Real Housewives of The Service Industry

I went to my work party last night.

The theme was ‘retro glamour’

I ended up looking like a gay pirate who was going to boarding school.

And was dismayed to find out it was actually nothing more than a heterosexual breeding experiment in an overpriced basement bar.

Also, my friend got cheated on by a Hungarian barman and I saw someone getting a handjob on the dance floor.

Like the countess says, money can most definitely not buy you class.

Housekeeping

I’ve neglected you of late, I know. I die of the shame. So here, in my beloved list form, is some stuff you should think and consider as your drink yourself into unconsciousness on this warm spring eve.

1) I read The Tenant of Wildfell Hall. I wish I hadn’t a lovely little story about emotional manipulation and hot guys who be packin’s bein’ all rebel with a cause a la nineteenth century ruined by being written by a Brontë sister and their godforsaken love of God and fuckin’ Jesus.

2) Also now reading Somerset Maugham’s Of Human Bondage. Yeah, wish I wasn’t. If you ever desire to read this just skip from about page 250 to 400 otherwise you will find yourself sitting on public transport tutting, rolling your eyes and lobbing it across the train with an exasperated “Oh, for fuck’s sake.” at the pathetic protagonist’s lack of a backbone or any sort of testicles.

3) Saw True Grit. Friend and I did so on a whim after we decided Never Let Me Go looked depressing. Instead we got weirdo southern cowboys and proto teenage lesbians. And Matt Damon doing a Chuck Norris impression. And squickly violence. This was the week after we went and saw Black Swan and were both still “Ew, EWWW!” over the scene with the finger…

3a) I still love you Keira Knightley.

4) I’m on a diet. This is exciting, no?

5) Read this

6) And then pay it no heed, cos girl you FIERCE! (Except you, you’re ugly).

7) I bought new shoes! Hurrah for credit card debt and our generation thinking nothing of spending money we haven’t got!

8 ) Met The Duke and Duchess of Gloucester, Prince Richard (Who?) and The Duke of Westminster over’t weekend. And also John Prescott. Google him you ignorant, unwashed hobos.

9) And by met I mean served them food at a 5* hotel.

10) And by served I mean I nearly dropped it in their laps and then got yelled at by my manager.

Wish you were me yet?

My life, is Like, Really Hard, Y’know?

Hola chicos

I hear you, asking, nay, berating yourselves over your callous ignorance of my suffering and what causes it. I shall tell you.

My next door neighbour snores like a banshee getting a Brazilian wax. Like a freight train in a Bruce Willis movie. Like the screams of a Catholic Priest at the end of  a swimming lesson.

And yes, even though he may live next door I can hear him. At midnight. At 1am. At 2am. At 3am. You get the picture. The man is my constant companion in life. I may civil partner him just to get me through these long winter nights.

Anyho, these are the steps I have taken so far.

1) Bitter ranting

2) Screaming abuse

3) Banging on the wall (Useless as the wall is made of stone or some shit and rock solid. It sounds like I’m hitting a fish against a fat person’s thigh).

4) Earplugs. I, your humble narrator has to wear these hot, sexy and yes quite daring and avant-garde orange earplugs to be able to get one’s requisite thirteen hours of sleep every night. It’s hellish.

And they don’t even work. But why am I surprised. They’re Boots own brand.

Here’s what I shall try next

1) Alcoholism. I won’t care if I’m passed out by 9pm.

2) Drug addiction. See previous. Also may take up ganja again to help me cope with the stresses of modern life and city lying which are currently driving me to empathise with serial killers.

3) A small animal impaled on a spike left on the doorstep with a note written in blood reading ‘STOP SNORING OR YOU’RE NEXT’.

Obvs. I’m keeping this all in perspective.

Christmas. It’s so Gay. And not in the good way.

Hola Chicos,

I Hope we all had a good one.

In fact I hope it was so good that you’ll all want to keep the memory sacred by never having another opportunity to have it ruined by a mediocre Christmas next year. And with that in mind I say we ban Christmas.

Now I know what you’re thinking “Oh, he’s a rampantly anti-Christian liberal, leftie bastard who won’t let us celebrate our mildly paedophiliac (Word?) holiday about some bitch what got knocked up and was too embarrassed to tell everyone the truth that the father was Bucktooth Barry and not the School Football Captain, Joseph (Little did everyone know though that Joseph had a baby dick and a water sports fetish. So, all in all of course poor wee Mary had to go find love in the arms of another).”

Which I am.

