When it comes to books, film and television shows, I've always had a strict No Pointy Ears policy. NPE was the umbrella term for all things remotely sci-fi or fantastical; including Star Trek, Buffy, Harry Potter or any thick novel with embossed lettering and a dragon on the cover.

To me, the word 'fantasy' meant a bathtub full of mangoes, or Dr Ross, Dr Greene and myself on ER circa 1997 ("Take this woman to Curtain 3! STAT!")...

"She's got a fever."

... I thought fantasy as a genre was the realm of strange souls who collected action figures or dreamed of riding a unicorn to work.

But recently I noticed that most of my friends were into the very stuff that I so relentlessly mocked. At the pub I could only sulk into my G&T as they discussed some book or film I hadn't seen. Was I missing out on something worthwhile? Now I don't pick no stupid friends, so surely there was some merit to it all? I had to investigate.

I went straight to the granddaddy of all fantasy, Lord of the Rings. Too lazy to read the book, I took a crash course in the films. Laughing in the face of deep vein thrombosis, the aim was to watch the extended version DVDs of both Fellowship of the Ring and The Two Towers in one sitting, armed only with comfortable pants and a lovely slave boy to refill my teacup at regular intervals.

It was all trundling along nicely -- hobbits, rings and so forth. I wasn't entirely enthralled yet and wondered at what point in the 7.2 hours would my arse turn completely numb. But then there was a magical moment when the hobbits were drinking up at The Prancing Pony. A shadowy figure in the corner stole my attention. The camera swooped in and lo! A vision of manliness! It was Strider of the chiselled cheekbones, artful facial hair and piercing gaze!

"Oh YEAH baby!" I sqwarked. "Now I'm in!"

Viggo Mortensen. Viggo viggo viggo. The more you say it the foxier it gets. Viggggo. My knowledge of Danish was non-existent but it sounded so v-v-v-very good! Vital! Virile! Like a brand new box of shiny blue Viagra! Not that he'd ever need that stuff...

Seduced by an epic story, wonderful characters and an abundance of lust objects, I was hooked by the end of the first disc. I wanted to call my friends and apologise for years of dismissing their "pointy-eared weirdo shit". When the credits finally rolled for The Two Towers I sprang up from the couch and demanded we go to the cinema NOW to see Return of the King. After 430 minutes in Middle Earth my brain was begging for a break but I wanted to take it to the EXTREME!

Sadly it was 11PM and the cinema was closed, so I had to settle for the DVD extras. Therein lay a mighty disappointment - an interview with Viggo. How could this scruffy blonde dude in the polo shirt be the same guy who waved his mighty sword with such grace? I waited for the twinge of longing but felt nothing. The same thing happened when I saw him in a preview for his shite new movie Hidalgo (aka Look Out, Behind You, It's A Sand Dune!). Evidently his appeal for me was bound up in the character.

The sad thing about fantasy is that's just what it is - fantasy. Like when I fell for the bulging biceps of Marlon Brando in Streetcar Named Desire - oh the cruel reality of him abandoning the Kowalski buffness for the mutant blancmange look. And so, Mr Mortensen without his Aragorn costume just looks like some retiring Nordic tennis player about to move into the commentary box. Sigh.

Public transport is a cruel and evil form of mobile hell, in which one is forced to be surrounded by people at the very time of day when one least wants to be surrounded by people.

Yesterday the girl with the Justin Timberlake ringtone was in the midst of a lover's quarrel with someone perhaps attempting contact whilst buried under an avalanche, such was the quality of the phone's reception:

"Nooo. Wha? ... I'm not arguing... Wha? No fuck youuu... Wha? ... Wha? ... I'm on the bus... Wha? ... the BUS!"

The guy beside me was searching for his ears beneath the long greasy ropes of his hair. Once found, he jammed his earphones in and cranked up the volume to the maximum.

