetable next week in a more efficient manner. Said timetable will include scheduling a post on here, although I'm not sure what about yet - I will cross that bridge when I come to it.

Although having said that, maybe you can help. If you would like to read some more beauty blogging in September, let me know in the comments - but if you found that dull and crappy (the hair one wasn't very inspired, I know) also let me know that too. I will take your thoughts into consideration, then do whatever the hell I want.

In the meantime if you want to hear from me on a properly regular basis (yo), click on 12 Books in 12 Months. September's genre might be entertaining because it is humour, which is a wide ranging and frightening choice. I haven't started the book yet, but I'm thinking in terms of a novelisation of Confessions of a Jobless Graduate... Some of you may remember that once upon a time I was going to blog about that for The Skinny, but it never quite happened. I believe it's high time The Unusual Handyman was immortalised in fiction.

Ten Years of My Hair

I have had hair for the majority of my life, as is the case with many human beings. It's been very short, and very long, and several different colours, although never shaved off or leopard printed or dread-locked. I've mainly left it to its own devices over the past 18 months, but recently I've been thinking of dying it again. But what colour?

2001 - my 16th birthday - shoulder length; orange and black (NB it was never meant to be orange, the bright red faded out over summer)
2002 - at 17 it was long and auburn with black underneath
2003 - when I turned 18 I decided to grow out the colour, mainly because the condition was quite bad after four years of constant lightening and reddening. When I finished school a month before my birthday it was very long, and various shades of red and brown.
2004 - at 19 I got all the dyed bits cut off and had a mousey brown chin length bob. The hairdresser was quite distressed at having to cut off such a lot in one go. I was unperturbed.
2005 - in May I dyed a stripe at the front and the tips pink for the Rock Soc ball. When this faded out to a dirty blonde, I went over it so when I turned 20 it was mainly purple.
2006 - I put a pink stripe in over the purple, then when that faded out went full purple again for my 21st birthday. If you type the word 'purple' enough times it starts to lose meaning...
2007 - 22 seemed a good age to go for a sensible chestnut brown, generally worn long and straight, but occasionally in pleats.
2008 - at 23 I got it cut a bit shorter with some layers. I tended to let it dry naturally most of the time so that it waved quite nicely. I also accidentally went an even darker brown that looked almost black in some light...
2009 - having been purple for several months I let it fade out again to this reddy colour. This photo is from the end of the summer, but in November I had a fringe cut in and re-did the purple again.
2010 - January was the last time it was dyed, guess what colour? Oh right, there's a picture. I've pretty much left it alone since then.

2011 - aged 26 it's now mainly two shades of brown - my natural mousey colour down to my ears, and a more reddy shade where it remembers the dye times.

I'm considering going back to a sort of auburn/red-brown shade again, although the problem there is of course the fade-to-orange issue. Not that I'd be lightening it beforehand or choosing a scarlet red like when I was fifteen...

So, any thoughts on this, blogosphere? I realise that worrying about the colour of my hair is frivolous in today's political and economic climate, but frankly that is what the internet is for.

Hosiery II: Dark Territory

Apologies, dear reader, for I know I have already blogged about tights in relation to the bootylicious lady (or man, we’re not prejudiced here - I deny all pear shaped people the right to combine patterned tights with hot pants, irrespective of gender)... but I feel I must speak out on the subject of tan tights in the style of a bad observational comedian.

So you know tan tights, yeah? You tend to have a couple of pairs in reserve for things like weddings and job interviews, and occasionally making oddly shaped dummies for school art projects, but they aren’t the hosiery of choice. This, of course, is because they are ridiculously fragile.

As a general rule they come in packs of two, and I tend to ladder the first pair through the simple act of opening the box and looking at them. The second pair may get as far as a second wearing before I put my finger right through, which could happen when I’m in the process of being late for an event; but is 98% more likely when I’m already there and about to be seen by several people, or possibly photographed.

T’other day I donned tan tights for the very simple reason that they were the first to come to hand and I was horrendously late for work. I was pretty suspicious when they went on without catching on anything (fingernails, my ring and the odd rogue leg hair were all present, correct, and sharp as ever), but I chose not to question it any further lest they take the huff and disintegrate.

They lasted til I went to spend a penny at break time, at which point three fingers went through and created an enormous rip near the top of my leg. This was a masterstroke on the part of the tights, because it meant that the hole would start out invisible to the passing viewer but would gradually ladder all the way down my leg throughout the course of the day. Every time I moved a few more threads would go, and only I would be aware of the inexorable decimation of nylon.

By lunchtime the arrangement of ladders had spread down in all directions to just below my knee, and by the time I got home I looked like a snake trying to wriggle out of an old skin. Well, my left leg did. A bit. Sorry, I’m out of good similes.