But also I am a Socialist Muslim Terrorist Commie who believes that Capitalism and Organised Religion form two corners of the trinity of evil (Lesbians being the third corner) and that when they are brought together humanity’s darkest days are upon us.

Want Proof?

Dec. 26, 2004. A magnitude 9.0 quake struck off the coast of Sumatra, triggering tsunamis that swept through the coastal regions of a dozen countries bordering the Indian Ocean. The death toll has been estimated at between 225,000 and 275,000.

Dec. 26, 2003. An earthquake devastated the ancient city of Bam, in central Iran, leaving between 31,000 and 43,000 people dead.

And that’s just what I found on some weird Canadian news website after approximately three seconds of googling. The fact that both those things happened in mostly Muslim and other non-Christian countries further proves a point…or possibly ruins my point. I’m not sure. There are arguments for both

Non Christians deserve to die BECUZ DEY IS MUZALIM INFIDELZ.

Non Christians have died as God’s wrath against us for our butchering of Christmas.

Whatever. I’m just glad they didn’t happen here.

In short, I say we ban Christmas. Mostly cuz I’m fucking sick of it.

Think about it.

• Everything shuts down for weeks.
• You have to spend it with your family. Ew.
• It’s destroying the world’s natural resources by making us buying lots of Made In Taiwan plastic junk that’ll be used for approx. five seconds before we tire of it and throw it away.
• Bad, bad, BAD, BAD Christmas Television.
• The poor Queenie having to do her annual message. She’s not a natural on camera, can she please be let off this obviously stressful duty and allowed to go and glug down a few bottles of sherry like every other OAP on Christmas Day?
• I may have mentioned having to spend it with one’s family already but there are certain things in life that one must always make sure that other people are aware of. Like the horrors of enforced family togetherness time.

So, who’s with me? Let’s KILL JESUS!

It is darkest before the dawn…and all that shit.

So.

Sarah Palin continues her upward momentum to take over the world and kill us all because American Liberals were too ‘meh’ to get off their hypocritical fat arses and go vote. Screw you guys and your damn economy. If it wasn’t for that we could ignore you like we do every other country with puritanical mindsets and a quasi fundamentalist government.

However, in happier news: Brazil elected its first female el presidente (is it the same in Portuguese? They’re basically the same language right?). And lo and behold she’s a former Marxist Rebel! And was an unwed mother! Oh, blessed be she is going to Rip. Shit. Up.

Speaking of socialists with an agenda (Aren’t I always?) here’s a clip of the wonderful UK comedian/tv presenter and sometime drag queen Paul O’Grady giving an impassioned speech on the state of the UK.

(I apologise for the weird cuts to Parliament. I have no idea if that was in the actual broadcast or if the youtuber put them in.)

I love this man. He also rules because he calls out the gays on their stupidity regarding safe sex and HIV. And as you know my thoughts on ‘stupid gays’ are of a negative persuasion (USE A FUCKING CONDOM WHEN YOU’RE FUCKING FUCKING, YOU MORONS!).

And speaking of the gays- I am not even going to comment on Stephen Fry and his latest shenanigans. Mostly because I don’t like Stephen Fry and am glad he’s finally going to get told.  However I may give him snaps cos…

This is basically my version of the Bible

Also, no gay men, you do not get to comment on women’s sex lives. Just like as a man in general we should always hold our tongues about abortions. Well kinda…y’know it’s best not to generalise on that specific subject but you get where I was going right?

Anyway, ta ta. And God Speed.

We’re all getting older.

Hola chicos

So I noticed something as I gout out of bed at 5.30am everyday this week to go serve sandwiches to a bunch of investment bankers (you wish I was joking, don’t you? Or at least my bank balance does) that it was now too cold to run back to my room in a towel after my shower. Which officially means it’s winter in my book.

Unlike everyone else I love winter. I’m not sure why but here are my reasons for why cold weather is better.

Hell

1) This a purely personal reason; I honestly believe my body thermostat is higher than everyone elses. I am always too hot and sweating. I have the heating in my room turned off and notice I am walking around in a t-shirt while others are bundled up in coats. It might just be caused by my ability to walk abnormally fast or my constant neurotic worry but I doubt it.