My blood began to simmer. When listening to music in public, it's not difficult to check the volume before you put your earphones in to see if it's audible to those around you. If so, you can decrease the volume accordingly. Or if you're a jerky jerkface, you can just turn it up even louder to ensure the whole bus enjoys your bellowing Radio One DJ or obscure Scandinavian metal band.

"Wha? I'll see you at home... HOOOME. Wha? Go to hell."

I stood up and smacked the STOP bell. To hell with this bewheeled torture chamber! I'd paid £33 a month for unlimited travel on Lothian Buses. If this bus was so determined to shit me, I would simply get on a different one!

After ten minutes sulking in the afternoon drizzle, another bus came by. I was greeted by the unmistakable stench of the Great Unwashed. But I was willing to tolerate that for a few moments of silence. I sat back and noticed how this particular route was always full of elderly men with huge ears, curved and creviced like ashtrays.

I was dozing off when a young couple came clattering up the aisle, they couldn't have been more than 14. They plonked down across from me and dropped their shopping bags. He carefully pushed back the hood of her regulation fur-trimmed parka and they commenced a furious snog session.

When you're the one in the midst of a kiss, it sounds like heaven. Sweet or soft or sexy; the memory of it can keep you floating for days. But when you're not involved, a kiss is one of the most irritating noises in the world. The sound of someone else's smacking lips and clonking teeth makes the stomach scream in protest. I pulled my beanie down harder over my ears as he excavated traces of Irn-Bru and chip crumbs from her gums.

After ten minutes they stopped, and the boy spoke in nasal tones.

"Scratch my back would ya babe?"
"Wha?"
"I'm itchy. Below my shoulder. Lower. Aww yeah, that's it."
"Yeah?"
"Bit more to the left. Aww yeah. You're the best babe."

The slurping resumed with renewed vigour for a good four stops, until the girl's mobile rang. You could almost hear their merged saliva stretch out and snap like mozzarella on a pizza as they reluctantly parted lips.

"Hello? Who?... Eh? ... What you want? ... I'm on the bus... THE BUS... Noo, I'm on my own... I'm on my ooown.... Fine."

Beep.

Slurp slurp.

Breathless recap.

"So that was Douglas. Me phone rang and I said like Hello? and he's like It's Douglas and I'm like Who? and he says Douglas and I'm like Eh? What you want? and he's like Where are you? and I'm like I'm on the bus and he's like Where? THE BUS I said and he's like, Is Kyle with you? and I'm like Noo, I'm on my own and he's like, Suuuure, and I'm like, I'm on my ooown, and he's like, I'm going, so I'm like, Fine."

Slurp slurp slurp.

My fingers itched to hit the STOP button again, but all immediate exits were blocked by old geezers with satellite dish ears. I scratched at the vinyl seat and tried to ignore the din. Instead I focused on the man in front, admiring the way he'd artfully arranged his remaining hairs in a spiral around his spotty red scalp.

Slurp slurp.

I was brooding over the realisation that I'd have been home twenty minutes ago if I'd stayed on the first bus, when the bell rang. The scrawny Casanova dragged his girl down the aisle.

"Let's go babe. I'm bursting for a piss."

When Audrey Hepburn as Holly Golightly was having a bad day, she went to Tiffanys to calm her down. I go to Marks & Spencer Simply Food.

Instead of a croissant and a Givenchy gown, I belch over a can of Fanta in ill-fitting trackpants, but it has the same soothing effect. Shopping in Princes Street always fills me with an irrational rage. The baffling multi-level shops, the dawdling tourists stopping every five metres to take another photo of Edinburgh Castle, the old folk and prams and beggars cluttering up the pavement like abandoned cars; all conspiring to piss me off.

So I take refuge in M&S. For those unfamiliar with Simply Food, they describe it as a "meals solution store for busy people". They have all manner of ready meals and pre-packaged products so you can pay maximum price for the minimal effort dinner. There's something so relaxing about being there, bathed in fluorescent light, watching wee old ladies select their individual Steak & Kidney pies and singletons frowning at nutrition information panels.