Naturally this whole experience raised several deeply important questions.

Q. Why not take the holey tights off and stop moaning?
A. Cause I hate the feeling of my thighs rubbing together, and am not prescient enough to carry a spare pair of tights everywhere I go.

Q. What are tan tights made out of?
A. Cobwebs, I assume, or possibly moonbeams. Something flimsy and insubstantial, at any rate.

Q. How much truth do you think there is in the conspiracy theory about the Mossad offing John F. Kennedy?
A. None, but it’s a fantastic story of paranoia and madness.

And on that bombshell, I bid you good day. And good luck.

Makeup

I don't really wear a lot of makeup, partly due to laziness and partly due to not really knowing where to start on the wondrous canvas that is my face. The only thing I bother with (and even then sporadically due to my inability to cope with early morning starts) is eye makeup, and by 'makeup' I mainly mean eyeliner and mascara. Of which I generally only have one at a time.*

Currently I have a Rimmel eyeliner pencil which professes to be jet black, and a Rimmel mascara known as 'MAX VOLUME FLASH!!!!!!!!!!!' in ultra black. Is the difference between these two types of black important? I don't know. It's not particularly noticeable.

Anyhoo, one thing my brain can justify having more than one of is eyeshadow. After all, you need to have different colours to set off your different clothes. I am aware this only works if you have more than about five outfits, but I'm working on that - next time I get paid for an article, BAM, I'll be up to six before you can say 'but have you paid the gas bill?'.

What I'm saying is, I have a bunch of eyeshadows in weird and wonderful colours, most of which have been bought for one off occasions and barely worn. I've got two 'going out' colours (shades of grey) that I use on a semi-regular basis, and then there are some random glittery and colourful ones; none more beautiful than the two I bought for an 80s themed party when I was still at university. I love the colours, and if it were in any way appropriate to wear them on a daily basis I surely would.

They are from the Collection 2000 'Dazzle Me!' range, which was a strange and beautiful thing. My only regret now is that I didn't say sod it and buy the whole set when I still could. The pink one is called 'Illusion', and the green is 'Tinkerbell', which seems fitting inasmuch as any names arbitrarily given to colours or makeup, paint, or nail polish ever are.

Because these bad boys are loose 'eye dust' rather than packed down eyeshadow, they're fairly annoying to apply, as you tend to get sprinkles of the stuff all about the rest of your face and on your clothes. This is OK if, like me, you don't bother with foundation, blusher, or even a coat of eyeliner on the underside of the eye. But I imagine it's fairly irritating if you do go through all that rigmarole and then get fluorescent pink bits clinging to it.


Still, worth the hassle when you get it on, am I right? Look how vibrant they are! Although I wouldn't advise going out with each eye done in different shades, this was for the purpose of showing you what it looks like. Although if you're in a rush to get somewhere and you don't want anyone to talk to you...


I actually have a pair of converse somewhere near this colour, but sadly I've not been invited to any events where matching footwear to eye makeup is required in recent years. Or ever, now I come to think of it. I've worn this shade a couple of times, once to the aforementioned 80s party and a couple of times blended with more neutral shades so it wasn't quite so offensively pink.

Meanwhile I've worn the green (blended with a more neutral colour again) about twice; to my Graduation Ball because it matched my dress, and to a wedding at which I wore the same dress. I don't think I've ever worn it out in all its naked glory. Although this picture has just about convinced me it's OK if I open my eyes wide enough, so maybe I'll stick some on in the loos at work tomorrow and gauge the reactions.

Probably not though.

*This is not common practice, judging by the volume of stuff owned by more proficient makeup connoisseurs of my acquaintance.

Skincare Regimes

There is no excuse not to know about skincare in this day and age. Even men (yes, men! The species who traditionally don't even have skin!) know about it, thanks to the tireless efforts of Patrick Dempsey to make as much cash as he can before he gets too craggy looking; and Nivea's spurious quest to link their skincare range to the England football team.

If TV is to be believed we all cleanse, tone, exfoliate and moisturise as if our lives depend on it, or at least between two and eight times a day. Except nobody I know actually sticks to any such regime for longer than about a month, at which point they forget all about it till they get an enormous spot or a particularly annoying dry bit on their forehead and start the process over again.

The same skin nonchalance applies to sunblock. As soon as you get a nice weekend like the one we have just enjoyed in Edinburgh, all the information we've ever heard about skin cancer or winding up with a face like a pickled walnut exits the brain stage left as we fly outdoors to soak up as much Vitamin D as possible before it's gone for another year.

