Living for Disco

1. We have bought a wii. It is amazing. I’m not very good at games and things - I tend to be shit at killing enemies, and I don’t like the Doom style games where I seem to always die in a haze of blood and confusion before I’m out of the starting gates. However, the wii is very easy for me, as all you need to do is point, and click, and wave the remote about and things happen on the screen. I can play tennis! I am a crack shot with a crossbow! I rock at Mario Cart (a bit)! I am doing very little else. My brain is turning to mush and I have already started dreaming about target practise, and Lara Croft. Actually, dreaming about Lara Croft isn’t all bad. It sates my Angelina-crush.

2. I am now too thin for my dress. My weight loss regime worked a treat, and when I went to try on my dress the other day, the evil bridal shop witch told me that I’d lost the look I wanted because the corset lacing on the dress back was meeting in the middle. Admittedly I couldn’t respond as she was demonstrating how large the dress was on me by pulling the stays so tight that my ribs cracked, and blood spurted from my crushed internal organs out onto the pristine changing room carpet, but I did see her point. I will have to put on half a pound or so just to get it right. Fortunately this means that I can now eat cheese and drink wine with impunity, for I am TOO THIN and must be fixed.

3. I have finally fulfilled my dream of owning a definitive ’80s compilation without having to be embarassed about it. This is because after the swing band have finished their set at our wedding, we’re having CDs played, and if I can’t dance to Footloose and Wake Me Up Before You Go-go at my own wedding then life is just not worth living. Mind you, it probably won’t be for anyone else. I’m going to be up there on my own, in my imaginary leg warmers, pretending I’m 12 again and desperate to know who this band Duran Duran was that everyone was talking about in reverent terms. I only knew Nana Mouskouri, and songs about ‘my love being a cherry with no stone’ didn’t really cut it in the cutthroat world of teenage angst.

That is all.

Just this minute, I got a lovely email from VSO. It begins as follows:

“Dear Rachael,
Having only recently returned as a volunteer, it can be quite tough ensuring a semblance of a social life on a budget. Gigs go out of the window, dancing is kept to a sober minimum and meeting friends can only be done on a monthly basis. The incredible finale to our 50th Anniversary could hold the key to your partying-on-a-shoestring problems: phenomenal artists, amazing venue, fantastic guests, all for a budget friendly price.”

I am composing a reply:

Dear VSO,

Thank you, once again, for emailing me with this lovely special offer without bothering to find out anything about me first. I understand that you have MANY returned volunteers on your books, and that it must be difficult to communicate in a personalised fashion, but may I suggest that you refrain from making assumptions in your emails? Particularly as you took the trouble to address this to me personally. You know what they say about assumptions – they make and ASS out of U and ME. Ha ha. I always enjoyed that little joke.

I would like to point out the following: It is now almost a year since my stint as a volunteer ended – would you class that as recent? In that time, I have thankfully been able to secure gainful employment, and am not as restricted in my ‘semblance’ of a social life as you might imagine. I have been lucky enough to attend some live music events in the last few months, and have been privileged to enjoy listening to Hot Chip, Bjork, Laura Veirs and Joan as Policewoman, among others, at VERY reasonable prices, and with a fabulous view of the stage on each occasion.

With regards dancing, I do this on a weekly basis at the very least, as I am learning to jive in preparation for my forthcoming marriage. Occasionally – mercy! – I even have a glass of wine during the evening.

I am also slightly confused as to your crieteria for measuring the frequency of meeting friends. I would be interested to see your calculations. In any case, sometimes my friends come down to Bournemouth, where I live, to see me. Sometimes I go to see them. Although I don’t see them as much as I would like, admittedly, this is rather due to a shortage of weekends in the year than an inability to stump up £6 for a Saturday fun fare on the National Express bus service.

I thank you for your offer of solving my shoe-string party budget problems. However, I’m not sure that this offer is all that it seems. For a start, the £15 budget friendly tickets that you mention appear to be tucked away at least 3 miles from the stage at the Royal Albert Hall, which as we all know is a little on the large side. They also appear to be ‘restricted’ viewing seats. Last time I took a restricted view seat at the theatre, I was forced to ‘watch’ Kevin Spacey perform in the Ice Man Cometh from behind a 2 foot wide pillar. It was a less than satisfying experience. All your other tickets appear to begin around the £32 mark.

In addition, as you may be aware, the UK has residents that live outside the Greater London urban sprawl. Yes! I know – those crazy kids! It would take me some considerable time to travel from home, on a school night, to the Albert Hall, the extra expense of accommodation and food, as well as the transport costs, which, once you take into account the astronomical price of petrol in these times, as well as the cost of parking in our glorious capital, will in all likelihood push my budget evening up well over £100. All that, and I will have to rise at 5am in order to make my way through rush hour traffic and make it back to work on the morrow.