M&S are truly the masters of the ready-meal universe. While their meals are of superior quality to your Iceland Chili Con Carne, they're still trying to flog pre-packaged processed preservative-laden stuff. But they make you want it bad by giving their products the most beautifully overblown names and descriptions. I spend ages wandering up and down the aisles, dreamy and content, just reading the labels. They plump up nouns and roll them in succulent verbs so skillfully that they could make a plate of gravel sound like Michelin-star dining.

Witness how they sex up a humble BLT: Combining the spirit of America and Italy; maple cured bacon with gorgonzola cheese dressing, sliced tomatoes, lettuce leaves, mayonnaise and red onions on pumpkin seed bread.

Let's wash that down with some lemon cordial, your basic nasty cocktail of glucose and E numbers. But no! M&S call it Mediterranean Lemon and Mexican Lime High Juice. Now that's what I call fusion cookin'.

You could spend an hour looking at the yogurts alone. How to decide? The Greek-Style English Strawberry and Cornish Clotted Cream Yogurt made with Channel Island Milk? Or the Champagne Rhubarb and Madagascan Vanilla? I swear I'm not making that up.

(But how I wish I could. Where does one apply to become a copywriter for M&S?)

The produce section drives me wild, because it's really just like any other produce section, but they make me question my fundamental beliefs about fruit. When is an orange not an orange? I stood there one afternoon, frowning at the orange cupped in my hand, thinking it must surely be worth 70p and taste better than every other orange that had previously passed my lips because it had been Bathed In The Florida Sun.

I'm sure we're all being watched. There must be men in white coats behind a two-way mirror, watching the shoppers and making frantic notes. Can the shoppers resist the Irresistable Choc Caramel Mini Bites Oozing With Buttercream? Are they unwrapping the Hoisin Duck wraps with their eyes? Is anyone getting a boner over the Boneless Pork Loin Joints Decorated With Bramley Apple Puree?

Then perhaps the Head of Marketing barges in and screams, "We're not shifting the Scottish Cod Loin Fillets! Not good enough! I want the aisles puddled with drool! I want to get out the DANGER WET FLOOR signs!". The hapless copywriters are handed a thesaurus and a stack of Barbara Cartland novels then chained to their desks until they come up with something sexier.

Meanwhile, back in the shop, after half an hour of label-reading you tend to get whipped up into quite a state. The mind swirls with bloated adjectives and tantalising verbs and your fingers ache to open your wallet. Must buy something, something... but what?

A few months back I found the mother of all magniloquent products: a cereal called Deliciously Nutty Crunch:

Go nuts! A sumptuously sweet blend of delicious toffee-flavoured crunch with almonds, brazils and tasty pecans!

So I spent the equivalent of AU $10 on Deliciously Nutty Crunch, a cereal so lacking in nutritional value I'd be better off eating a tub of lard. But what fun to eat something so ridiculously titled. Remind me to put that on my epitaph:

What better way to spend a damp and chilly winter morning than to climb up a great big rock? Monkey, Mattay, Rhi and I were feeling unusually energetic and decided to tackle Arthur's Seat.

We puffed and grumbled along, the combination of recent rain and New Year tourists left the path slippery. But the view at the top made it all worthwhile. You get a true 360' picture of Edinburgh, right out to the Forth Bridges, the snow-sprinkled Pentlands, and those other hills I can't remember the name of.

But my mind wandered as we began our descent. An hour of jaunty exercise surely had to be counter-balanced by some serious carbo-loading? I was thinking Monster Mash, home of the giant sausages and towering piles of buttery potatoes. I was reviewing the menu in my mind when suddenly my feet deserted me.

It was a mad jumble of limbs and beanie and backpack. Then I plopped to earth, blinking in shock, with a madly cackling Rhiannon standing over me.