And I have to confess that although I am an educated sort, I'm no better than I ought to be in terms of protecting myself against the RAYS OF DEATH. I forced Captain Tact to accompany me out into the open today, to read for an hour or two in the comfort of the Botanic Gardens. He was worried he might burn, so I witheringly instructed him to apply sun cream as bought by sensible flatmate before our departure. For myself, I decided I was of altogether more Mediterranean complexion and that it was kind of overcast anyway, so went without.

Naturally I caught the sun, although only really on my right side for reasons unknown. And I fear my predilection for wearing pink doesn't help matters.

Still, at least my career isn't build on having baby smooth skin a la the aforementioned Monsieur Dempsey. And maybe it'll learn me for next year. Or not...

Dressing For Your Body Shape

Dear Girl I saw at Canonmills the other week,

I am writing to ask whether I have missed a meeting about patterned tights/leggings vis a vis the legs of ladies who are blessed with a pear-shaped body.

Of course I am aware of the predilection many people have for donning coloured or patterned tights underneath denim shorts/hot pants, but I had always worked on the basis that this is a look that can only be pulled off by the slimmer lady and therefore ignored it.

However, having seen you out and about and drawing attention to your rather larger than average thighs by stretching leopard print across them under shorts that were bursting at the seams, I can only conclude that the rules must have changed when I wasn't looking.


Either that or dressing for your body shape is out, and wearing the first thing to catch your eye in the hosiery department is in.

I love pink leopard print as much as the next girl (probably more, actually - I am genuinely quite drawn to the stuff, like toddlers are drawn to things with sharp edges), but when you're curvier you need to accept there is a time and a place and a complimentary wardrobe that the hot pant is not part of. You can still wear the tights, but for the love of Betsy pair them with a black dress or skirt that falls closer to the knee than the bummock. One statement piece at a time, woman.

Kind Regards,

Ali.

Surprise Ninja Full Body Massage

Once Upon A Time I had a Very Stressful Job, and the less said about that the better. In fact, during the later months the only way I coped was by developing a policy of not talking about it to anyone other than my colleagues, and keeping it totally separate from the rest of my life. When Captain Tact asked how my day was, there was no way I was going to make him listen to it all again, so I just said ‘fine’, ‘rubbish’, or ‘usual’.

My teenage monosyllables were not enough to fool him into thinking it had all got better, however. He’s quite canny when the need arises. So he decided to help by buying me a relaxing beauty treatment for my birthday. Don't laugh, I have inner beauty.

He wanted to surprise me, so he dispatched a flatmate to deliver me unto a mysterious facility at Ocean Terminal whereupon I would be offered a choice of treatments. Something involving getting my nails done, or a facial, or whatever. You probably know more about spas than me.

Unfortunately, this is not what transpired.

Flatmate got me to Ocean Terminal OK – we’re not idiots, we can catch a 36 bus. She then delivered me into the hands of a bevy of beauty experts and said she would see me in an hour or two.

The exact nature of what Captain Tact had paid for was unclear to us both, although it later transpired he had told the spa it was a birthday surprise and he wanted to take advantage of this offer they were doing where you can have one of three treatments, according to your whim. He wasn’t sure which of these I’d choose, but vaguely thought maybe I might go for a massage, maybe.

Beauty therapists apparently don’t do nuance. I was bundled through the back with a dressing gown, and told to get my clothes off and await further instruction.

Standing in the changing cubicle I did my best not to panic. Was I supposed to get totally naked, or could I conserve a smidgen of dignity by keeping my knickers on? I considered texting someone to ask, but who would know the answer to this question and be sitting on their phone just waiting to reply to a message from me? Nobody, that's who, and anyway there wasn’t time, the beautiful people were expecting my imminent arrival in a room filled with sofas and fish tanks.

You might think it strange, but I have never seen the attraction of lying in a darkened room and being rubbed by a stranger. It strikes me as a violation of privacy; something that’s probably fun between two consenting adults who know what’s planned but not one to be farmed out to bored looking girls who probably compare notes on which of their clients feels the most like a manatee. That’s what I’d do, anyway.

Given a couple of months notice and some giggling female company, I could probably build up a tolerance to the idea of being massaged. But with five minutes warning and the pressure of having to pretend you’re up for it because it’s a thoughtful birthday gift, the experience is actually pretty stressful. It certainly isn’t long enough to get over a lifetime of disinterest / outright mistrust of the practice.

The woman was probably nice enough, but it’s hard to say that for sure when you’re lying face down on a table in the dark, taut with the tension of knowing you’re about to be touched but with no idea which part of you, or for how long. I don’t know whether it’s common to carry out a massage in complete silence, but that's what happened in mine. Silent but deadly, like the ninja. I flinched almost every time she touched me.

