Out with the old

WELL, the best made plans and all that jazz. Instead of welcoming the festive spirit in a winter wonderland I found myself with my head down the toilet with winter pine for most of the time.
Yes, along with the tinsel, mistletoe and turkey we also have to embrace the fact that fevers also come out for Christmas season. And, for the record, my ill-health was in no way linked to festive spirit of any kind.
Tied to being near a receptacle of some description, I decided to seize the opportunity and transform my house into a grotto even Mr Claus would be proud of. I’ve ploughed through too many Christmas features here at work not to be inspired.
Unfortunately, half way through the merry metamorphosis I realised I’d been a little too ruthless last year when throwing out decorations that’d ‘had it’, on the understanding I would have a whole year to buy new improved trinkets.
The truth is I just haven’t been feeling too Christmassy yet, whether due to my ill-health or the fact that Christmas fever starts far too early.
You can definitely feel it at work. If someone isn’t talking about the Christmas night out, it’s shopping, cards, presents, or plans. In one particular case all things Christmas are taking over the desk of a colleague, with a vengeance.
Excitement has been building since the aforementioned annual night out was booked in July, and will be approaching climax soon.
I’ve purposely reminded myself of Christmas 2001 as a warning. After consuming copious amounts of festive spirits, I somehow convinced myself I’d been sacked, phoned my friend to tell her I was moving into the phone box I was calling from, and was found an hour later asleep in my living room with Fairytale of New York on repeat and a chocolate biscuit slowly melting down my face.
The turning point this year was when I turned on the TV to see the closing scenes of Homeward Bound. As soon as these feel-good family films come on, you know it’s time to get excited. And so I let rip.
Christmas has never been as good as when you were a kid. It’s been great, yeah, but just not in the same way. Take a moment to remember how excited you used to feel waiting for everyone else to waken up.
We weren’t allowed to go into the living room until everyone was up, and the rest of them had a very bad habit of not wanting to get up, presents or no presents.
When were finally let in, everything looked so magical and shiny. I realise now that was because of my sleepy eyes but I prefer to think it was Christmas sparkle.
I remember being adamant that I once heard bells jingling past my window. I now have visions of my mum scaling the back wall of our house just to fool me.
Along with all these materialistic points of the festive season, it is also important to take stock along with the stockings.
It is the season to reflect on past years and the memories, happy or sad, which surrounded them, as well as the year which we are just leaving. I feel it’s the time of year to spend with loved ones. Christmas Day this year is at mum’s with my family.
New Year is to be spent with my fabulous friends.
For some of them it’s going to be a Christmas with a difference. Two of my friends will be newly single, some are spending it in a new home, and on the other side of the world another friend will enjoy her first Christmas Kiwi-style on the beach.
Another couple are to enjoy a Scottish Christmas after the Sydney beach experience last year and my bridge and groom will be spending their first as man and wife. For another it will be their first Christmas with their new bundle of joy.
You can’t help but wonder what 2005 will bring? One thing’s for certain there will definitely be January sales to count on. My best bargain so far is a £5 Christmas tree which is currently adorned by red and gold baubles.
Before the end of 2004, get rid of any deadweight, resolve any arguments worth resolving, learn from your mistakes and tell the people who matter what they mean to you.
It has taken a year, but I finally rode the post-spew wave to tell Mr Can’t Attach, Won’t Attach that he wouldn’t have to bother. I feel surprisingly lighter already — which makes me think that I am actually genuinely feeling I really can detach. Or perhaps it’s because I haven’t eaten for 48 hours.
I shall leave you, and 2004, with this thought: Every new beginning comes from some other beginning’s end.

All I want for Christmas

LOVE it or loathe it, the festive season is almost upon us, with renewed promise of boozy nights out, wishes, and kisses under the mistletoe.
It’s also one of those great opportunities when you can buy a brand new outfit purely for the fact that it’s Christmas and it’s allowed.
However, my friends and family have unwittingly seen to it that I won’t have the chance to do this — the down side of having a birthday at this time of year.
The beautiful skirt I had my eye on was bought for me, vouchers were given allowing me to buy the beautiful shoes I’ve wanted for moths and I still have some spending power left for a beautiful new handbag. It’s only the top half I have to now carefully search for.
I’m extremely grateful I’ve basically been handed an ideal outfit for which I didn’t have to part with cash, but as in love it’s the ‘looking’ that is the best part!
I didn’t let that stop me at the weekend though. While aiming to complete the outfit with a beautiful top, I found another new skirt which has split my affections.
Should I go with the classic 50s style glamour or modern, young, hippy chick look?
The similarities between fashion and love in this instance are uncanny. A night out at the weekend posed a problem for me that I never dreamed of — is it more acceptable to go out with someone old enough to be your father or someone the same age as your ‘little’ brother?
One thing I will be buying is mistletoe, to be filed under M for ‘must have’ until it is brought into action. I urge all of you singletons out there to do the same. Whoever invented and spun out this tradition deserves a big shiny medal.
In Victorian times, kissing under the mistletoe was a Christmas ritual that old-timers hoped would lead to romance and marriage for the younger generation.
Today, mistletoe is familiar to us a decoration that results in some innocent mischief at the annual Christmas office party.
It wasn’t until I was reading up on this ancient love-tool that I realised if a girl remained unkissed, she could expect not to marry the following year. Ho hum. I don’t think that will make much difference to us girls, apart maybe from my pre-engaged friend.
My frustratingly single friend is already planning her next new pair of shoes for the party season. Until this year she did not see the attraction in them (!). But thanks to Sex and the City and Singled Out contributors, she has seen sense.
She is one of the most beautiful, caring, generous, honest and, well, just lovely people I know. It is my greatest Christmas wish that she finds someone who is equally as lovely as her to be happy with.
I say frustratingly single because there is absolutely no reason that she should be single, apart from the quality and quantity of young chaps in her area. She has fairly normal taste, discounting a certain forty-something crooner who believes Love Changes Everything. But everyone has a flaw don’t they?
And so to the opposite end of the scale: what do you say to console your best friend when she splits up with the boyfriend she didn‘t even want? Answer: Nothing —just drink lots of wine and watch Vince Vaughn play Dodgeball.
The thing she is most upset about is that she didn’t get in there first. Instead she got a spineless letter in which he said he would miss her friends and family — four times more than he said he would miss her.
My Christmas diary is getting pretty busy with shopping (of which I’ve done none — SO not like me) including a Secret Santa gift from the girl who’s got everything; reunions with friends for meals and general present swapping; open air ice skating; work Christmas party; performance and cocktails — the list goes on.
I’ve also got a month to think of a New Year’s resolution for 2005. The first one I’m working on at the moment is: Try to find suitable male to spend general lovely times with, who lives within a 50 mile radius, is single and is of a suitable age/maturity and intelligence.
I seem to remember that being one of them this year too. But as they say, resolutions are made to be broken. Don’t they?

