We saw a couple of most rockin bands on Friday night. The smoky little room above the pub was crammed with drinking dancing bodies, and Gareth seemed to know about 90% of them. How can one person have so many bloody acquaintances? Maybe it just seems a lot compared to the measly three or four people I know in Scotland.

The thing about knowing so many people is that you don't always get to catch up that often, so they're not always up to speed on what you've been up to. Like getting married and stuff.

We were just squeezing past the masses on our way out when an old mate of Gareth's appeared and gave a drunken grin of recognition.

"Gareth! You handsome bastard! How the hell are you?"

Slurred pleasantries were exchanged, then he noticed me attached to the end of Gareth's hand. His grin got bigger.

"Wah-hey!" he crowed, "Gaun yersel big man. I'll leave you to it. You have a GOOD NIGHT!" He gave him a congratulatory slap on the shoulder.

"You take this man home!" he shouted after me as we headed down the stairs, "And you shag him good. He deserves it. Oh yeah. SHAG HIM GOOD!"

I always thought the Australian edition of Cosmopolitan was gloriously rubbish, but the UK edition has been a revelation.

Exhibit A: The Penis Reader!

Agnes Freeman is the UK's only penis reader. And Cosmo comes but once a month, so only twelve women per year get to unlock the secrets of their partner's privates. For every Verity from Gloucester, there's a million Melissa's from Manchester or Confuseds from Glasgow who are left confuzzled, staring at those strange dangling creatures and wondering what's it all mean?

Clearly there's a labour shortage here. This could be my ticket to a work permit. I'm going to phone the British Home Office and get them to post me a few staff polaroids. Brian is very clean and enjoys photocopying and filling out forms. Left-wing tendencies. He also likes to be spanked. Once I've dazzled them with my skillz, they're bound to let me stay!

"Have you ever had sex while you were stoned?"

"No... what's it like?"

"It's amazing. It makes everything so much more intense and wild!"

"Wow. So when you'd do that?"

"Oh... I haven't. But I had a wank once!"

There were two girls on the bus the other day, and thank goodness for that, for if it wasn't for people on buses I would never have anything to write about.

Anyway, they spoke in the italicised manner of young teens. They huddled over notebooks and scribbled intently with neon pink pens.

"We're doomed," declared the blonde in the puffy jacket with the fake fur collar. She slumped in her seat and sighed.

"48%, that's not that bad," the redhead in the puffy jacket with the fake fur collar said in soothing tones.

"48% is rubbish!"

I peered over to see what they were doing. Oh, sweet nostalgia. Do you remember when you were young and crushing and you'd write your name on a piece of paper, then write LOVES underneath, then the name of the boy underneath that? Like this:

... and then you'd count how many L’s are in your names, then how many O, V, E and S's, and keep adding up the numbers until you were left with a two-digit figure that spelled out your romantic destiny:

This poor girl was not happy with her compatibility with a young James. "He borrowed my pencil in Science yesterday so I thought things were going good."

My heart went out to her. At this stage of her life, all she had to go on was pure mathematics. She wasn't old enough to buy Cosmopolitan and let her self esteem be dictated by Are You Suckers Gonna Make It? multiple choice quizzes. I wanted to tap her on the shoulder and tell her that all was not lost. With some careful massaging of the data, it was entirely possible to turn the tide of their relationship.

Firstly, many schools of thought believe if you get a result under 50%, you have to double the number, the reason being 50% is the scientifically-proven minimum compatibility one can have with another human being. Or maybe it's just because a result less than 50% would be like ripping out your heart and inviting a herd of elephants to crap on it.

But if you don't feel comfortable with such blatant figure fudging, you can tinker with the words. Try adding your middle names and see if that beefs up the percentage. If you don't know his middle name, it is accepted practice to make one up.

Failing that, try a different word in the middle. "LOVES" is so traditional and stuffy. Try "adores", "admires", "worships", or:

If all that still fails produce a satisfactory result, well, whatever. Clearly the boy is so not good enough for you, girlfriend.

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.

I woke up when I heard the mournful cry of a harpooned whale. Actually it was the sound of a flatmate approaching orgasm. Then suddenly she was bellowing impatiently "C'mon! C'mon! C'mooonnnn! C'MON!", followed by a quick and cranky smacking sound.