"Oh shit! Oh yes! Oh... are you alright?"

"I'm fiiiiine!" I felt mud oozing down the back of my leg.

To their credit, Mattay and Monkey struggled to keep a straight face. But Rhiannon was merciless, recounting the fall in glorious detail as we continued down.

As she wiped tears from her eye I finally admitted that it had been rather amusing. I dug out my phone, shuffling down the hill as I tapped out a text message:

Guess what? I just fell over on

Whoosh!

This time I manage to land with my entire body weight centered on my right buttock. The thunk was good and wet and loud.

My darling sister clutched her stomach and dropped to her knees as she laughed silently. Even Monkey and Mattay, the most gracious houseguests in history, couldn't help themselves this time.

"You were texting to say you'd fallen, weren't you? That's too delicious!" Rhiannon crowed, "Oh, are you okay?"

"Yes. Yes. Shut up." My phone lay muddy and spent on a tuft of grass a few feet away.

And just for good measure, I fell a third time ten minutes later, this time cocking my right leg at a bizarre Karate Kid angle.

"How about this, kids," Rhi addressed our guests, "Why don't we stop right now and sit on Shauna's lap and just tobboggan our way to the bottom?"

Later that evening, as I curled my battered body for sleep, my sister sang softly from her bed, "Slip slidin' away... slip slidin' awaaaay..."

Also on The Seat: Giant dog with trio of fake redheads.

Long ago, back where January meant sunshine, the Mothership was slumped in her armchair. At her feet was her school basket, stuffed with Christmas gifts from adoring students - padded coathangers, Cadbury Roses, pot-pourri. Beside her was a pile of romance novels with heroes named Thorne or Lord Swarthy. A great deal of her summer holidays were spent in that chair, drinking tea and consuming all the trashy books she didn't get time for during the year.

It was an exhausting business. Before long she'd nod off, book splayed out the armrest, fingers still curled around the mug. Soft snoring was our cue to run amok. But her Scary Teacher Radar was always at work. Just as we'd tiptoe past on our way to the fridge, she'd give a mumbled order without even opening her eyes: "Put the kettle on," or "What about those dishes" or "Water the dogs".

I hated Water The Dogs. We had six of them on our farm, all stationed at different points around the base of a hill. Lugging buckets of water through waist-high dry grass filled me with both fear and apathy. I'd ponder the probability of the dogs' water bowls being empty on a 40'C day, versus my untimely death by sunstroke or snakebite. I had imagined conversations with the dogs to ease my conscience, "Hey boys, do you need more water?", "Oh no, we're fine! We're just snoozing here and enjoying this sultry day. You stay inside!"

Just when it seemed my laziness would prevail, The Mothership would stir and give a one-eyed glare, "I thought I told you to water those dogs."

January afternoons were long and dull. Once we had built a Lego city in my room, a Lego city in Rhiannon's room, and a connecting freeway down the hall complete with truck stops, what else was there to do? We sprawled out on the carpet and bitched about Town Kids and how they could go to the pool. They had bikes that they rode to corner shops to buy ice creams.

We had no pool. Just a dry creekbed choked with mosquitos. We had ice creams, but they were Home Brand Choc-Coated Ice Creams and only distributed for good behaviour.

"Our life sucks."
"I know."
"Do you want to nick a Choc-Coated Ice Cream?"
"Yes."

We sneaked down the hall. The Mothership was most definitely asleep. Her head rested on her shoulder, mouth open. We noted the rise and fall of her stomach, the china rattling softly in the cabinet as she snored. The coast was clear.

We made it into into the kitchen. The lid of the freezer gave a tiny groan as we prised it open. We carefully rummaged through the great chunks of ice and onions and lamb chops until we found the booty. We cackled quietly at our genius.

But just as we were making our escape, delicately tearing the generic wrapping from our frozen treats, The Mothership gave a sudden twitch and opened one eye.

"Get me one."