Telemarketers beware, I have a slight hangover and have run out of green tea...

ME: Good morning, [COMPANY NAME], how can I help you?
TELEMARKETER: May I please speak to Mr [NAME OF MY BOSS]
ME: May I ask who's calling?
TELEMARKETER: This is American Express.
ME: Would this be a sales call?
TELEMARKETER: [PAUSE] We... wouldn't be selling anything over the phone...
ME: Ah, so it is a sales call.
TELEMARKETER: Uh, no...
ME: Yes it is.
TELEMARKETER: Um...
ME: I'm afraid I am not authorized to put this sort of call through
TELEMARKETER [HUFFILY]: What do you mean, 'this sort of call'?
ME: Calls from American Express.
TELEMARKETER [BLUSTERS]: And who told you that you are not authorized?
ME: Our company director.
TELEMARKETER: Oh, Mr [GETS THE NAME OF MY BOSS WRONG]
ME: Yes. Except that isn't his name. But good try!
TELEMARKETER [SOUNDING UPSET]: And when did he tell you this?
ME: Several months ago, around the time that he found out his girlfriend was having an affair with an American Express executive.
TELEMARKETER: [FAINT SQUEAK]
ME: Oh yes, it was very traumatic. It was a female executive actually, so he's had that to deal with as well. I think he thinks it was his fault somehow. He's now having major issues with gender confusion, but he's working through it with his therapist.
TELEMARKETER: I hardly think this is appropriate...
ME: Oh it was VERY inappropriate. They had just opened a joint account when she left him, with American Express actually. So it was supposed to be a serious relationship...
TELEMARKETER [IMPATIENTLY]: Can you PLEASE just put me through to Mr [NAME OF MY BOSS]
ME: Oh, you got his name right this time! Well that's better. But he's still not interested in taking this call. Not after all the trauma. If he so much as hears the words 'American Express', he breaks out in a rash and gets vertigo.
TELEMARKETER [ANGRILY]: WELL THEN IT'S HIS LOSS!!!
[SLAMS THE PHONE DOWN]

The Independence of Woman, otherwise known as 'Shut Up Whinging and Make Me a Sandwich!'

Right, I feel it's time that I briefly discuss what it means to be an independent woman in today's world. No, shut up, I mean it. I've just listened to some Aretha Franklin, and am a proud owner of no Y chromasomes, so I feel at least partially qualified to wax lyrical on this subject. I bought all my own hair, and am capable of building a damn fine shoe-rack unassisted. I can bake a cake, and yet also wire a plug. And yet, despite all of this, I think some schools of feminist thought are swiftly becoming unhelpful and irrelevant. Of course, there are many parts of the world where women are still downtrodden and marginalized, and I feel especially fortunate to have escaped such a life by mere virtue of my birth location and upbringing. I also think that the gender pay gap is unfair and archaic (although it is thought to be gradually narrowing).

However, I have often witnessed women in my own society whinging on about the lack of chivalry in this world while simultaneously holding the belief that women should be treated equally to men. WHAT?! Seriously, ladies. You can't demand equality in one breath and superiority in the next without seriously undermining both of your arguments. That's like wearing massive baggy y-fronts under a micro-miniskirt - it's all convenience and comfort until somebody inevitably notices and calls you a moron. I personally like to hold doors open for people because THEY ARE PEOPLE and cannot walk through a closed door without banging their noses. It's polite. Therefore, the only reason you'll find me getting annoyed at a bloke, or indeed a woman, for letting a door slam in my face is because it is RUDE, regardless of my own gender or theirs. Larger and more serious gender arguments aside (which I'll leave to those more learned and eloquent than myself), I think many women concentrate on the wrong things when they think of women's rights. They focus on what would be slightly more convenient to them rather than what is important. Of course we should have the right to vote, to wear trousers as we please and get paid the same amount for the same work as a man. We have the right to be indignant if a man lunges at us in a bar with no invitation. But conversely, we do not have the right to get all pissy if we randomly lunge at a man in a bar and he isn't particularly thrilled. Oh no, the word 'lunge' has now got an image of Richard Simmons in my head...