2) I don’t tan. I don’t burn either…I just don’t change colour. Even on beaches of tropical islands. It’s not fair. My father is an olive-skinned Arab (in all but name) who constantly gets asked where he’s from or if he’s Maori – he is nothing exotic but merely a farmer who has been working outdoors in a black singlet since he was sixteen. My mother meanwhile is a rosy-cheeked Englishwoman with reddish hair and green eyes. She didn’t get her first proper tan till she was in her thirties and she was forced to come to the colonies.  and yet now she runs around the place yearlong in sleeveless shirts gently illuminated by a golden tan. And no, it’s not just the over-priced moisturiser with bronzer in it she uses. But alas, despite this my older brother (who unfortunately does burn. Even when covered in sunscreen and indoors) and I did not inherit these genes. It’s not fair.

I have spent several years of my life sitting on beaches and back gardens attempting to tan only to come back inside with a headache and vague hope of having changed colour from “vanilla yoghurt” to “apricot yoghurt”. I am still waiting. Although once I did get terribly sunburnt on a beach while spending the afternoon attempting to read Anna Karenina. Not only did I have to sleep on my stomach for two weeks but I still didn’t get very far through it.

3) I grew up in New Zealand. Which thinks it’s a lot hotter than it really is. Adjust your love of summer accordingly.

4) I love beaches but I’m not in love with them if you get me.

5) Long black coats, scarves, gloves, fireplaces, pubs…stop me when you need to.

6) Have you ever tried to sleep in a small bedroom on a hot summer’s night? Especially when where you live is mosquito central and you may die of blood poisoning if you keep the window. My father’s response to this was to buy a small cheap portable fan for me to use in the night. It didn’t work. I couldn’t feel any breeze from over a metre away and it wasn’t exactly quiet.

7) Like I said, I walk fast and am neurotic and spend my life sweating an embarrassing amount anyway, I don’t need blazing sunshine added in to the mix.

8 ) Me? Shirtless? Warn your children.

9) My summer outfits require a certain amount of ‘grin and bare’. I don’t really have the build for them. Also I look silly in shorts and my head is too big for most sunglasses. And how are you supposed to go to work in summer? Because everywhere I’ve worked during a summertime since reaching adulthood requires a uniform or some other source of sartorial problem which leads me to becoming a dishevelled and perspiring mess on my way there. I arrive looking about as ready for work as Pammy Anderson would if she got a job at a book store (God, that was a great TV show, right?).

10) Summer is for the beautiful people. I hate the beautiful people. With their six packs and their lack of chest hair and their tallness and their slimness and their blonde hair and their tans and expensive beach attire and ability to look good in sunglasses and jandals. Fuck ’em all.

11) Barbeques. ‘Nuff said.

12) Salads also. I love a good salad but it’s too hot to eat much else between November and March in the old country.

13) Schooltime. Who the hell designed the school year so as we return to sitting in classes with thirty other pubescent BO-ridden adolescents in fucking JANUARY?

14) My birthday is in summer. Between Christmas and New Years. There was never anyone else around for me to have a  party. Tis something that carried on into adulthood. I spent most of my birthday’s alone in front of the TV. Drinking. Also, summer itself is lame because everyone leaves on holiday and if you can’t afford to go anywhere (ahem) you end up left in town with no one to talk to.

15) Family holidays. My family loved to go camping.

My shoebox bring all the boys to the yard (only place there’s room). Part II

Anyway, where was I?

Oh yes: I am aged 11 and living in an all but condemned 1930s villa in a field with a lawn being re-landscaped by my drunk neighbour who happens to own a digger business. My father paid him, for what was probably thousands of dollars of work, with a case of beer and a ‘cheers, mate’. Sometimes,  I do actually miss the old country.

It was at this time I started what we call intermediate school. It’s basically our strange, antipodean word for a Junior High. Anyway, it was my first experience at a school with over 100 students and with school uniforms. My mother went all out and got into a cat fight at the 2nd hand sale the week before school started back and managed to get me a jumper with only a few gross stains and unidentified burn marks. Oh, how I yearned for one of the nice NEW school jerseys that most people in my class had. I was in the ‘brainy’ class i.e. the upper middle class professional’s and rich farmers children’s class. I stuck with the token minority kids and the ‘shit, put some kids from the poorer schools in that class’ students. Yay.

But this would be okay since my father had promised me a cool new bedroom. But then I turned 12. And then I turned 13 and moved off to proper high School and this time put my foot down and got a NEW jersey (victory 1 to me. My mother took a second job.) and then I turned 14. And finally my father scratched his perma-stubbled chin and went “Oh, yeah you were supposed to get a new room, weren’t you?”