Actions really do speak louder

HOLIDAYS taken, 1; Mountaineering injuries, 2 (Mama’s flask and my longest nail); Norwegian parties crashed, 1; (Bad) Peter Kay impressions attempted to impress Bolton visitors, too many to mention; Brushes with the law, 3; Brilliant sequel of inspiring singleton’s film watched, 1.
First of all if you haven’t already seen it — go and see Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason. There can’t be many who have not already seen the first one, but if you haven’t, catch up. You have no excuse — it was on TV at the weekend.
Bridget’s back, yummy Mark is still yummy and the delectable Daniel Cleaver is as daring, dashing and dirty as ever.
I went to see it last weekend with my college roomies as a perfect start to a not so perfect birthday night out for one of them.
We had it all: Fights with ex boyfriends; accusations of ‘kitty’ thieving, drink-spilling, stair-falling, table-dancing, bouncer-rowing, drunken-crying/shouting/swearing/name calling, taxi evictions, missing friends, voice losing: the list goes on.
It was one of those nights that all you can do in the morning is laugh until your Mariella Frostrup voices have run out.
My morning-after-the-night-before suffering friends was very sorry, both for herself and for the way she’d behaved to me the night before. All I could do was laugh — something that hadn’t gone down well the previous evening.
Was I really going to survive a road trip in some of the most remote parts of Scotland with her the following weekend?
Yes — at last the mini break I’d dreamed of, inspired by Ms Jones herself had materialised. OK so the company wasn’t what I would have chosen (thinking Hugh/Daniel or Colin/Mark would have been more suitable) but it was great all the same.
After planning to go everywhere but, my city friend and I left Thelma and Louise-stylee on a road trip through the Highlands, packing everything from our thermals and waterproofs to our sunglasses and Destiny’s Child CD.
It’s a pity we didn’t manage to meet Brad Pitt in the way like Susan Sarandon and Geena Davis did, but we did fall in with a group of visiting Norwegian music students at an impromptu folk session at the foot of Ben Nevis.
When I say we, I was left attempting to speak to the really mad but endearing Liv (Leevie to her new found friends) who was not unlike Betty from Emmerdale, and her husband Erling (known now as Irving Berlin), while ‘Thelma’ acquainted herself with the very beautiful (‘you should be a model’ type) Kenroger. Although his name was written similarly to that, but probably with an ø or two, it sounded nothing like that of the great bearded one.
After three renditions of Islands in the Stream, he still didn’t know who were talking about, so we gave up trying to explain who his namesake was. I say we, but you could still hear my friend’s voice in the cold Ben Nevis night air hours later. It was enough to make stranded mountaineers stay where they were.
That day we too donned our walking attire and attempted to scale our neighbouring peak.
One climber shouted: “Now I’m going to show off” as he ran past.
It’s always worrying when people say things like that, especially if you are half way up the Scotland’s highest peak, and it’s snowing, and the only chance of help in the near vicinity is two townies who have already stopped three times for a cuppy.
The same two had the day before got lost on the Aviemore Orbital path and ended up ‘trespassing’ in the Scandinavian Village next to the massive Macdonald hotel resort which takes up half of the town.
This was the same two who later hid underneath a bridge with a bottle of very cheap and very fizzy wine, eating chips out of spoke, and trying to avoid a passing police van and CCTV cameras of the local ‘nitespot’.
It sounds worse than it actually was (honest) but it’s just the kind of thing that happens when we get together.
Talking of getting together — didn’t I say I thought it would be a bad thing if me and my favourite ex saw each other again?
Since our ‘reunion’ I have hardly heard a peep from him, this being bad considering we spoke nearly every day before his visit. I completely understand why — because he is otherwise involved — but those of you who have been in a similar situation will know it doesn’t make any easier when there is a very acceptable and intelligent reason behind people’s actions. Or in this case inactions.
I shall remain an aloof, unavailable ice queen until the moment comes that her realised that I’m his Bridget Jones.

Crying, waiting, wishing, hoping

I LEFT work for lunch today, after battling to finish another Singled Out column. However the original one was far too confusing for even myself to understand.
Think yourselves lucky you’re not being dragged down with all the crazy details of my love life, documented in the original.
The lightning bolt of inspiration came from two groups, one of each sex, hanging around in town until it was time to trudge back up to school for what was probably to be another uneventful afternoon.
The girls, all ponytails and eyeliner, were attempting to match-make for one of their friends. Said friend then attempted to act like she didn’t know or want them to do it, even though it had been planned like a military operation since form class three weeks before.
Cue nervous giggling from the girls when the boys shouted back that the answer was yes. Knowing how these things work, that would probably be how the relationship would be until he worked out just exactly which one he was now betrothed to.
On the other hand, the girl would skip back to school, imagining her new surname, leaving the boy struggling to remember hers.
I’m not totally cynical. I know a few people who met like this at school and are either still together, or enjoyed a long and happy relationship.
I also know a few who met at school, didn’t see each other for years, only to meet up and fall in love all over again years later.
Every time I buried my head into the cushions thinking about my favourite ex over the weekend, Mama chanted: “Absence makes the heart grow fonder.”
I tried to explain that I’ve been absent from him for four years; I don’t need to grow any fonder.
Yes, my pondering paid off and the big reunion which had been promised for several months happened last week, with startling results.
We spoke of our his-and-hers feelings for each other and cut ourselves up over distances and other obstacles in our way.
It was so good to be in his arms again, and to know I was in his thoughts, after all this time. But I knew he was in a very new relationship and so didn’t want to put any pressure on him. I had nothing to lose — except him.
Leaving him at the train station was one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to do. It was the big romantic moment I’ve yearned for, but I wanted it to be so different. Absence indeed.
The trouble with my city-based girlfriend is that there is not enough distance between her and the ex who she will always love, no matter what he does. I feel if she did distance herself he would realise he wanted her back. But he knows how and she is weak.
Another friend is an ‘absence makes the heart grow fonder’ success story.
She met my college neighbour back in the day and instantly felt a connection. The trouble is she was too committed to another friend who was very vocal in her admiration for this species.
Years later, they met randomly in a nightclub and have now been living together for more than six months. The down side to this is she’s now finding out just what her mum went through living with her.
I can vouch for her not being the most tidiest person in the world. This weekend I think she left half her suitcase all over my bedroom floor and half a packet of noodles all over my kitchen.
But at home with her man she is of the view that it’s not acceptable to leave three-day old plates in a sink of cold, dirty water because you want to watch the football or play the guitar.
She says: “I’m in no way obsessive. I can quite easily finish my dinner and leave my plate next to me for hours. I do also have a slight problem with putting my clothes by and so the bedroom can sometimes resemble a giant jumble sale.
“But like most people, or actually most women, I have a level on the untidiness scale that I can’t let my surroundings drop below. If something will attract insects and/or make the place smell, I want it moved.”
Unfortunately, her boyfriend has no such level: “I can come home from work and find him quite happily sitting amongst old food boxes, empty bottles and wet towels. Then when I start to tidy up, he says: ‘I’ll do it in a minute’.”
“Now, I said those exact words to my mum and dad (who was very tidy actually) and I know that I really did intend to do it in a minute. Or after watching repeated repeats of Buffy, or painting my nails, or after New Year. And I realise now they knew that too, which is why they got so annoyed.”
Now it’s got to the stage when even if he tidies up, she knows it’s only to stop her going on about it for a few hours, and that she’ll come home tomorrow to find the living room scattered with the potential contents of her bin.
“And that’s why I have to pre-emptively nag,” she explained: “It’s just a bid to hammer home the tidying up message.
“Before I begin hammering things into his head.”