When it comes to clothing, I personally relish my femininity when it suits me, and yet also own a pair of massive, very manly boots. I'm not above wearing said boots with something pretty, just because I can. But I do not expect to be placed on a pedestal by society at large because of my propensity to own skirts and glitter. I know plenty of men who own skirts and glitter, and brandish both with aplomb, but face a brutishly unfair potential backlash for doing so. People who believe that men shouldn't do that make me think 'SHUT UP! A Christmas tree isn't generally thought of as female but you put flippin' jewellery all over that with glee!'


If we all just try our best to do the right thing by one another, no matter whether we are male, female or a bit of both, I think it's a bloody good first step toward equality. Which has got to be much better than a whiney-ass 'ME FIRST!' kinda world.

And so it begins...

Welcome to my new blog. It begins as a result of a friend's suggestion that I stop clogging up everyone's Facebook newsfeed with my lunacy and instead confine it to a more containable forum. Well, that's not how she put it, but then again she's a lawyer and we know how often they say what they're REALLY thinking...

I'm going to jump right in with a lovely story. It's called 'Oh For The Love of All That is Sacred, Please Shut Up'. It begins on the 207 to White City, on a Monday morning that was both bright and cheery (stop interrupting, yes it was). All was going well for the gentle commuters, as a soft breeze was playing through the open window and there were actually enough seats for everyone, for once. Some peacefully read books, others watched the world go by through the (fairly) clean windows. The pervading atmosphere was of calm and contemplation. Until the bus pulled into The Stop of Doom. Now, I'm not sure if it's just me that has noticed this stop as particularly portentous of calamity, but I will add the detail that it's VERY close to a very cheap off-licence. That opens weirdly early, it seems. Or they don't mind who they sell nail-varnish remover to outside of licensing hours. Either way, there is often some sort of interesting character waiting at this stop; part of me would like to believe that they lie in wait for my particular bus to pass by so that they may enliven my morning (the alternative is to accept that there are actually enough of them around for there to be one on every bus). Today was no exception. A woman the size of a generous futon lolloped aboard, greeting the startled passengers with a genial wordless bellow. She shoehorned herself into the nearest seat-and-a-half, much to the delight of the girl attempting to sit in the half a seat beside. Having taken a couple of stops to catch her breath, she began humming to herself loudly, and sort of shuffly-dancing with her feet. At this point, I began to wonder if she couldn't help her unusual bus-entering caper. However, at that point she yawned, and melted the eyelashes off all of us sitting within 10 meters of her. Ah, so this was 70 per cent proof, self-induced crazy then. As I was absorbing this fact, and trying to find a facial orifice out of which it was safe to breathe, she suddenly lunged forward and tapped the shoulder of the bloke in front of her. He was attempting to listen to some music, and so it took her a couple of seconds to get his attention, by which time she was quivering with excitement. 'Yes?' said our intrepid businessman, pulling an earbud to one side. 'ILIKEYOURSUIT' came the reply. 'Pardon?' 'ILIKEYOURSUIT, BUTYOURHAIRISGREASY!!!' The man looked blank and said 'Uh, thanks for that.' I inwardly applauded his succinct response.
The woman amused herself for the rest of the journey by reading a magazine and telling the air about her personal life. 'YOUDON'TWANTTOMEETMYBROTHER!! HE'STRYINGTOGETMARRIEDBUTHEHASATEMPER.' Then an article in the magazine would catch her eye 'CHEATING ON HIS WIFE??! FOR F**KING WHY?!!' I was quite touched at her indignation for the unknown wronged woman, until I noticed she was holding the magazine upside-down. Ah, so that was just the crazy talking, then. She also began an argument with a man who had sat beside her, and who had and become understandably irritated with her constantly nudging him in the side as she completed some sort of interpretive dance. The argument ended with her accusing him of being a child-abuser, at which point he quietly moved to a seat far away.

I left the bus during her rousing rendition of 'Everybody was Kung-Fu Fighting', complete with tuneless, high-pitched screech where the instrumental riff would usually be. And several racial slurs that certainly weren't in the radio edit.

Oh well, at least it wasn't a boring commute...