You know when you have a bottle of tomato sauce (ketchup) and it just won't come out, so you tip the bottle up and smack the end of it? Hello tomato sauce, are you in there? Sure that is a pretty frustrating thing to happen. But bash it around like that and you're headed for trouble. Maybe she was just trying to be encouraging but it sounded pretty mean. Whatever butters your muffin, I guess.

So there's my sleep-in ruined. It's the 1st of November. It's my birthday, dammit.

Oh that Christy Turlington with her exquisitely flared nostrils; remember when she sat on the cover of Time in the lotus position? Now there's a dame who loves a bit of yoga.

These days everyone's into it, for all sorts of reasons. You have the old-school devotees, the ones who've been saluting the sun since the dawn of time. They're sincerely in tune with the spiritual side things, they breathe deep and delicately. Their posture is so good and upright you'd think the clouds were made of iron and they had magnets on their heads. They could stay in a pretzel pose for a week and the serene expression on their face would not waver.

Then there's those recent converts, who perhaps grew bored with stepping or treadmilling and sought new paths to perky buttocks. Or maybe they saw Christy contorting on Oprah with her designer yoga pants and Nostrils of Tranquility, and thought yoga seemed the hip hop happening thing to do. These people are sometimes seen dashing from the bus stop, with their Gucci yoga mats nestled under their arms, bleating, "Ohmygod if I'm late to class Swami will so kill me!"

There may exist be a third camp, perhaps too shy to speak about their particular motivation. These are the people who rock up to class each week just because it makes them feel dead sexy.

At my gym, the Body Pump class and the Iyengar Yoga class finish at the same time. The Pumpers come out all red-faced and grunting, great slabs of sweat on their backs, comparing biceps with their friends and making plans to meet up later to lift up a few tractors for fun. Then the Yoga kids come gliding out, pink-cheeked with liquid eyes and faraway smiles. Sure, there's all that inner peace malarkey, but maybe there's something else going on?

Perhaps some people find something rather sensual about it. All that deep breathing. All that stretching and bending. All that beautiful slowness. And then sometimes you get to use those kinky strap thingies that help you reach further than you've ever reached before! Woo hoo!

Of course these particular motivations are more likely if your teacher happens to be a Scottish man with a soft, soft accent. One with R's that come rrrrolling in from the wildest highlands rrrrright into your nether regions. One that wanders round the room occasionally to check your technique, and when you're laying there with your legs in the air all wrong like a dead cockroach, he ever so politely nudges your foot into the correct position, which makes you start to plot other ways to screw up so you can be corrected again! And again!

Right at the end there's ten minutes with the lights off, eyes closed and in the corpse pose. Nothing but that lovely voice telling you to just rrrrelax. Let all thoughts leave your mind. Squeeze this, release that. Feel your body floating. Sure, his words are addressed to the whole class, including the alarmingly elastic granny down the front and the weird guy with the headband who takes it all so seriously. But dammit, you reserve the right to daydream that he's only talking to you.

Hmm. Yoga purely as an excuse to get bendy. Yoga with no regard for spiritual enlightenment or fashion or a six-pack stomach, just a vague desire to become a flexible freak. Yoga for a chance to arrange your limbs in a complicated manner without risk of an unpleasant disease or a broken heart. And you get to keep your tracky pants on.

It's been oh oh oh oh so long since there was talk of orgasms on this site. But as I scribble in my notebook it's Saturday 12.33 AM and, ladies and gentlemen, we have a newcomer!

What a screamer. I've never heard such a high note, sustained for so long, ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah, so relentless, so shrill. The sound has pierced through the windows and is pinging off the stone walls in the courtyard. You can hear the neighbours sniggering.

Back in my singing lessons we did this exercise where the object was simply to climb up the scale as far as possible. The strained noise escaping from my throat sounded like what I imagined it would sound if you threw a rock at a seagull in flight. My friend Jenny, on the other hand, soared and soared so high I thought her lungs would be sucked up her windpipe and fly out her nostrils. My singing teacher would have been proud of this girl tonight.

Wow. Only ten minutes later, it's time for the Second Act.

Ah ah ah ah ah ah ah!

