Day 72: I Am Introduced To Lydia Of Purple

My brother sends me an electronic mail from Amsterdam. The mail is empty, other than this:

www.modestapparelchristianclothinglydiaofpurpledressescustomsewing.com

As God is my witness, I'll never go naked again.

Day 72: I Become A Genuine Scientist

After many minutes of research and many hours of delicate manipulation of my Genuine-Science Generating Tool (TM), I can now exclusively reveal the benefits of eating less and moving around more, complete with arrows that I made myself with my own hands. Please note: this is Genuine Science, and not made up.

If double-clicking on this doesn't work, don't blame me. I'm a scientist, not Bill Gates.



(Thanks to the brilliant Dave Shelton and fellow monkey-aficionado Kav for the technical help. If it looks rubbish, it's nowt to do with them; they just patiently and kindly told me how to grab a thing and make a clothespeg.)

Day 72: I Cannot Find My Socks

Some time ago, I happened to be in the consulting room of a very ancient, very eminent and very kindly Professor of Psychology.

Me: I just want to know the ANSWER. That's all.

Kindly Professor: My dear girl, for many thousands of years man has been trying to find "the answer". If Socrates and Plato couldn't work it out, I very much doubt that you can.

Me: Oh.

Since the dawn of socks, people have been trying to answer the question: "Why, when I wash a pair of socks, does one of them disappear?". Stand-up comedians, Pam Ayres, piss-poor columnists and everyone else, ever, make the same joke. "Ooh! Where do socks go? Are they eaten by the Sock Monster?".

The thing is, I don't find it funny in the slightest. I buy black socks with differently-coloured toes so I can match them up. I buy red socks, blue socks, green socks, orange socks, purple socks and pink socks (but not yellow socks; I hate yellow). I sacrifice my attachment to monochrome when it comes to Matters of Woollen or Cotton Footwear for the simple reason that I literally cannot fucking stand the fact that socks disappear, and I thought (erroneously, it now seems), that colours would help.

I'm not in the mood to make coy little jokes about the naughty Sock Monster that lives under my bed; I do not think that the squirrels come in at night and steal them to make Squirrel Duvets; I do not believe my cat eats them (it would explain his vast size, mind you); there are no Sock Pixies that come in through the water pipe that feeds my washing machine to steal one of a pair so they can watch me go mad. They just disappear. And it doesn't matter if I put them in a little sock washing bag (£2.99 from John Lewis), or clip them together, or slip them into special foot-shaped sock-binders (or any other number of twee-beyond-belief sock-washing accessories): they VANISH INTO THE ETHER.

I have a pile of socks on my bed. I have 23 socks missing their pair. Where are the other 23? What are they doing? Why are they tormenting me? I have bought ten new pairs of socks (£4.99 for 5 from H&M), in the last month but no - now I have only ten socks.

Strangely, the only reliable pair I have has monkeys on. I'd be very interested to know what Plato would have to say about that.

Day 72: I Am Quite Cross About Not Being Bill Gates

It's not like I haven't done anything, but the Thing (of which I offer you a tantalising glimpse above), is a PowerPoint slide. And I can't insert it into Blogger as an image, and if I save it as a GIF, JPEG, ASBO (etc), you can't read it properly when you open it up. The font pixellates or summat.

I am off to Wimbledon to have an unspeakable cosmetic medical procedure administered, but if anyone knows how I can make this thing Happen from a Mac onto Blogger without hurting myself, do let me know. You'll be awfully glad you did.

Day 70: I Offer Some Advice To Friends Of Single People

I am single, as regular readers will know. Next year, I will think about hunting down a Gentleman Caller with my newly-flexible thighs and sensational collarbones. I will then pin him down until he relents, buys me an enormous Georgian rectory in the country and DEMANDS that I spend all day making jam and cake. He will also insist that I listen to Radio 4 all day and have a horse called Kind Horsey and a dog called Dog; for my birthday, he will give me a tiny little spider monkey called Geoff and a penguin, who will have sole rights of access to the second bathroom.

Until then, I have decided that it is Important that people are more sensitive around single people, most of whom don't enjoy being single and feel like spastics when they're at parties with millions of couples arguing and/or holding hands and licking each others' faces.

Do not ask any of the following questions:

"Ooh, aren't you worried about your biological clock ticking?" (Accompanied by random TICK-TOCK sound effects)
"Ooh, doesn't it feel weird when all your friends are married and you're not?"
"What's wrong with you?"
"Oh, picky, are we?"
"So, when are you going to settle down?"
"Shouldn't you hurry up and have a baby?"
"Can't you find a husband then?"
"Are you a gay?"
"Are you a COMMITMENT-PHOBE?" (In my experience, these types do not exist. They just didn't want to commit to me.)
"So, you haven't got children because you had a career?" (Answer: no, I had what can loosely be described as a career because I didn't have a family. If I had a family, I would stop working immediately and spend all day changing nappies, weeping and going to coffee mornings with other mothers with whom I have nothing in common, apart from a child. All of these things are better than working.)

Please avoid the following patronising comments which are meant kindly, but only serve to infuriate:

"You've got to love yourself before you can love anyone else"
"It'll happen when you least expect it!"
"A friend of mine had her first child when she was 40!"
"Don't worry - a friend of mine met the love of her life when she was 52. You're 36, you say? Oh well, not long to go."
"But you're still young!"
"You could always freeze some eggs."
(Delivered by a GP about 4 months ago): "If I were you I'd go home and start trying for a baby right now - time's running out!"

These lines aren't funny:

"Always the bridesmaid, never the bride!"
"Aren't you, technically, a spinster?"
"You've got more chance of being kidnapped by aliens than getting married now!"

Under no circumstances should you say the following thing within 200 feet of me. If you do, I will kill you with my hands.

"You see, this is what happens when women want to have it all. They end up with nothing."

On a lighter note, you know being single and living by yourself? It means you can do whatever you like, constantly and the whole time, without having to think of anyone else. Granted, it's lonely sometimes, but if I want to lie in the bath wearing a fez and smoking a small clay pipe at 3 in the morning, I can. So there. (Although I'd rather be in the bath with a Gentleman Caller in a matching fez also smoking a small clay pipe, if I'm honest.)

NB: I do not include the kind of single women who think their cats are babies in this. They need help. If you know any, refer to them to a Freudian psychoanalyst, pronto. The Tavistock Centre can be reached on +44 (020)7435 7111.