It genuinely never occurred to me to just say no. It would have been churlish, I thought, after the Captain went to such trouble to come up with a thoughtful birthday surprise. At this stage I had no idea he hadn’t just booked a straightforward massage, and I spent most of the time trying to concoct a convincing sounding lie of gratitude.

The best I came up with was that it was ‘an experience’, although by the end of the ordeal I was nearly in tears and fairly sure that anything I said to him later on would bring on an attack of the weepies. The masseuse later admitted (when Captain Tact phoned up to complain) that I hadn’t seemed entirely comfortable. But what was she supposed to do? She presumably had no idea that I hadn’t signed up, and was probably a bit confused as to why I was there if I was so averse to the idea.

Nearly a year on the anxiety dreams have subsided, and I think we all learned from the experience. The spa learned that when a customer says they want a choice of three treatments as per the advert, they may not mean 'rub my girlfriend'. Captain Tact learned that sometimes you should not concentrate so heavily on the aspect of surprise. And I learned that I was right to fear masseuses, and if anything I should have been actively arming myself against them for years rather than dispassionately saying 'it'll never happen to me'.

You have been warned.

Fringe

Everybody has a fringe at some point in their lifetime. I think there's some sort of law about it. But the way is fraught with peril, for that little curtain of hair only needs to be cut a teeny bit too short for you to look like a special child. This might be facilitated by your mum, or a hairdresser, or an accident with a lighter / school bully / piece of chewing gum. And when you trim it yourself (we've all been there) you will almost certainly do it squint on at least one occasion, which means that as you try to even it out it regresses ever closer to Dave Hill length.

Of course there are people who can pull off a very short fringe - very stylish indie chicks, mainly, and Beyonce - but I am not one of them.

When my fringe is cut too short - as happened the last time I got it done - I look slightly deranged. The combination of partially revealed forehead and too-straight hair is reminiscent of the pudding bowl cut, as in done by your mum using an actual bowl rather than you consciously deciding to create something chunky and retro.

These days I don't hold an allegiance to any particular hairdresser, and as such I've visited a number of salons in the city in a quest to find someone who'll do my do in a way that makes me want to commit.

I think it's fairly safe to say I haven't found it yet. This most recent time, I asked for it to be at eyebrow level and came out like David Sowerbutts in Psychoville. I also got charged extra for a deep conditioning treatment which the work experience girl left on for about two minutes.

OK, it wasn't that bad. If I straighten it, it even reaches the top of my eyebrows. And it's growing out a bit now.

But I'm still not going back. It's only my mad photography skills that prevent it having the appearance of an unconvincing wig.

The Eye of the Beholder

A lot of people will tell you that in order to run a really successful blog, with lots of comments and followers and traffic, you need to find a niche area and basically stick to talking about that and little else. That way you will build up an audience, who can go away for a while and trust you to still be talking about the same sorts of things when they come back.

This is not that sort of blog.

However, I do like doing different themes where possible, because it gives me a bit of structure. Frinstance, the theme for the last couple of weeks was News in Briefs, aka spoof news stories of the type I used to write at university to try and get Captain Tact to like me.

But that was just to take us up to the end of May, for I would like to dedicate the month of June to the modern-day phenomenon that is beauty blogging. Although not in a particularly sensible way, I hasten to add.

Beauty blogging is popular, like cheerleaders and hard drugs. In the last couple of months, two totally disparate people of my acquaintance (an illustrator and a trainee lawyer/freelance writer) have started up beauty blogs in addition to their main pages (called Give Yer Face a Wash and On Beauty, should you wish to have a look). At the start of this year, The Edinburgh Reporter did a series of interviews with local bloggers, and far and away the most popular one was Cupcake Couture, which is a beauty and baking blog. And of course there's Go Fug Yourself, which is celebrity fashion gone wrong.

The basic premise of these sites is that people share their thoughts and tips on clothes, makeup, hair, and other girly paraphernalia. If you find a girl whose style is like yours, you follow her avidly and leave lots of comments saying 'OMG your hair looks amazing there' and so on.

I do not propose to copy the method wholesale, because frankly this area is perfectly well covered by ladies who are far better equipped than I. What I am going to write about, however, is the disasters and misfortunes of my style career.

Want to hear about the time I got a surprise ninja full body massage against my will? Stay tuned. Fancy hearing some artistic uses for colours of nail varnish you're unlikely to ever use again? I've got a suggestion or two. And then there's the history of my hair, a grim and terrible warning to anyone with follicles.

I'll be aiming to update two or three times a week, so check back in a couple of days if you're compiling a list of what not to do, or if you fancy feeling a bit better about yourself. I'm totally pro-schadenfreude...