Blah, blah Blahnik’s

I LOOKED at the shoe and felt no emotion. It was just a shoe; a practicality. Then I woke up. What a nightmare!
To make matters worse, the words resounding in my terror-filled brain were: “You have to see my Manolo Blahnik’s.”
Usually, when people visit Las Vegas, they take back Elvis-inspired trinkets, lucky chips or in the most extreme cases a marriage certificate. Not my friend, the new bride, and may I add not a Vegas-inspired bride.
No, nestled in her living room display cabinet, next to the Edinburgh Crystal and the Royal Doulton Bride figurine is a brand spanking new pair of Mr Blahnik’s finest.
Now I have done the research, and I’ve worked out roughly how much they cost — an admission that as yet has not passed her lips. I’m not even sure if her shoe-ridiculing husband knows.
So you don’t swoon over your cornflakes while reading this, I won’t disclose the figure, but let’s just say they were an investment.
After a major rise in popularity due to Sex and the City’s Carrie Bradshaw, these shoes are now seen as a status symbol.
When Carrie found herself face-to-face with a mugger, she pleaded: “You can take my Fendi baguette, you can take my ring and my watch, but don’t take my Manolo Blahnik’s.”
What do you think he did?
Apparently now in the US of A ‘Manolo’ is being used as slang to describe very expensive, very beautiful shoes; even by the millions of people who have never actually seen a pair of Blahnik’s.
But I came, I saw and oh but for a fleeting moment, I touched these beautiful creations before the bride snatched the box off me, for being too rough with the tissue paper.
The most expensive shoes I’ve ever bought were £40 and came in paper similar to that in primary school toilets of the 80s, and not in fancy printed stuff with a luxurious drawstring bag.
They were truly magnificent.
Her poor husband sat in the corner scowling as my group of fully-grown women cooed at a pair of overpriced shoes like they were a pair of newborn twins: “You say Blahnik’s, I hear blah blah.”
It didn’t matter that they were about three sizes too small for me, because the new bride herself has only graced her feet with them a few times. They shall never be worn as shoes were meant to. And if you do the research you will know why.
On their return from a mini-break recently (oh to go on a mini-break) she told me she’d hidden them while they were away. Never mind the widescreen TV, DVD player, XBox etc.
The husband says there are three of them in their marriage; him, his beloved, and the website of a highly popular shoe store. He can’t seem to get her attention, she’s so engrossed in it.
And it doesn’t stop at shoes. He hates shopping. He doesn’t like trailing round shops, trying things on. He prefers to by online.
Correction; his wife buys online for him. He can’t recognise when he looks good in something, so he leaves it up top her. I told him I thought he would look great in nothing.
It is just as well it seems my friends and I are kindred spirits when it comes to footwear — if not, well I hate to think.
I was so pleased when I found out my new beau loves to shop but as yet I have not seen this master at work. Perhaps he will be the first to be able to cope with my forays into fashion, because most people can’t stand it.
I have to get right in there, try everything on, leave the first thing in case I find something else, and go into every shop, just in case. So you wouldn’t find me shopping online.
Apparently the websites listed in your ‘favourites’ say a lot about you and your interests.
I checked mine to see if this was the case. Am I huge fan of a certain fictional surgeon, who frequently travels by coach, keeps up with absent friends by email, has no time to read the Sunday papers, and is constantly searching for something? Hmmmmmm.

Who’s the fairest?

I HATE to be the bearer of bad news, but I have now been using a highly advertised shower product for the last month and I have not yet metamorphosed into Sarah Jessica Parker.
I’ve tried walking down red carpets, climbing through stationary limos — the lot but still nothing,
Alas, it has been a while now since I last wrote and perhaps now isn’t the best time as I now feel a bit fraudulent. Yes it has happened, I have been singled out, so I suppose I can’t say anything about false advertising.
I don’t want to tempt fate but things are on a plateau of good. The only flaw so far is that I haven’t found any flaws.
I was playing the sensible one-of-two on a night out recently and felt so sorry for some of the adolescents; drunk and making fools of themselves on the dance floor. Not because they were raving, yes raving, to Diana Ross’ Upside Down, but because only a few weeks, months, years before I could have been pigeonholed into this group. Now I had a fresh perspective on the scene.
I could just imagine them planning the night all week with their friends discussing what they were going to wear, when and where they would meet, who else would be out, then changing their minds about what they were wearing and what time they were going to meet.
I’ll let all of you men into a secret — the whole reason women take so long to get ready is because something on a hanger looks different on, so if you’re not sure what to wear, the entire contents of your wardrobe have to be tried on, just in case you find something lurking in the back that you haven’t had on since you were that size last time.
Then all of this has to be cleared away, because on the huge suggestion that you might not be coming home alone, you want no one to see just how much effort you’ve put in., Or more importantly, when you’ve just taken three hours to find your keys in your bag in the freezing cold, all you want to go is sink into you nice warm bed, without having to do an entire stock removal onto the floor.
Not only is there the multiple changing session, but each time a new outfit is put on it has to be checked against the following points:
Does my bum look big in this (Yes, that old chestnut still exists, even for girls with no derriere. Like myself. Yeah right).
Every angle has to be checked, with the use of as many mirrors as can be found, and collected together to a fitting room standard.
Music must be played and danced to, to perfect dance floor techniques to impress men who shall promptly fall at your well-heeled feet.
Then comes the sit down test, just to make sure your lower half garments do not a) ride up, b) burst or c) become overwhelmed by your summer excesses.
This test is then repeated for your top half — Are your bra straps noticeable? Have you formed bingo wings over night? Need I go on?
Is your outfit likely to be worn by someone else? And worse, will it look better on them? Or is it the opposite and no one would be seen dead in it?
And no it’s not a young thing — I’ve witnessed perfectly mature women doing exactly the same thing.
Do guys think like this? I know there has been a massive change in male vanity or their admission to it anyway. A recent survey shows that they are catching up with us gals in the screening and preening stakes.
So anyway, back to the dance floor, and to those young ladies, looking lovely, and dancing up to each other and giggling about eyes that or may not be looking in their glittering direction.
They know they look good because they’ve followed all the points that should be followed. Somehow though they think they need to slam a few shots; because that will impress the guys at the bar who are scanning and planning.
Jump forward to a few shot-soaked hours later and to the same two, drunk and making fools of themselves raving, yes raving. All their hard work completely out of the window, with the bar-flies going for those who haven’t turned into a pumpkin at midnight.
I see myself in them so much that it scares me, and I’m glad I’m being sensible and sober and sitting, Then again, may I’m doing some false advertising of my own.