So my father ripped out the bathroom and did some illegal wiring and plumbing and then hired some cowboy builder (his mate Jonesy I believe) to redo the rest. In  the end I was left with a room that yes, was twice the size and pure awesome. I had demanded a Mexican themed room: I got yellow wall paper, a bright red-painted door, homemade curtains with sombreros and cacti on them (with a matching bean bag!), a cool new duvet for my (red) bed (no, my parents didn’t go buy me a new bed…they just thought ahead during a 2 for 1 sale a few years earlier), A cool rug and wooden floors. With a huge hole from all the plumbing in the bathroom which dad never got round to fixing. For four years I had a hole in my floor through to the ground. And gaps all over the rest of the floor from where they’d had to find other bits of wood to fill in the gaps. It made winter’s fun.

Also I had a huge hole in my ceiling. I once had a midnight encounter with a possum looking down at me. Let’s just say I dealt with it like the mature and brave young man I was. And in the morning I washed the sheets before anyone else woke up.

After about two years of this relative paradise (Oooh, I forgot to mention my Mum even managed to find an old mirror from a police auction or something and made me a cool distressed wooden frame for it. It was all sorts of awesome.) my father decided that my mother bored him and my mother decided that she loved cheap chardonnay more than her husband and my parents went their separate ways and so we spent a year in poverty selling all our possessions to pay the mortgage.

Also, a quick hint; make sure your power company outsource their call centre to India: there’s nothing more uncomfortable to a middle-aged Indian woman than a teenaged white boy crying over the phone from 10,000 miles away and they’ll switch your power back on pretty quick smart. Did I mention I was made to do this in my neighbour’s living room? Their daughter was in my class. I’m not bitter or anything.

So after a year my mother gave up and we moved into town, selling the shack and moving back to rented accommodation. This one was truly awful. It was on the edge of my hometown and was behind a dysfunctional gang-house with a seemingly endless supply of criminals living there. Example: they had pig-dogs that would be kept in cages in their tiny back garden who they would let out once a week. Within seconds one ran over to one of the dozen or so cats that lived there and ripped it apart while the owner’s laughed.

Oh, and to make matters more fun my room was tiny. But now I had a bloody bean bag to put in there as well a bloody distressed framed mirror. Also the house was generally tiny and awful . But whatevs.

After 9 months here my family moved again and we went to live in the city where I went to university. I wont bore you with my mother’s ‘masionette’ (I call it a state house for pensioners.) it does have a nice view. But no garden. Or garage. It’s very bijou.

So I came to university where my hall of residence had large bedrooms; EXCEPT mine. Everyone else had perfectly nice sized bedrooms, but no due to some architectural quirk there were four bedrooms on each floor in the corners which were half the size of everyone else. Guess who got one? And guess who had friends who had lovely sized bedrooms with acres of space. So much so that when they smashed a lightbulb they didn’t even have to clean the floor because there was so much room they could just take a different path across the room. I’m not bitter or anything. But you know who you are.

So you see this a constant in my life: And when I dream of a day I’ll be able to afford a nice spacious house I think of all the pointless shit I can buy just cos I’ll have the space. Or the heavy, bulky useless junk I’ll buy knowing I won’t have to move every six months. It’s like when I was younger and my mum would buy me clothes from the Op Shop (stupid NZ word for a charity shop) and I was too embarrassed to wear them. I vowed I would buy all new clothes when I was older, I’d have designer clothes and always have new, nice, clean NOT PRE OWNED outfits to wear. And now I do. (Also-just like people who’d never rented before I was annoyed by people who loved to go hunting for thrift store bargains or wear second-hand ‘retro/vintage’ clothes. Oh, fuck off)

So maybe one day I will have a spacious house..instead of one either falling down around me or crammed to the gunnels because it’s decidedly Lilliputian.

The shoebox phenomena (nomena nomena..) Part Uno.

*In a slurred drunk voice like your mother when she came back from book club* Hoooola.

Well, here I am buckaroos in my new home for the next two months. It’s an exciting house; a pebble dash Victorian double gable (look at me with me architecture terms) with high ceilings and creaky old floor boards. O, and those old-fashioned windows that you have to heave and push up like they do on American tv shows. It’s all v. exciting.

Howevs, (there’s always a however with moi. I’m like a nay-saying Tyra Banks. Also, I have never yelled at a girl like this in my life, either.) because I am a poor, poor, poor person who forages in dustbins for food and sells my ass on a street corner I am of course in what the British not-so-euphemistically refer to as The Box Room.

Sigh.