My Body Combat instructor likes us to be noisy. He prowls around the class as we're puffing away, yelling "I wanna hear your SCREAM!". Which means when you kick or punch the air you're mean to give a "HIIIII-YAH!".

"You are warriors!" he bellows with a smirk. "You are fighters! You can take on any enemy... so long as there's a light techno beat in the background!"

But I find it so hard to coordinate the body and the noise-making. My roundhouse kick looks more like a roundhouse duck-with-a-broken-wing as it is, so when teamed with a scream it's inevitably all too difficult and I stumble into the mirrors.

After a fifteen minute interval, would you believe she's at it again? The very same note. I am in full admiration of the swiftness of her recovery.

One has to acknowledge that it is Festival season here in Edinburgh, and there are a lot of performers in town right now. So this could mean one of two things about my neighbour:

1. She's in the theatre. You know, like acting. Ah ah ah ah, my arse!

2. She's Brunhilde or someone in the Scottish Opera's performance of Wagner's Ring Cycle. That's 16 hours of singing all up. You'd have to have stamina for that.

It's very hot. In the courtyard, the guys from the ground floor are playing cricket. We admire their sporting prowess, how they manage to bowl and brandish a beer at the same time. They're in shorts and t-shirts or no t-shirts at all. There's a lot of swearing and sweating and Howzaaaaaaat! Their voices have the drunken croak and rumble of old crows.

Later on, it's impossible to sleep. There's an air conditioner in the living room, but it doesn't reach the sweltering bedrooms. I stare down my alarm clock, calculating how many hours of slumber I'm wasting before it's time for work.

In winter, curtains are drawn and the building shows no signs of life. But as soon as it warms up, the windows are wide open and you can hear every little thing. You get to know all the night patterns. You know what time the courtyard sprinker system will kick in. You know in about ten minutes your sister will get up and make a banana sandwich. You know which apartment has someone pacing restlessly inside, icecubes rattling in a glass, the hum of a television. And then there will be that girl downstairs.

Ohhh!

Here we go again.

Oh! Oh! Yeah! Oh!

She sounds like an old electric kettle on the boil. Gurgling and whistling, on the verge of eruption.

Uhhh. Uhhh!

Aiiieeeeeeeeeee!

The sprinklers pop up in the courtyard, choking and spluttering.

The voice of an old crow cricketer rises from the ground floor.

"AHHH COME ON MATE! SHE'S FAKIN' IT!"

If you were ever a curious teen, you may recall Forever by Judy Blume. There was a young lass, a young lad and a whole lot of shaggery.

And a penis named Ralph.

It is only referred to as Ralph for the entire story. You can imagine the millions of naive young pups across the globe, relying on Judy Blume as their sole means of sex education, growing up thinking that Ralph was the official anatomical term for this wonderful contraption.

But really, what an unappealing name for a penis. Ralph. Was the young lad in the novel inspired the collected works of Ralph Waldo Emerson, the overpriced elegance of Ralph Lauren, or the antics of Ralph Malph on Happy Days?

Or perhaps he really liked the Karate Kid movies and thought Ralph (Macchio) was a more memorable moniker for his member than The Old Dude Who Plays Mr Miyagi.

"Miss Shauny, you have nice skin. I would love to have skin like yours."

"But you have really perky tits!"*

"Yes, well, but... I'd much rather have your nice skin."

"Nooo! Perky tits beats nice skin every time!"

"Nooo! I don't think so!"

"I'll trade you my beautiful skin for your beautiful boobies."

Why can't people ever be happy with what they've got?

* I was drunk.

Keep you calendars free on May 18-19 for the Fourth Annual Masturbate-A-Thon! Get down with yourself all in the name of charity.

There's even prizes to be won: "If you use vibrators, watch porn or plug it in, enter in the "Plug in" section and win $100 off your May electricity bill... and if you're a manual type of person, there is the "Lube Up" category where you can win $100 of lubricant."

The idea is you get your family and neighbours to sponsor you, just like a read-a-thon or a walk-a-thon. So what do you think is a reasonable rate, two dollars per orgasm?

I worry about my butt. It never really occurred to me before just how much time I spend sitting on it. The life of a Content Monkey doesn't involve much running around. Basically I am in front of the screen all day long, cuttin' and a-pastin'. I walk the dog and go to the gym, but the majority of my day is truly spent just sittin'.