Rules of attraction

THERE’S nothing quite like a good wedding to restore your faith in romance and make you realise that true love does exist.
There are too many people nowadays who are loose-tongued with ‘I love yous’ and ‘together forevers’ which are forgotten all too soon.
Personally, I know someone who one minute could be telling their partner they loved them ‘from heaven to earth’ and the next would be sending them into orbit.
I know someone else who can be sitting yards from their partner, asking a relative stranger for their phone number.
But no, there is hope for us all — I have seen it with my own eyes. There is no doubt that the two people who exchanged their vows in front of me are in love beyond belief. The sceptical blinkers have been removed for the time being.
And a wedding is such a great concept for a guest. It’s a chance to spend a ridiculous amount of money on an outfit you’ll probably never wear again and be able to justify it; a sing along (both in the church and on the bus home); a great meal with friends; and a night out all in one.
I finally found the shoes in a sale to complete my wedding outfit. Yes, in my vast collection, the one thing I didn’t own was a pair of black sandals.
I am now also the proud owner of a lovely black hat courtesy of the same sale, so if any single, young, available man needs a partner for any forthcoming engagement, I am prepared and available.
Thank goodness for my friends. If I didn’t have them I would have felt a right plonker, sitting on the sidelines watching the lovely couples dancing. The last dance was infinitely the low point of the evening, so I busied myself wrapping a piece of wedding cake in a napkin ready to go under my pillow, because all self-respecting singletons know if you do this you dream of the person you’re going to marry.
I dreamt about my favourite ex. I think it was either coincidence or wishful thinking.
The morning after the night before, I got my usual hangover advice from him — “Don’t eat an egg if it’s still runny on the top.”
This morning he also added: “And don’t speak to Dave if you see him.”
Dave is the name he has given to Mr Can’t Attach, Won’t Attach — who I recently dropped from my list of ‘things to do’ — the reason being that there was a 99.9% chance I was going to see him that day.
I had hoped I could get through the day without seeing him, but someone somewhere, who didn’t think a hangover was bad enough to cope with, positioned him next to me wherever I went. To make matters worse, he was wearing a bright red top, so he wasn’t exactly hard to spot in a crowd.
The magic of the waltzers is, no matter what mood you are go on them in, you are soon laughing uncontrollably. I recommend them to anyone who needs a boost without the use of mood-altering substances,
Another way I have found to do this is, and it’s a unique way just for me, is to phone my favourite ex, who has a beautiful knack of having me rolling round the floor. Easy now, I mean purely in the biblical sense, and with laughter.
Last night we were discussing the reunion that has been promised for four years, but it looks like it may actually happen this time.
This may pose a few problems though. It’s just going to be me, him, his old flatmate and his old flatmate’s girlfriend, and his other old flatmate who held a mutual attraction for me. Nice.
It should be good though — as I say I haven’t seen them for about four years so it’ll be good to get reacquainted.
Talking about getting acquainted — I wish when you liked someone, or when someone liked you, you could just tell them. OK I’ll rephrase that, I wish I had the courage to tell someone I liked them.
The problem is I’m faced with is I’m not very good at reading signals. But this has been made worse by someone who is very signal-happy, flirtatious with a capital F you may say.
Now, being a major flirt myself this has the effect of two magnets — like two positives being forced together and missing completely. I hope we don’t.

Vodka, vows and va va voom

BEFORE I begin I’d like you to know that the views in this column are my own, and in no way represent those of bona fide female football fans the world over.
On the other hand, I am purely interested in the fact that there is potential for at least 22 fit, sweaty men to be running around in tight shorts. I say potentially because I’m still waiting to see more than five in one game.
Yes, I have embraced Euro 2004 with open arms, especially the bits where we can berate our over-confident neighbours, who have left me reeling with such comments as ‘We’ll beat them in the final’ in true D-Day style of ‘We’ll fight them on the beaches’.
Officially, because I stand to win some pennies if they triumph, I’m supporting the Czechs. My favourites, however are France due to my favourite Thierry. He definitely gives me the va va voom.
The night of that 2-1 peach of a win I watched the Switzerland v Croatia match in preparation, as the last time I’d watched a match was my local team, half-cut on half-time hospitality.
Everyone I have spoken to has said the Swiss match wasn’t exciting but I was on the edge of my seat the whole time — they were gorgeous, although some of the hair cuts were a bit dodgy.
The Croats weren’t bad either. I really couldn’t care less who won.
As for England, maybe I have strange tastes, but other than the highly illustrated Mr Beckham who never really did it for me anyway, I couldn’t pick out anyone else worthy of a mention. OK maybe David James at a push.
There’s just an appeal about footballers, which I suppose is a view shared by many others. Jason Turner (Footballers Wives) also had va va voom and reminded me a lot of my favourite ex.
It’s like men in uniform — even when they’re in their civies, the fact you know they wear one most of the time is enough.
I had a uniform of my own on Saturday night. It shows how much the bride-to-me means to me to know I was wearing a pink top, pink fluffy headband, pink feather boa and a pink fluffy garter (aka hairband) which spent most to of time round my ankle.
A word of advice — a hen night is an excellent pulling tactic, especially if a potty and a group of vodka-fuelled reveller are involved.
At first it was £1-a-kiss for the bride. But after we got further round the club, paying gents could have their pick of any one of the two bridesmaids, various wedding guests, and oh yes, the bride.
It wasn’t long before we were corrupted by a group of visiting sailors.
After missing the boat with navy man number one due to my weakness for Dolly Parton’s ‘9 top 5’, I was soon fed the worst chat up line in the world by one of the shipmates.
Bearing in mind Woody was from Plymouth: “Don’t I know you from somewhere?” didn’t quite wash.
He was cute (with dimples) though, and despite my constant, and in hindsight embarrassing saluting, he asked me to dance. Thank the Lord I didn’t break into the Sailor’s Hornpipe in my inebriated state.
I don’t know what happened — either I was not drunk enough or I’ve just been out of the game too long, but I suddenly got really nervous and shy, like he’d just asked me to marry him or something.
I did dance though and it was all good. He admitted that his chat up line was quite lame, but it had worked so he may try it again.
All too soon it came to the bit where he asked for my number, with both of us knowing he would never use it. I’m still waiting.
Well, no I’m not. I really must be getting older — I just can’t be bothered with all that nonsense any more; basing your relationship hopes on 10 snatched minutes and a number swap in a nightclub.
With the wedding a matter of weeks away, my whole life has been turned into fashion hell. I thought I would be really smart and buy my outfit two months ago as I always leave things to the last minute.
But now at the last minute, I’ve taken back the skirt and bag, and have replaced it with a dress, for which I now have to buy new accessories and shoe (such heartache).
I’m hoping that the bride and groom will have perhaps invited an eligible bachelor or six to the event, and I’m not going to be the only one without a plus one after their name.
After feeling empowered last week by crossing Mr Can’t Attach, Won’t Attach off the list, I’m now feeling like an impounded dog, waiting patiently for someone to choose me and take me home.
If France come out of Euro 2004 in the next few weeks, I wonder if Mr Henry would like to join me?
Hey Bobby, what’s French for you wish?