This room, despite it’s lovely big window, with its Ikea-riffic wooden blinds and bare floor boards and high ceilings is around 1.5-2 metres by a bit over 2 metres (what? I’m not good at maths). In essence it is in fact a walk in wardrobe with access from the corridor. Oh well.

It’s not like it’s my first one. When I was six we moved to the House of Wax-esque place I am forced at gunpoint to call my hometown (Imagine Star’s Hollow from Gilmore Girls but without the charm, warmth, picturesque scenery or standards…In fact y’know that show My Name is Earl?? Yeaahh…). We lived in a damp, cold hell hole where the landlord tried to make my parents buy back the de-humidifier they bought for the place when we left (my dad tried to punch him. It was awkward-it was his boss). This house was a horror show; my parents had mouldy asbestos type substance on their ceiling which they had to remove themselves after the landlord tried to charge them for it (yes he made a habit of it), then there was the marauding stags, cows and other farm animals who we would wake up on a Saturday morning to discover had broken into the garden and were now standing on the balcony eating my mother’s azaleas (my mother gets fucking worked up when bitches touch her foliage. It’s a British thing apparently). Anyway, my room here was perfectly nice – if dark and with creepy mould patches.

When I was ten and we were forced to vacate this house…due to, oh fuck knows really…actually they ordered us out with only two weeks notice because they wanted to convert the house in to an office for some unknown reason. We then moved to another house- a 120 year old cottage where my brother was given a bedroom the size of Belgium, with all sorts of exciting things (he got the computer in his room as well! Remember this was the 90’s. This was a huge deal.) where as I got a normal sized bedroom. Remember in rural NZ there’s not exactly a limit on space…it’s fairly empty …but this house was still a shithole; the shower had a concrete floor where bugs the size of small animals would crawl out of. Also there was nothing in the kitchen except an oven- no benches, just an oven. My mother cried. And then got down to preparing dinner…on the ironing board.

Eventually we moved out and my parents bought a house; the first time in my life. My parents became very house proud. However I was miffed as fuck- not only was the house a dump that my parents thought had unlimited potential (as what? A crack den?)- I however saw the following: a bathroom with more mould than wall, a kitchen with no ceiling, a garden with bits of old wall being used as a path through the mud – there was no lawn or garden to speak of, just an empty field with a house in the middle of it- and my bedroom: the piesta de fucking resistance.

My brother once again got a nice bedroom; his was normal sized and even had a stained glass window (it bought out the tiny 10-year-old proto gay in me). Mine however was the size of a postage stamp with a leaking window and a huge set of built in drawers that were glued shut and took up half the room. I took this room because my papi promised me he would knock out the bathroom and make that into my bedroom (In case you were wondering the bathroom would go where the laundry was…my mother is English as mentioned: she thinks a WHOLE room for a washing machine and a dryer is unparalleled colonial decadence. In her world you have a front loader under the sink in the kitchen. Odd woman – also we had a garage the size of a 3 bedroom house so y’know it was going out there).

Now you may think this whining is odd: my parent’s had invested in what was little more than a shack but we lived in a house with 3 acres of garden and a garage that was the Monica’s apartment from Friends style of spacious, but if you ever lived in rented accommodation you’ll understand: It made me very angry at Uni when I was forced to listen to the whining of people who were having their first horrific experience with rented housing. I wanted to say ‘Yes, now try having a family live here under these conditions. And unlike here, your parents or friend’s parents don’t own the house. It’s some bastard who wants to screw you out of as much money as possible.’ (I’m not bitter. But there’s a reason I’m a socialist.)

The rant shall continue.

Secret breeding program conspiracy theory #1

Hola chicos

As I sit here dying due to a scratchy throat and dry hands (a deadly combination that has derailed governments and brought civilisations to their knees) I popped in on that pimple on the face of the modern world that we all know and many of us hate: Book de la face.

It is through this ‘social networking tool’ (which by the way, is what they used to call sexual favours) that I discovered that yet another of the semi-retarded bimbos that I was forced to attend a run-down state school with is now engaged.

So that makes her about the tenth this year.  Not to mention all the other one’s that don’t even bother listening to Beyonce and going the whole hog and sprouting a sprog without even putting a ring on it.

Now I’m not saying that there’s anything wrong with people getting engaged. Oh, hell- yes I am: these people are all in their early twenties, have usually barely left their hometowns and still hang around with the people they were binge-drinking with when they traded in their V-Card for a bourbon and coke. Not to mention that most of them are still fucking this one person and have maybe been out with one or two other people in their lives.