Sometimes I feel like my butt will become Germany, circa 1938. Hitler's at the helm and he's making plans for expansion. It would start out innocently enough, a few troops in the Rhineland, the jeans getting a bit snug. But next thing he's annexing Austria, invading Poland, seams are bursting and chairs are breaking. Suddenly there's the map of Europe with swastikas peppered all over the place and I have nothing to wear but a mumu.

It's just the nature of so many jobs these days, we are chained to the desk. We are slaves to the cubicle. I do try and counteract this by flinging myself around at the gym. I also eat healthily, but what choice does my poor body have but to send it straight to my butt if I spend most of my day perched in a chair?

Let's take yesterday for example. I got up off my butt and out of bed. I took the hound for a brief walk, which is a good, non-sitting activity. Then I sat down on my butt to eat breakfast. Then I got in the car and let four spinning wheels trundle me along to work, like some indulgent Roman emperor. Then I took the lift up to my cubicle where I sat on my arse from 9 - 5, with a few wanders to the bathroom, a trip outside for fresh air, but like I said. It's mostly sittin'.

Then last night we all met International Supastar Blogger Miss Kristen (who incidentally turned out to be a lovely, lovely person with a charming accent and fiancee, and by no means all a serial killer, unlike most people you meet off the Internet).

During this meeting I spent even more time sitting on my arse. About two hours worth over dinner. Then mercifully, we did have a little bit of a wander through Civic, looking for a place to have coffee. In other words, another place to park our arses.

Then after we bid Miss Kristen and her Fiancee farewell, I returned to my car in which I once again sat down to drive.

I got home at around 11 o'clock, when again I sat down on my arse to check my email and watch a bit of The Ice Dream.

As I toddled off to bed later, I thought to myself, gee my butt feels kinda numb. It must have been exhausted from all that sitting around.

Then I got into bed to lay down for about 8 hours and do absolutely nothing, all in the name of slumber.

It was then it occured to me just how bloody long I'd spent sitting around. I started doing some frantic calculations in my head:

I go to the gym about 4-5 hours per week. Plus 2-3 hours of Harry walking. Plus incidental activity, like to the pub, or to the fridge for some icecream. Maybe 2 hours a week. So that's 10 hours physical stuff per week.

Then you have 8 hours a day at work, x 5 days = 40 hours.

Then 8 hours of sleep per night, plus about 10 or so hours on the lazy weekends = 60 hours of slumber.

Everyone knows Shauny's suck at maths, but it seems for every hour of gruelling grunty labour, I have 10 hours of inactivity.

Is it any wonder I am paranoid about arse expansion? How can 10 hours of lung-bursting physical activity compete with 100 hours of sloth?

I fear I have years of this ahead of me, as I can't see my career moving away from the desk-bound realm any time soon. That is why I have dreamed up a way to combine endless toil at the computer screen with rigorous physical activity:

If I fail to get a patent for this invention, I hope I can negotiate a Non-Aggression Pact with Herr Hitler.

He's looking at the bed, and she knows he's thinking about the bed. Sometimes you can just see someone's thoughts racing across their eyeballs. He's mentally bouncing up and down to test the mattress, then pulling back the covers and dragging her in beside him to have his wicked way.

She shivers and panics and wishes she'd never brought him back here.

"Look," she says, "You know that thing the other day, where you said you were in love with me and that you wanted me real bad, you remember the thing?"

He nods eagerly.

"I just want you to forget about that, okay? It's not going to happen."

He looks confused.

"I don't want that kind of thing. I can't handle that kind of thing."

She wished he didn't have to look so wounded.

"This bed isn't made for that kind of thing. It's not one of those hey baby, let's go, steamy night of passion kind of beds. Look how the blankets are all churned up like that, that's because I was just curled up in a ball right there a few hours ago, staring at the ceiling. And there's Mars Bar wrappers too. To your left are some books that I tried to read but just abandoned because the words were too big, then I accidentally rolled over on top of them during the night and made the pages go all dog-eared. Under the covers you will find the Hello Kitty vibrator tossed aside, my heart just wasn't in it. If you lay down you'd feel some poppy seeds press into your back, even through I know the bed isn't the place to eat bread rolls. And you see those dead tissues, they're all crumpled up with tears and snot when I was laying there feeling sorry for myself. And right at the bottom where the sheets tuck in, there's a bunch of grotty old socks that I kicked off in the middle of the night when my feet got too hot."