Stop the bus

DON’T worry if you find it hard to keep up with my various conquests and exploits from week to week — you’re amongst friends.
A colleague of mine despairs at the running commentary I give her on those who catch my eye. Don’t be fooled when I say ‘a’ colleague — I mean she’s the one who gets it the most, and not the only one who can’t keep up. I find it hard to keep up myself.
To elaborate, I refer now to the genius that is Wendy Cope, who penned the immortal lines: “Bloody men are like bloody buses — you wait for about a year and as soons as one approaches you, two or three others appear.”
So bloody true.
Standing at my own metaphorical bus stop I’m amazed at how many ‘vehicles’ of all shapes and sizes have turned out in the past wee while. Maybe my pheromones are now finally working? Maybe someone has actually been reading my column? Or maybe I’m just the best of a bad bunch — I don’t know!
I’d forgotten what it felt like to be chatted up until it happened recently. I burst out laughing — right in his face — which wasn’t ideal. His intentions were sincere, but however flattering it just felt and sounded so cheesy.
Up there on the pedestal with my self-help guru Carrie Bradshaw is Bridget Jones, who unwittingly put the idea into the heads of thousands of singletons everywhere that becoming an ‘aloof, unavailable ice queen’ was the way to go — after all it netted her the highly unsuitable but devilishly brilliant Daniel Cleaver (read Hugh Grant, because let’s face it after watching the film, the boundaries between screen and reality get a tad fuzzy.)
There are only three slight problems I have found with this approach.
To begin with, when using predictive texting, if you type in the work ‘aloof’ it appears as alone. Coincidence? I think not.
Secondly, if you act unavailable, what chance do you actually have of becoming unavailable?
And don’t even get me started on the trials and tribulations of being an ice-queen — I melt too easily when I come in contact with a hot flame.
I was quite flattered recently to be told I was a good kisser. I was glowing from for the compliment until I realise the sad irony was I’ve just had too much practice, kissing all the frogs who have never turned into princes. Talk about needle in a haystack!
Wouldn’t it be great of you could pick certain attributes from each suitor to make the ‘perfect’ man? Even then I don’t think I’d be happy. When presented with the supposedly ‘perfect’ man recently I felt uneasy.
Due to my own insecurities I’m not happy unless there is a flaw and this fine young specimen had none apparent, Great, you may say, but if there’s no flaw on the surface, rest assured a major one will rear its pretty head soon.
It got me to thinking what my ‘perfect’ would be, using the materials available.
I’d take the body and charm that makes me go weak at the knees of the one who can’t attach, won’t attach, might attach, won’t attach; added to the comic genius of the Double Dutch rugby player’s innocent ability to translate a coherent sentence. This has resulted in him coming out with sweet statements, for example ‘loveliness (that word doesn’t exist I think? But it sounds nice) and ‘Soso I’m not dead yet, and that you might notice when you feel a kiss’.
I would take the comfortableness (that word doesn’t exist I think? But it sounds nice) of my favourite ex; being already aware of his blemishes and not having to do the ‘getting to know you’ bit and the constant but not overpowering attention. He’s also very good at the whole ‘being a boyfriend’ thing — sending me little presents when I’m sick; knowing when I’m down by my tone and best of all having the fantastic ability to solve everything with a hug.
Mr Perfect would be topped off with the closeness (meaning distance and friendship) and commitment of my boy-space-friend. I would also choose his mum for my perfect mother-in-law as she is as lovely.
But alas, this isn’t a perfect world and we are forced to choose only one (at a time), and live with the good and bad points. Of course, no one is forcing me to choose any of those I have mentioned.
The danger lies in the fact I’m hooked on each and every one of their individual charms and flaws, and I don’t want to let go. There, I’ve said it. And that’s my flaw.
Since writing this I have performed one of my most bravest acts in order to improve my availability — I have detached myself from the charmer who ‘can’t attach’ — I feel this will improve relations and free attention to focus on more suitable specimens.
The whole grass is greener attitude keeps creeping into my psyche. My greatest fear is finding someone with whom to ‘see how it goes’ but all the time wondering how it would have been if I’d ‘seen how it went’ with someone else.
Knowing my luck, they’ll all pass me by and I’ll be standing waiting for another year again. Something tells me I’ll always end up not quite the one who got away but the one who never got there in the first place.
A final word from Double Dutch. Being a keen sportsman, he asked what games I played, after providing his sickening list from rugby to kickboxing, with EVERYTHING in between.
I joked that the only sport I partake in (and badly) is playing ‘the field’ but I think that too got a bit lost in translation, especially when he asked me if you needed balls for that. I think it does.

Not everything is black and white

I’D love to tell you this fortnightly scribe missed an issue was because she was lounging poolside with a cocktail and a good book.
The actuality couldn’t be further from the truth. The only liquid being fed into my system was by an intravenous drip, and however potent, was unfortunately not my favourite tipple.
I’m glad to say that I’m now on the mend, although I’m disappointed to say that my recuperation has in no way been aided by the eye candy potential of the doctors. That is if you don’t count the gay GP on TV soap Doctors and Steve Sloan on Diagnosis Murder (OK I know he’s not a doctor, but he’s related to one.)
Ironically, the only talent I witnessed was my anaesthetist who I only saw for a few fleeting moments (or maybe I dreamt it?) but I suppose it’s better to have been knocked out by him than knocked back.
It’s strange to report that one of those showing the most concern during my period of ill health was ‘the ex’, sending me messages with TLC via texts, and a belated present which I am assured is in the post. His funny messages made me weak, and did nothing for the pain. Or the stitches.
I had too much monotonous ward time for ‘what ifs’ and I blame the lack of hot medical staff for not keeping my mind off the subject. Maybe I’ve been eating too many apples?
I bought a ballgown more than five years ago: an impulse buy on a new store card in a sale. It is beautiful — black and classically cut — if it was any other colour it would be my wedding dress.
Anyway, I’ve never had it on, apart from running around dans la maison, evident from the fact the label is still attached.
But my plan, spurred on by my mother’s eternal optimism, was to keep it in case ‘I met a nice doctor and was invited to a ball’. After my recent disappointing hospital stay however, I’m left pondering the future of this piece of haute couture — I suppose I’ll just have to shift the search to another occupation which would offer me the chance to give this beautiful dress an airing.
‘The ex’ is a double glazing salesman so I don’t hold out much hope of him giving me the chance, unless black becomes the new white for summer weddings.
I am of course only joking — I think he’s been put off for life. Yes, I’m still being drip fed details of the aftermath of his recent break-up with ‘the one’ who’s just turned out to be another one.
Seeing his situation scares me slightly, well more than slightly.
I hate to see that two people who loved each other so much for so long can now feel so much hatred for each other so suddenly.
They’re now starting to see a side they hadn’t before, or hadn’t wanted to.
I know people who have spent their whole lives together and still don’t know each other.
It confirms my belief that you should never dwell on what future there may be in a relationship, because if you do you’ll never get anywhere.
A certain someone keeps telling me I’ve got my whole life ahead of me, but none of us has any guarantees that we do.
Ironically the same person is himself desperate to have children, but because of lifestyle choices and attitudes to taking a chance on something or someone who may not necessarily fit into the mould of what he is expected to choose, may have now left things too late, which is a shame because his babies would be beautiful. I did offer but....
The thing I have missed in my rehabilitation is someone to look after me, give me hugs and make me cups of tea and the like. That is other than my mum.
‘The ex’ has done his best, but to say we’re in ‘different places right now’ is an understatement. This could be remedied soon however, with news that a mutual friend is trying to arrange a reunion night out.
I’m not entirely convinced that it’s one of his greatest ideas though, unbeknown to him. I’ve been OK with my feelings up until now, because there has been several hundred miles to keep my heart from ruling my head, so being silly and falling in love all over again has not been an option.
I’m just worried if I actually see him again, standing in front of me, looking all vulnerable and huggable, I might melt and not be able to reconfigure for my journey home to the rest of my life.
So, it’s either going to be beautiful babioes, a black wedding, or an eternally doting mother. Decisions, decisions.