Not that I think longevity and monogamy are a bad thing; God only knows the lower classes could do with some more of it, but it does make you wonder about how easy it must be to be them: they’re content with getting shacked up with some bozo called Kevin or Barry at the grand old age of 22 and to set out the rest of their lives at a time where I, myself am just beginning to figure out what I want to do with my life, for the next few years at least, and couldn’t imagine doing anything permanent.

Is it just me that this occurs to? Or is it common place to feel, at a time when we should be out exploring and fucking up completely and getting our asses bailed out by our parents still, that so many should be putting deposits on houses and saving up for a wedding dress? For god’s sake we’re all going to live into our eighties, what’s the rush? Do you have cancer? Do you enjoy driving on a motorway with your eyes closed and therefore expect death to happen soonish?

I say these people are freaks. Freaks with low expectations and an inability to consider a life less ordinary. There is plenty of time to go and get hitched and get knocked up by a truck driver with a hairy back and a porn addiction (I’ve seen their pictures – let’s not pretend that these guys are a catch) so why not use your youth and do something exciting? Travel the world, strip naked in Times Square and do the macarena, drink so much your liver packs up and leaves while screaming “I have never yelled at a girl like this in my life!”, wake up with a one-armed midget in a jail cell in Guadalajara – do not buy a house twenty minutes from your parents with they guy/girl you’ve been intermittently shagging since you were 16.

Also, I’m aware that some, if not many, of these people come from that strange breed known as ‘Christians’. Well, for fear of a fatwa (Christians do fatwas right? Oh, who cares all religions are as stupid as each other.) being put on my cute, sickly little head I’ll refrain from calling out their shit. Oh, the hell I will: Christians who get married are doing it for one reason: SEXY TIMES. They want to get down and dirty in the back of a Ford Falcon just like everyone else and though they try to pray it away it ain’t gonna work. So they get married and then grow old hating themselves and begging his Holiness for advice on how to get through life.

Give. Me. Strength.

Why not do as we heathen non-believers do and shag one and all and feel no guilt about it? Because let’s be honest it’s not a sacred act: it’s sticking one body part into another one until the friction results in a water-pistol like squirting motion. I swear your likelihood of ending up comfort eating with seven children and an ugly spouse you can’t stand living in a shitty town in the back of beyond is greatly reduced.*

And with that thought I leave you to hopefully be single and happy. Now if you’ll excuse me I have to go and attend to my seven cats and spend all day twitching my net curtains.

*Also helps if you’re not white trash in the first place, though. If you are po’ and ugly then you’re just a cheap skank or a dodgy truck driver, the sort that gets featured in shows like CSI with a moralistic undertone.

I am homeless. Like the Jews pre 1948 (But I do it better).

Oh, cruel twists of fate that endlessly conspire to make me feel like I would be better off to change my name “Lindsay”, move to LA and live on a Park Bench (note: I need no encouraging to do this. It’s already my plan for 2011).

Yes faithful acolytes who love me, worship me and hang on my every uttered witticism: I, your godlike blogger of infallible brilliance and amazingly toned calves is soon to be homeless due to (in no particular order) the economy, the failings of state education and a particularly bolshy Australian with too many minutes on her cell phone plan going unused.

So what am I to do? Do I use this opportunity to pursue my dream and move to the Swiss Alps and find a hunky blond (I’m imagining Alexander Skarsgard. Yes I know he’s Swedish. But come on…do you know how cold Sweden is? At least in Switzerland they have… er, um, chocolate?) farmer whose cottage I will deliriously stumble upon after days of hiking across the terrain. Obviously he will take me in and bring me back to health. Then we shall unlock each other’s hearts and find love. Also: free German teacher! Although hopefully I won’t actually have to speak it to him – we’ll talk with our bodies or some shit.

Option number two (and this is considerably less exciting and involves little chance of Skarsgard’s Swiss cousin coming into the picture) is I actually like, demean myself enough to go and look on gumtree and join in the scrum of people trying to find mid-priced flats in zone 2. Which is basically as easy as, oh, you know, SPLITTING THE ATOM. I’ll die before I find a place that lives up to my impeccably high standards! Does the world not realise how amazing I am and how much I require in a humble abode? (i.e for it not to be humble at all and in fact magnificently opulent…for under £450 pcm.)

OR there is always option number three. I actually pursue my dream of becoming a Lindsay Lohan impersonator right now and move to LA and sit around on Sunset strip, or whatever that street’s called, and charge tourists $50 a pop to have their picture taken with me while I’ look like this

Mama?

People. we have a winner.