He looks even more confused.

"Don't you see how wrong this is? I am quite happy being miserable and I don't want you barging in and ruining it. I just want this bed to be for me to hide under the covers and wallow. I cry in there! I fart and scream and sing! I don't want you thinking about me or looking at me or wanting me. I don't want you, or anyone at all, to come any closer.

"Please understand. You don't want to be here. Not with me. So please just go? Okay?"

But he just sits there.

Back when I was moonlighting as a public servant last year, Miss E and I both worked with Sargeant Sue, the one who's lunch I chucked out and accused me of being a lesbian. The topic du jour was Childbirth, not a subject Miss E or I introduced, but once Sue got rambling there was no stopping her.

"It's all downhill after the first one," she told us sagely. "Your arse doubles in size, your skin goes to pot and the boobs start moving south!"

Miss E and I shared pained glances.

"BREASTFEEDING!" she crowed, "Now that's nasty business. Babies may look sweet and innocent, but once they latch onto your nipple, they cling on for dear life! Sucking away like a leech! The little buggers!"

We pleaded with her that we had heard enough, Miss E slid under her desk, I shoved my earphones further into my ears, but Sue would not be silenced.

"But I wisened up in time for the second baby. I was prepared. I TOUGHENED UP MY TITS!". Her voice pinged off the cubicle walls so the whole floor could hear.

"It's very simple," she explained. "Every night before bed, I'd get in front of the bathroom mirror, get out the toothbrush, and give me nipples a good scrub!"

She got out of her chair to demonstrate, pen in hand. Clothing on, thank lord. "Scrub the left! Scrub the right!" she cackled, her hands moving in circular motions like Mr Miyagi in the Karate Kid "Right circle! Left circle! Wax on! Wax off!"

"Worked like a charm," she concluded. "So with the second kid, I didn't feel a thing!"

Brushing my teeth was very traumatic for weeks after that one.

Back in the day, when we had a hankerin' for a Red Rooster dinner, we would say, "Let's go root the Red fella".

Whenever I arrive at amazon.com and see that greeting, I get a little excited. Not about the recommendations in store for me, but by the line itself. There's something rather saucy about it. I think it's all in the full stops. Hello Miss Shauny. *lingering pause* We have recommendations for you. *significant look*

Recommendations? I say breathlessly. Do you really? Oh my. Show me your recommendations. Please. Hurry now.

And this book, spotted at the physiotherapists office yesterday. Tee hee, tee hee!

Mmmmmm. The smell of chlorine on your skin is so.... bloody revolting. But I do believe I am quite taken with this gym caper lately. My sister and I are hooked on the rowing machine. The gym has two of them at opposite sides of the room, so we'd look over the river of stepping machines that seperated us and wave, "I say, lovely day for a row, eh chum?". It's really quite difficult if you really get into it, your shoulders tend to scream in protest, but it's fun to test your limits. I yelled at my sister to pick up her pace a bit and she yelled back, "I can't help it, I've got a slow boat!"

After that I soaked my aching muscles in the spa. The spa is set upon some lovely wooden stage-type construction, flanked by plastic plants, with charming wood panelling for that porno set ambience. From this secluded position, you can watch people come and go in the change rooms. I'm always amazed with the ease and indifference that patrons shed their stinky workout gear and parade around starkers. I always turn up to the gym ready to start, and either go home stinky or run prudishly to the showers and change there. I expose not so much as a lily white toe to anyone!

I found myself unable to resist peeking at other chicks' boobs from the safety of fake plastic ferns in that critical, comparitive, scientific kind of way. Being largely of the heterosexual persuasion it's not like I see naked breasts very often. It's bizarre to see how different they are! I am so used to the ones that I lug around, that I never fully appreciated that there are also little ones and pointy ones and bouncy ones and wacky nipples and all sorts of crazy shit. They're so diverse, but each with their own charms!