Shop 'til you're dropped

JUST when I thought things couldn’t get worse, I received the phone call that made my heart skip a beat and my mind go into overdrive.
It was from the ex. Worse, my favourite ex — newly single from a long relationship, with too much time on his hands to think what might have been. And what could still be.
I hate to say it, but I had been waiting for this phone call since he told me that he and his now ex were moving in together.
When I spoke to him last they were getting ready for the big move, talking about decorating, joint bank accounts and even a new addition to their newly formed family — a cat.
Instead of weekends out with the boys, he was now trailing round B&Q and deciding whether it would be ‘Whiskas’ of ‘Kitekat’ for tea.
Hearing about his new found ability to cope with proper co-habiting relationship sent out the warning signals to me straight away. Firstly, I couldn’t comprehend that this was the same person I used to know, and secondly, if he was coping with the whole big, bad, scary world of commitment, why was I still terrified of it?
In the end, he was trying to be something that she wanted him to be and in doing so totally lost all idea of what he wanted. I haven’t got to the bottom of it yet, but I figure she must have realised that he just wasn’t that person, no matter how hard he tried.
Now she claims he’s too good for her and that she wants him to go out an find someone better than her, which I take to mean: “I’ve changed my mind about you. I want you to move out so I can find someone better than you.”
Although it’s been put to me, I don’t think for a minute that I could be that ‘someone better’; not for the moment anyway.
The reason our little adventure together worked so well was because we were, and still are, the male and female equivalent of each other — we knew what we were like without having to find out unexpectedly months down the line. We were at college, we were having fun, with each other and others.
The whole relationship was treated like the preliminary months of a normal one. There was no talk of the future as we both knew there probably wouldn’t be one.
To transfer that into a proper relationship, circa now, wouldn’t work. It would be mistaking lust for love for the very beginning, and I try to avoid that at all costs.
But what if we do mistake ‘the one’ for just another one?
How many of us have shrugged off a club/holiday/work/college romance as just another thing? Who’s to say that they are not the soul mate that those in the know say we have, somewhere in the world?
What if we do actually find each other but then miss each other completely?
After hearing about the lovely Dutch rugby player I met recently in an Edinburgh club, my mother, who I’m sure has been saving up sayings to pass down to future generations, warned me that I as going to ‘let all the bonnets go by for a hat’.
We’ve kept contact by email since this chance encounter, and this single Dutch truly brings a new meaning to ‘double Dutch’
So now I’m being haunted by the ghosts of love past, present and future. I feel like I’ve been plucked from a modern-day Scrooge story, where Jim Bowen is parading these three suitors in front of me saying: “Here’s what you could have won.’
Thank the Lord for my ‘Samantha’; my eternally single girlfriend, with more balls than most of the men I’ve been out with, who filled my weekend with wine and window shopping,
Instead of looking for Mr Right, she says, I should be looking for Mr Right Now.
When you’re shopping, it’s always better to try something for yourself first, as it might look very different on someone else.
With my ex, he tried the whole ‘relationship’ thing for size and realised it didn’t fit. By this point, his girlfriend had already decided he was an accessory that no longer went with anything else she had. So now he’s back on the shelf.
I have been trying something myself. It’s one of those things that you really want, but you just don’t need. The thing that you keep trying just in case this time it fits, but you just keep getting disappointed, The thing that you worry might be gone when you go back for it when it will fit, only the next time you see it, it’s draped round someone else.
I thought it suited me, but every time I ask for an opinion, my nearest and dearest do that face that tells you they don’t want to tell you that’s it’s not right for you, because they know how much you want it.
So for now I’ll just sit on this shelf, like the ex, until I get an offer I can’t reuse.

Everything old is new again

I’VE been thinking a lot about life recently: how much we take for granted and how much we put off for another day that may not even come.
No one knows how long they have ahead of them, and what course their life will take, That is unless, like me, they have conversed with Gypsy Rose Lee number 395 on Whitby seafront, and have been told they’ll live well into their eighties.
One day, no matter how successful, powerful or happy we are now, we’ll ultimately just all end up statistics. Future generations will scoff at the fact we were once ‘sad’ enough to listen to Beyonce, and look at photos not only asking who the people were, but why they ever thought what they were wearing was fashionable.
I mean, when we’re old and grey, will be actually be grey? Will we still cut our hair short and get a perm, or will we try to maintain the choppy bob with highlights we’ve grown up with. My family always laugh at when I say I’m going for a blue rinse.
Sitting in the residential home (if they still exist), will staff put on a bit of Dido or Black Eyed Peas for easy Sunday afternoon listening? Instead of tea dances, will we still be going down the club to strut our stuff with Justin Timberlake and the Busted boys?
I’ve always been mistaken for being older than I am, something I have to admit I’ve always been quite proud of. But now it’s as if I’ve caught up with these age expectations and feel like a fraud who is forced to remind herself constantly just how old, or young, she is.
I came face to face with a woman who I recognised as me in fifty years time, on recent travels.
It was one of those journeys when I just wanted to keep myself to myself, trying to ignore the ‘ya ya’ student sisterhood sitting three rows behind. I was in the middle of a great book, which I was just pulling out of my bag when this lady started her tale.
I desperately wanted to get back to my story, but I was too intrigued by hers.
She’d always thought she would have the rest of her life to do the things she wanted to do like get married, have children, write a book.
Now in her later years, all she has is regrets. I insisted it wasn’t too late to realise at least one of her dreams, to write the book, and something in her eyes told me she didn’t really need me to tell her.
Her parting words to me were: “Don’t make the same mistakes.”
And then she was gone, as if sent somehow to pass on this message, Back to the Future style.
We are constantly told we live in an ever-changing world. But isn’t everything just a repeat of what has gone before?
In fashion this is especially evident — only last week British Airways reverted to its uniform design on the 1950s.
We’re all dressing like our mothers and grandmothers — something I have consistently tried to avoid for many years — but some of us are getting it very wrong.
Two high-ponytailed ‘clones’ passed me the other day, wearing matching bubble gum pink cardigans, pumps, black kicked-out skirts and neck scarves. They looked like extras from Summer Holiday. I felt at any moment Cliff himself would jump off the bus in front of singing Bachelor Boy, or worse still Darren Day would suddenly appear on the prowl for fiancee number what?
Music is also a-changing — or not as it seems. Less than ten years ago if you even mentioned jazz, a strange cringe-worthy glaze sweep my face. Now it’s everywhere and we’re loving it.
Starsky and Hutch are also back on our screens — OK so it’s not Soul and Glaser, but wow Owen!
Prince, Duran Duran, Elvis and Abba are all topping the charts, hairy men in rhinestone bejewelled jumpsuits are asking if ‘we believe in a thing called love’ — and we’re choosing Terry Wogan over Sara Cox. I am myself a Tog in training.
A little four-year-old friend announced recently that she’d split up with her boyfriend, but not to worry because there was somebody else she liked, quite a few in fact. Last night she informed me she’d taken him back. Taking the ‘life is too short’ theory a little too far me thinks.
Too many people live in the past. We have to live in the present and in doing so we’re living for the future. Live for the moment, take each day as it comes, accept love when and where you least expect it, and don’t put off for another day because you might never get the chance to see your plans through; you may never get to write that book.
“There is no better time than right now to be happy. Happiness is a journey not a destination. So work like you don’t need money, love like you’ve never been hurt and dance like no one is watching.”