I realise that I’m probably being unfair to you, and that I should be thanking you for notifying me of this fabulous opportunity. However, your insistence on making sweeping assumptions about who I am persists in driving me up the wall. There are better ways of approaching people. Please, for your own sake, get a clue.

Many thanks,

Rachie

I’m not all that comfortable with the idea of a traditional hen do. I mean, I have been known to go out and get leathered on occasion, and sometimes – yes, it’s possible – I do make a tit of myself in public places. However, I’m not the kind of girl that likes to rampage around town wearing learner plates and deely boppers, drink lambrini until I’m higher on sugar than alcohol, get strange men to sign my breasts or find myself at the end of the night puking into my own knickers. I’m far too much of a snob for that.

Because of this, it didn’t occur to me that there would be an objection when I booked a narrow boat for the day for myself and 8 friends, with the view to having a grand day out on the river. We’ll probably be a bit worse for wear from the night before anyway, so it will be a lazy day with a few beers and a pub lunch – at least, that’s my plan.

I paid the deposit weeks ago, and when I phoned up to get further details we had a brief and friendly chat. Until…

“So, what’s the occasion anyway? Birthday? Corporate team building day?”

“No, actually”, I said. “It’s my hen do.”

Silence. Then strangled nervous laughter, which broke at the end.

“Ahhh, hahahahaha, you kind of slipped through the net there,” he said brokenly. “I really wish you hadn’t told me that. Oh, oh dear. Hmm. Errr…”

“We’re very refined”, I said, remembering the last time I had a few too many glasses of fine wine while involved in a water-based activity. I fell off a punt into the River Cam. Twice. “Honestly, we are. We’re all in our thirties.” This didn’t seem to reassure him. Maybe he’d seen too many episodes of Sex and the City.

“Er, I’m sure you are,” he said, clearly not believing it for a second. I could tell that in his head he pictured his precious boat wending its way down the river, steered by a group of shrieking middle-aged harpies waving giant penises and exhorting all the fishermen en route to get their clothes off. “It’s just that single sex parties…” He trailed off.

“Oh!”, I jumped in, grasping at the only straw I had left. “There will be a man there”.

“Oh god. Oh dear god, it’s a male stripper isn’t it?”

“NO! Jesus, no. Definitely no. It’s a friend. He’s going to be the sober and responsible one.” He didn’t believe me.

But seeing as I’d already paid the deposit, he let it go, this once. His parting shot was to tell me that the £50 deposit payable on the day was dependent on the boat coming back, in one piece, by 7pm, with all equipment on board, and they were to have had no more than two complaining phone calls from horrified canal folk as we wended our way down river.

Dammit, I thought, as I put the phone down. No accosting of canal folk. Who am I going to get to sign my breasts now?

I have lost weight!

I have this beautiful red dress that I bought for a steal on ebay (I love ebay), and when I got back from Australia, I put it on to go out to our weekly jive class. Yes, we jive, people. We will be jiving the night away come our wedding day. It’ll be like playing skittles on the dance floor.

Anyway, I put this dress on, and looked in the mirror. My reflection gently suggested that it might not be a good idea to wear it, as if I breathed, or moved or anything it might just, oh, EXPLODE at the seams, and render me naked before my peers at the Winton and Moordown Royal British Legion Club. And god knows, you don’t want that to happen while you’re executing a Parisian Basket.

So anyway, I put this dress on yesterday, and not only did it fit, it was slightly roomy. Result! So I wore it with pride, to work, and as soon as I got in the car to go home, the strap broke, and I had to drive home with one boob hanging out.

My consolation is that at least my fellow road users had a svelte and shapely boob to look at.

I have been very busy over the last few days, commuting to and from my new job. This commute is quite long - at the least 1.3 hours - and I’m finding it so challenging that all I can do when I get home is collapse in Gordon’s arms (after he has finished peering through the catflap in an amusing manner) and demand wine. You think I’m joking.

So you will understand that it took a great deal for me to stump up the energy to review Indiana Jones’ latest offering. Here are some of the things that I found annoying:

1. The cute gophers. Anyone who lets George Lucas near a film these days is asking for trouble. It’s a good thing he wasn’t involved in Schindler’s List, otherwise all the Jews would have been rescued by little furry chipmunks shouting ‘oy vey’ and looking alarmed when the Nazis goose-stepped past.

2. It’s nuclear. New-clee-ar. Not new-cew-lar. George W Bush says new-cew-lar. Don’t be a moron.

3. Just how many women who’ve been jilted at the altar would greet their ex-paramour with anything less than a winklepicker to the gonads? Just how quickly did she succumb?

4. Sword fighting on the back of jeeps. Yawn.

5. Cute monkeys (see cute gophers above) teaching Indy jnr to swing through the jungle like Tarzan. George Lucas should be shot (see above).

5. Everything else.

Awful. Just awful. Don’t waste your precious, non-commuting time.

In other news, thanks for the lovely comments to the last post, which I will answer, as each and every one deserves an answer.