Really! It made me realise how silly I am to waste so much time being paranoid about how I look, think that this bit or that bit of me wasn't perfect or looked funny or should be smaller or bigger or tanner or whatever. Who's to say what's normal or perfect? I really should just love the bod I've been given and just get comfortable in my own skin like the gals at my gym seem to be comfy in theirs. Paranoia is just far too exhausting.

Such a painfully obvious revelation that most people figured out eons ago, but for a fretting dork like me it was all new. I got out of the spa and danced in front of the mirrors in my cozzies for a minute while George Harrison appreciatively crooned My Sweet Lord over the radio...

Saturday afternoon was spent at the NPG, (as in the National Portrait Gallery, not Prince's New Power Generation. Spending time with them lacks any real appeal for me) for the absolutely wonderful Tête à Tête - Portraits by Henri Cartier-Bresson. Subjects include Albert Camus, Truman Capote, Marilyn Monroe, Picasso, Coco Chanel, William Faulkner, blah blah blah. Great stuff that leaves you thinking, "Oooh I'll have to go get his/her book/movie/whatever". I lack the art wanker brain to wax lyrical about how good it was, but if it's possible for you to get to Canberra by July 15, I heartily recommend it. And it's only $2 to get in!

Hot damn! He had a dodgy 70s moustache and everything!

I'm going to be late for work today because I'm waiting here for the electrician to arrive to fix the exhaust fan in our bathroom.

Hmmmmm. Sounds like a porn movie plot if I ever heard one.

Speaking of porn, I have a good porn name. You know that old thing where you take the name of the first pet you had and the first street you lived on? Ginger the Cat and Rivers Road gives me the ultra foxy porn name of Ginger Rivers. What's yours?

Today marks one year since Rhiannon arrived back home from her American jaunt, bringing with her among other thoughtful gifts, a big mother bottle of Ralph Lauren Romance eau de lovely perfume for her favourite big sister (me). While in the following year I have smelled absolutely divine, I have not flung my legs round the waist of a well-chisled man as he gazed adoringly into my mud-pie eyes, nor had one drop to his knees to kiss my lovely belly, as illustrated here in the RL advertising campaign. On some level I guess I thought my delicate fragrance would have incited such romantic behaviour. I haven't even had some grotty VB-scented geezer try to cop a feel in a pub. What is wrong with me? I'm sending back the half empty bottle! It's a dud, Ralph! A dud, I tells ya!

The lost sex scenes of Jane Austen [via harrumph]

Now that winter is upon us, I urge you to consider a Snuggle Sack to keep you cosy on those chilly nights in front of the telly.

Another great innovation from the Clints Crazy Bargains catalogue.

I just took this photo of the light fitting here in our living room with my teeny tiny camera. It's a tacky as hell psuedo-chandelier thingy, but wow, it makes the most amazing patterns on the ceiling. And the centre of it looks like some sort of freaky luminous nipple! It glows! It shines! It's Radioactive Nipple! (click pic for bigger version)

So I was rambling on, as is my fashion, to a poor friend, about Holly Hunter in The Piano, and pondered how she would express her needs in bed, being bereft of speech and all.

At first I reckoned she would write it all down in her little notepad. You know, that locket thingy that she used to attack with short, angry little scribbles throughout the film. Now it would be *scribble scribble* harder! harder *scribble* not like that, you clod! or *scribble scribble* have you got a cigar? or whatever. Clear, to the point, and necessary, because let's face it, there's only so much you can communicate non-verbally. And how easily is non-verbal misinterpreted?

But then, I thought, would the Harvey Keitel character have been literate? I am not sure if the average hill-dwelling savage yet sensitive 19th century kiwi bloke spent much time with the books. So would Holly's desperate scribbles be for naught?

She has two alternatives, as far as I can see. She could just poke him in the eye with that shoddy prosthetic tin finger of hers. That would have to get his attention. Or she could do the old furious sign language gesticulations that she employed in the film, and have her trusty sidekick daughter Anna Paquin to translate in that smug, too-loud little voice of hers. "SHE SAYS TO GET OFF HER! SHE'S GOT A HEADACHE!"

Valetines Day Eve. Woohoo. My french class starts up again tonight, so perhaps I can learn the language of love really quickly, just in case the man of my dreams somehow materialises tomorrow.