Crazy little thing called love

LOVE, love changes everything. No, it really does and I have the proof.
Until she met her long-haired lover from Falkirk, my friend had a full bodied physical revulsion to the L-word, and anything associated, such as anything pink, fluffy or pretty. This was made especially difficult by the fact the third in our trio was the epitome of pink, fluffy and pretty.
Relating tales of side effects cause by our current love interests or turning even the slightest bit soppy (and I try to keep my external soppiness to a bare minimum) caused her to shout ‘MOOSH’ at the top of her voice
Catching up with her recently, I was amazed how love had changed her, It wasn’t long before she slipped the dread L-word into our conversation, When I say slipped it in, I don’t mean blink and you’ll miss it. This was a definite ‘I love him’ moment, sandwiched by other related ‘moosh’ declarations.
I was incredulous: “Whoa! Did you just say you loved him?” I whispered,
If I hadn’t already been on the floor I would have ended up there, I was expecting a coy ‘erm, eh, well, yeah kinda’ reply. Instead I got a clear-cut Kelly Osbourne ‘ya-ha’ like it was the craziest thing in the world to have to ask.
After realising I knew little about this new-found love of love, it just kept coming. She’d written a song for his birthday, they’d talked about (dum, dum, dum, drum roll) the future, and the worst part of all — she was wearing pink. In public. And liking it.
She’d also found the joy in wearing pretty things like vintage clothing, silk scarves and beautiful shoes, which she’d jibed me about for years.
Oh and it was love at first sight. Cue a well-timed and perfectly proportioned MOOSH!
In the past she was the one I relied on to bring me back to earth when I got too ahead of myself, or saw everything through a pink haze. Now she’s using phrases like ‘how sweet’. And don’t even get me started on Valentine’s Day.
What was happening to me? When did I make the transition from ‘mooshed’ to ‘moosher’?
I do believe in love, and that one day not too far away, before I become even more cynical, someone will utter those three words to me. But maybe I have too high expectations I’d like it to happen like the movies, to be swept off my feet, like in Love Story.
My pre-engaged friend and I were talking about ‘“loveliest’ film moments last night. After the snow scene from Love Story, a close second favourite is Julia telling Hugh: “I’m just a girl, standing in front of a boy, asking him to love her” in Notting Hill.
I’m not sure about violent films breeding violent behaviour in childhood, but I’m sure romantic blockbusters have a lot to do with the disappointment facing singles looking for love; I mean, can you imagine if you actually said that to someone?
Until recently I didn’t think it was possible for it to ‘happen like the movies’. That is until I met the all-singing, all-dancing, all Ivy-league Americans that are Lauren and Michael.
She had natural cheerleader looks: perfect teeth, hair, skin, a winning smile, and a place at a top university.
He was also too good to be true. He had films star looks: perfect teeth, skin winning smile, was slightly older so had already graduated from a top university. He was now a top estate agent, loaded and in love.
Most importantly, they had each other.
They’d been set up by mutual friends at a party, fallen in love at first sight, after a month were engaged, and are now planning a big white wedding, held at her parents’ palatial house on a tree-lined street. And yes it does have a swing on the porch, which is where he proposed while sitting wrapped together in a blanket on a cool night in the fall.
But that’s in America. However, they do say that there is someone for everyone, you just have to get out there and find them, so maybe I’m looking in the wrong country?
They, whoever they may be, do also say that when it’s love, you’ll know.
And so the question of all questions — how do you define love? And what’s the difference between loving someone, and being in love with someone?
Love n: to delight in with exclusive affection.
But take a closer look.
Love n: the score of nothing in games,
This column was brought to you by the letter L and the number one — because I’ve fallen out of love with playing games when the score is ultimately zero.

No more Sex

AND so the end is near and we must face the ‘finale’ curtain.
As when any relationship ends, you have to come to terms with the fact that life will never be the same again. In this instance, Friday nights will be especially difficult.
For the uneducated amongst us, Friday night of course spells the end for a certain New York foursome. Yes, Carrie is hanging up her Manolo Blahniks Charlotte’s Louis Vuitton handbags and Miranda’s power suits are going into storage, and whatever relations Samantha is involved in are being put on hold.
As from next week, there will be no more Sex and the City. Sure there will be reruns, but that’s like sex with your ex — never as good (or so I’ve been told, Mum).
If, like me, you’ve been trying to dodge the constant media spoilers sent to try us, you will be oblivious to the final outcome.
Don’t worry you can keep reading. I have my suspicions, but I would never share them for fear of giving anything away. I am distraught enough that an SATC email told me about Carrie’s move to Paris — with no warning on the subject line.
Doubtless, many of you will be shouting: “It’s only a TV programme!”
In fact it’s so much more, To me it’s like a weekly self help tutorial. Carrie and the girls made it OK to be single. And to enjoy being single.
They wear the clothes you want to wear, or like to think you could wear if you didn’t live in the Wee Grape (seed) to their Big Apple. They have the apartments you’d love to have. They go to the parties you’d love to go to, where they meet the men you’d love to meet (Oh Aidan!). And mostly they give the advice you’d love to get.
Everybody recognises a bit of themselves in one or all four of the main characters.
I got to thinking.......
During a trip to the city last week, I realised just how ‘Samantha’ my friend was, when filling out an application to find ‘Love on a Saturday Night’.
Question: Are you still in touch with any of your exes?
She thought she should refrain from admitting she was not only in touch but also involved with at least three of them.
I nearly died of embarrassment, and then of laughter, later that night when we were sitting in the restaurant.,
Waiter (Hot, tall, dark, Aussie): Can I get you anything else?
‘Samantha’ (Hot, tall, blonde, Pommie): Your phone number please. Oh and another glass of wine. Thanks
Cool as you like. Maybe this is where I’m going wrong. He phoned later and as far as I know they’re going out next week.
My ‘Charlotte’ is very much in love with someone, like ‘Harry’, who everybody loves to love, and would do anything for her. She’s the most sensible person I know, she knows what she wants out of life, and it looks like she knows how to get it, and that she will.
She gives good advice, and knows how to deliver it in the best possible way. She also loves it when other people are in love, and you really believe she wants to hear every detail.
And she appreciates the beauty of shoes which in my mind makes her a very good friend indeed.
I don’t really have one ‘Miranda’, but a few friends who make up different parts of her. The fiery temper, the weakness of realising she maybe does need someone to love, and someone to love her.
Most of all I have a few close friends who, like Miranda, give you the advice and responses that they know you really don’t want to hear, but have to.
And lastly, I realise I’m becoming more and more like Carrie, Some feedback I have received about this column has reflected just how ‘Carrie Bradshaw’ it is. This was never my intention, but even to be mentioned in the same sentence as her is the best literary criticism I hope to achieve
OK, so I value footwear highly, but even if I could afford it, maybe not quite enough to spend what Carrie does. I love her style, we have the same taste in men, I have a good circle of friends and we’re both writers.
Unfortunately, the similarities end there. I hate to disappoint readers, but at the moment I’m not sitting at an open window at my laptop, with a soft afternoon breeze ruffling my flowing blonde locks, while I sit on my petite négligé-clad dowp.
No the reality is quite different, and that is why we need a programme like Sex and the City to give us something to aspire to.
One very major thing Carrie and I have in common is a Mr Big — a fiercely independent (read bachelor), highly unsuitable, and equally irresistible, weakness, who doesn’t know what he wants as long it is with you. For now.
So while Carrie and I secretly hope for a happy ending, with a hanky and a pair of silver stilettos (Carrie would be proud), I’ll settle down for the final season finale on Friday, with a tear in my eye and a Manhattan in my hand.
It’s been nice knowing you girls.

Picked up, put down

If you believe that 'the only man a girl can depend on is her daddy' - uttered ny that famous philosopher Frenchie in Grease - and Daddy's not exactly the role model of reliability, then surely there is no hope for me?
I've learnt from trial and error that it's always best to expect the worst so you are never disappointed, or so the theory goes.
That is, however, until an outside factor, such as modern technology, blurs the edges of where the blame truly lies.
I had a date last Sunday, or at least I should have, had the SIM card in my phone not decided after four months that it was in fact, invalid and packed in.
This left me dsolate and crying into the calorific ice cream I'd resisted on my equally desolate Valentine's date with, well, me.
When he didn't show I immediatley thought the worst.
A very apologetic email on Tuesday explained he'd had to work and thought I'b been blanking him for calling off, so he probably and understandably worried about the response he'd get from me if he'd reached me.
If he had my home number, he would have called.
I had limited my eight avenues of communication to only two, one of which was now not working, the other only accessible from work. Adding to his list would surely only be adding to my disappointment if he didn't use it. Damage limitation.
Gone are the days we girls would stay in just in case he called, dialling the operator only to hear "No, yhere's no fault with your line. Or his."
We can't now blame the fact that we were out, or he wasn't near a phone for the lack of verbal intercourse. Until my invalid phone packed in, I had it on and with me 24/7, able to check every few minutes in case there was that little envelope signalling that I had mail and more importantly, I had male.
There is too much pressure on the caller and the called nowadays.
As if this was not bad enough, someone had to ask the question every 'single' person hates. If I knew the answer I wouldn't be single. Simple as.
It's like asking someone who has lost something where they last had it, because if they knew that, they'd know where to look.
On returning from a night out, a friend was asked by her intended why I didn't have a boyfriend, because I was 'funny'.
Funny ha ha? Or funny as in a sandwich short?
I'd had funny before - been there, done that, told the jokes. Now, I needed something else. What was I lacking? Except a boyfriend.
The question : "Why don't you have a boyfriend?" should go to Room 101.
Mothers, I have found, are the worstperpetrators. Mine is determined to marry me off to my boy-space-friend, and thinks I can't see the sly glance at anyone who's looking when I mention his name.
Moving on from a question every singleton fears, to one a certain girlfriend is dying to hear, imagine the scene.
After four years with her firdt true love, my pre-engaged friend was whisked away on a romantic weekend for Valentine's Day. Well, she said romantic, he said dirty. Could this be it?
Over dinner, her partner leaned over and says: " What would you do if I proposed to you, right here, right now?"
She barely had time to take in this momentous question before he sat back and laughed: "I'm not going to, like, but what if I did?"
It wasn't the first time an evil tease like this had occured. She's bee built up and let down so many times she felt like a Lego brick.
Before the trip she was going mad, knowing that he wouldn't be as stereotypical as to propose on 'the most romantic day of the year™'. but secretly, still had everything crossed.
I say ditch the pressure of waiting for him to ask her and use our one in four oppurtunity to do the asking.
Only in Scotland could there be, since 1288, a law that the knave who declines your proposal on a leap year and can not prove he is bothered to another, can be fined anything from a kiss to payment for a silk dress or a pair of gloves. I love this country.
Before I'd finished reading this, I had a list of highly unsuitable fellows, with an article of footwear cross-referenced alongside his name. After all, a silk dress or a pair of gloves was all very well, but in today's money that could buy me that top I had my eye on or the shoes I'd ditched for my Roberto Vianni's.
If only I could get my hands on this piece of legislation for gravitas.
We're all under pressure in one way or another, whether single, engaged, married or divorced, in love, work or money.
But this week, the biggest pressure of all lies with my gentleman caller who called off, to see just how he's going to make it up to me.
Answers on a postcard....

Did someone mention love?

Ok admit it. How many of my fellow singletons woke up with a desperate sense of hope on Saturday morning, just in time for the postie and flower-toting delivery girls to arrive?
Liars! You can use every excuse under the sun. Its too comercialised, it's old fashioned, soppy, expensive, 'sentimental tosh', etc etc, but deep down, our excitement does grow at the prospect that somewhere, someone out there has gone out and thought of your enough to buy you that special (and often cheesy) gift.
Obviously no me. I was not up at 8.30am, running to the door in search of hopeless desperation. And I was not disappointed when the only card I found there was from my equally single boy friend (note: boy space friend).
The worst thing is dreaming you've already got up and there is one (or six), making the reality a truly rude awakening when you find only the proverbial bills, bills, bills and the said 'pity' card that we'd arranged to exchange in a previous 'how sad is my life' drinking session.
"Carpe diem!" I proclaimed as I headed to the shops, where I felt a whole lot better - after all, if you can't have love there's always shopping.
And then on Valentine's Day, I did fall in love. My heart was racing. How could something so beautiful exist? Italian, sophisticated, well-nuilt, from a good background and well-heeled.
There, in that department store, I found Robert Vianni, or at least a pair of his shoes. And they were a quarter of the original price - it was love at first sight.
I do believe they were calling out "Take me home!". So I did. It wouldn't have been fair not to.
For at least half an hour I felt fantastic. I was single. I had a new pair of beautiful shoes, with no one to answer to as to why I needed yet another pair - except of course from my bewildered mother - and I was starting to plan a lovely evening of trying my entire wardrobe with them.
That is until my absolutely-not-single shopping buddy set out to create the perfect evening for her and her valentine. Candles, rose petals, good food, good wine, love heart patterned place mats, coasters, napkin rings (you get the idea).
Jealousy now flooded the parts pity had filled earlier. It was then I started to notice the couples, the Romeos standing every few metres grasping bouquets and thousands of cards not bought and not delivered to all those sleeping beautys.
I'm a singleton! Get me out of here!
Carpe what? I was single and it was Valentine's Day. My nearest and dearest ALL had 'dates' in ome respect. The person I wanted to spend it with was on the other side of the country, but he was a non-believer anyway.
In the same respact that if you utter the immortal words that you don't believe in fairies, somewhere in the world, one dies, if a non believer rubbishes romance, somewhere in the world a singleton's heart breaks.
I had to think rationally, What difference did it make? I'd been single for, well, a lot more days than this one so why was I bothered? Possibly because for a fortnight, being in love had been drummed into every orifice from every medium. And what possible use did I have for a foiled heart-shaped balloon and teddy clutching a heart anyway?
Time to take action. Ah yes, that's it. Diem.
So I didn't spend the night alone and bored. Instead I ghose David Gray, a bottle of vino, a luxury face pack, hair mask and a two hour bath. I was so proud of myself that I even left the ridiculously highly calorific ice cream in the freezer.
Even after everyone else had let me down, I couldn't let myself down as well, could I?
So I propose a toast. Next year, let us have a day which we will call St. Single's Day. It shall be full of luxury, shopping, shoes, pampering and nothing resembling hearts, teddy bears or cupids. Chocolates are allowed, as are candles, though only to add ambience to your two hour bath and not in any way for dinner.
The next day I was awoken again by a pityful sound: Steve Wright's Sunday Love Songs on Radio 2 - commercialisation at its best. "It's Valentine's Sunday and we'd love to hear from you," the radio announced.
No you wouldn't, Steve, you really wouldnt.