I was in David Jones today, looking for a replacement for my Palm (the paper diary I got is just not going to be the same *sob*. And they had to be playing the Coldplay CD that I lost, just to rub it in my face!). There were so many blokes at the perfume counters throwing their hands in the air helplessly as those porcelain-skinned sales assistants squirted clouds of Poison and J'adore and Dune in their confused faces. Then there were the cheap bastards buying wilted flowers and Cadbury choccies at Superbarn. But it's the thought that counts. Everyone likes to feels to feel lurrrrrved.

I overheard two fifteen year oldish chicks behind me at the ATM planning to get together tomorrow night and eat icecream and comfort each other when they didn't get any valentines. Awww. As for me, I got one today! In the mail and everything. It wasn't signed, but since I only know one person in New Zealand it wasn't too hard to figure out. Thanks Mary :P

Remember my Erotic Edition Magentic Poetry? Well yesterday I was pawing through the rubble that is my bedroom, attempting to make it look decent, when I tripped on the Yellow Pages and went sprawling, knocking over the container of magnets with my elbow. Hundreds of teeny tiny smutty words flew into the air and scattered themselves all over my huge pile of dirty laundry that I was just about to take downstairs to the washing machine.

So I had to spend the next 15 minutes picking out the little buggers from pockets and seams and frilly things. I found a SHIVER in a shirt and a MAN in my undies (half my luck) and a LICK in a sock (eww). I shook out a pair of pants and was showered with BEHIND LUST FEATHER EASY PRIVATE SWEET and SATISFY. There's a poem in that for sure.

Anyway, I was sure I'd salvaged all the magnets but after I'd done the load of washing there was a stray DRIP and FEVER looking a little worse for wear at the bottom of the machine. And when I got out of the car at work today I felt a little *plink* on my foot as a FONDLE appeared from god knows where. Let this be a warning kiddies, lock up your dirty words before they wander away from you!

Heh heh heh. I am going to have a grand old time with this. Don't click on the image if naughty words offend you.

I just went up to the Woden Plaza with my sidekick E. Well, it's more like I am the sidekick. I am prone to being the one who tags along like a demented little puppy dog! Today asked me to come along because she wanted to tap into my "deviant mind". She was shopping for a Kris Kringle present for a party tommorrow night. You know how it goes - everyone buys a small gift and then you draw names out of a hat and everyone gets a random prezzie. She was looking at pretty boring stuff like chocolates and body lotions when somehow we ended up looking at the condoms in Big W. Can somebody tell me what the deal is with freaking flared condoms?

Anyway, I convinced her to get some of those. But we had to settle for boring old ribbed, since the only packet of flared babies had a big rip in the side of the box, as if some horny folks had decided to get down and dirty in the Homewares section. Then we got a pair of plastic handcuffs. And a big jar of Nutella. A nice red gift box to wack it all in a suddenly we had a slightly more imaginative KK gift. You know how you always end up buying gifts that you'd actually like yourself? Well. I dunno about this one.

I'm sitting here at work eating a mango. It somehow seems very wrong to be eating such a thing at work. The luscious texture of it, the juice slithering over your fingers, the fragrant messiness of it all. Mangoes are just dead sexy. So to eat one at work amongst shrieking phones and whinging public servants feels strange. And about as filthy as tossing aside piles of books and papers and shagging on the desk. Mwahaha! But I'm sure nothing like that ever happens around here. So I shall stick to my sweet n sticky mangoes.

Ladies: If the strain of the working day is becoming all too much, simply sneak off to the powder room and sit down on the loo seat. Close your eyes, lean forward and rest your weary head on your sprawling mammaries that provide a very comfy pillow. I had a brief but pleasant slumber in this manner just now, and was skillfully able to tune out the sounds of toilet business and bitchy women flocking around the mirrors.

That Delia Smith is one foxy wench. She was even prim and proper during the bloopers at the end of her show. I bet there's a dungeon underneath that kitchen of hers. She's so efficient and orderly, "add one AND A HALF teaspoons of vanilla extract"... "fold in the chocolate GENTLY NOW!". There's none of the slaphappy stylings of The Naked Chef, who returns to our screens next week. I'll the miss the military precision of Mistress Delia.