'Tis the Night Before Christmas, and not for the first time I am hiding from the hordes. It is too early to go Christmas shopping, really. One has to keep one's nerve. There are still sensible adults running round Asda purchasing last-minute "Christmas Spices" Room Spray;having remembered a visiting niffy pet, or relative. The thing is to take it to the brink; tanking up on Bailey's from 11am, and then hitting the shops. The company will be much more congenial. There are few things worth doing that cannot be accomplished in three hours.
I intend to go to the library instead. I hold it to be the height of decadence, to troll around the shelves, trying to find an autobiography written by someone over twenty-five who is not a sportsperson, or a novel which isn't about anyone finding themselves in mid-life . I found my feet when I was eight months old, and the rest of me quite soon after that. Nothing has amused me so much as the feet, admittedly, but I have given a few other parts a fighting chance.
I want a book of old-fangled ghost stories. Modern ghosts tend to be unsatisfactory, both theologically and aesthetically. I also find it difficult to be convinced by supernatural beings who haunt places with central heating, or turn out to be demons. I would also like one of those books of humorous verse that were ubiquitous in the post-war years,and unfailingly edited by Ogden Nash. My head is full of Edwardian parodies of now totally-unread but then tremendously au courant versifiers. When I am ,as I must be, taken hostage, I shall have plenty of rubbish and trivia with which to entertain myself and my co-hostages.When we are chained to a radiator somewhere hideous; I shall recite parodies of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow to my grateful captive audience.
In the meantime;I really must ask them at the Library not to persist in addressing me as a "Borrower". It makes me feel small. The banks used to do it, in the days when they allowed me to borrow. I was reminiscing with a friend about this, and she said "Oh, I DREAM I am shopping, over and over again". I bet few men have this dream, but asking around, it seems that many of my girlfriends enjoy similiar reveries.They describe dreams in which they are wandering round department stores with limitless credit, feeling the weight and heft of shiny carrier bags, hurtling into changing rooms with armfuls of glittery things...and wake sobbing, exiled for ever from that idyllic period when it seemed that everyone could have everything and it was all practically free. I think I am the last one left who has dreams about sex, teeth, and flying; like a normal person.
I was a terrible person, in those days. I earned proper money, and had a handbag and everything. In this handbag, there lived a set of little credit cards, store cards, and sometimes, some cash. Plus fags, lipstick and phone of course, I wasn't a savage. I would frequently book a train ticket and a hotel room in some city with which I was unfamiliar, and trot off for a spree in their shops. I loved all of it ;the choosing correct underwear in which to appear in a changing room, being given free samples of vile perfume by terracotta cosmetic warriors in Selfridge's Beauty Hall, collapsing for an espresso in a chic cafe and rationalising one's carrier bags..poring over fabrics and colours like a goblin.
I had a well-paid mildly interesting job, and a dull domestic life. My social life was great fun, though, and a great deal of it was spent with like-minded hedonists. I still have most of them in my address book, and I still have most of the clothes I bought, which I now discover are "Vintage", and so am I. If I had known I was going to live this long, I would have taken better care of myself. It's odd how some bits of you wear out before others do. Teeth, for instance, seem to have only been intended to last people for about twenty years. After that, it's all veneers and wire. The skeletal structure, particularly backs and knees, seems to be a little flimsy too. But things like bottoms seem well-nigh indestructible,and probably go on after death, imperishably. Hardy things, aren't they? Some people don't have them at all..it's uncanny. Just a flat section, and then thighs. British people used to be becomingly bashful about their behinds; "This Englishwoman is so refined;She has no bosom and no behind", as Stevie Smith once wrote. Alas, these days they are coming at you from toutes directions. This is a Continental practice, I feel , encouraged by the Internet. In my day, your bottom was for sitting about on, keeping in a spotless state, wrapping up in navy blue big pants, and every now and again, a spanking. Nothing erotic about bottoms in the 50's. Now they have totally got above themselves, and have started behaving like breasts. And being Americanised as "asses" all over the shop . Not to mention the fact that no sexual encounter these days can take place without a hearty helping of buggery. I protest, and so does my British bottom. In fact, we shall stage a sit-in.
Ooh look, it's Christmas! And here I am, banging on about bums. I think I shall finish this bottle of Bailey's, whilst watching Bill Bailey. Pleasing though this is, I don't suppose I shall be able to keep it up.I can do you Guinness, and Alec Guinness, though. Why not spend Christmas drinking the thing with the same name as the person you are watching on TV? After a while, none of it will matter. Even not shopping any more,or having to have your bottom bleached, or anything..
I intend to go to the library instead. I hold it to be the height of decadence, to troll around the shelves, trying to find an autobiography written by someone over twenty-five who is not a sportsperson, or a novel which isn't about anyone finding themselves in mid-life . I found my feet when I was eight months old, and the rest of me quite soon after that. Nothing has amused me so much as the feet, admittedly, but I have given a few other parts a fighting chance.
I want a book of old-fangled ghost stories. Modern ghosts tend to be unsatisfactory, both theologically and aesthetically. I also find it difficult to be convinced by supernatural beings who haunt places with central heating, or turn out to be demons. I would also like one of those books of humorous verse that were ubiquitous in the post-war years,and unfailingly edited by Ogden Nash. My head is full of Edwardian parodies of now totally-unread but then tremendously au courant versifiers. When I am ,as I must be, taken hostage, I shall have plenty of rubbish and trivia with which to entertain myself and my co-hostages.When we are chained to a radiator somewhere hideous; I shall recite parodies of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow to my grateful captive audience.
In the meantime;I really must ask them at the Library not to persist in addressing me as a "Borrower". It makes me feel small. The banks used to do it, in the days when they allowed me to borrow. I was reminiscing with a friend about this, and she said "Oh, I DREAM I am shopping, over and over again". I bet few men have this dream, but asking around, it seems that many of my girlfriends enjoy similiar reveries.They describe dreams in which they are wandering round department stores with limitless credit, feeling the weight and heft of shiny carrier bags, hurtling into changing rooms with armfuls of glittery things...and wake sobbing, exiled for ever from that idyllic period when it seemed that everyone could have everything and it was all practically free. I think I am the last one left who has dreams about sex, teeth, and flying; like a normal person.
I was a terrible person, in those days. I earned proper money, and had a handbag and everything. In this handbag, there lived a set of little credit cards, store cards, and sometimes, some cash. Plus fags, lipstick and phone of course, I wasn't a savage. I would frequently book a train ticket and a hotel room in some city with which I was unfamiliar, and trot off for a spree in their shops. I loved all of it ;the choosing correct underwear in which to appear in a changing room, being given free samples of vile perfume by terracotta cosmetic warriors in Selfridge's Beauty Hall, collapsing for an espresso in a chic cafe and rationalising one's carrier bags..poring over fabrics and colours like a goblin.
I had a well-paid mildly interesting job, and a dull domestic life. My social life was great fun, though, and a great deal of it was spent with like-minded hedonists. I still have most of them in my address book, and I still have most of the clothes I bought, which I now discover are "Vintage", and so am I. If I had known I was going to live this long, I would have taken better care of myself. It's odd how some bits of you wear out before others do. Teeth, for instance, seem to have only been intended to last people for about twenty years. After that, it's all veneers and wire. The skeletal structure, particularly backs and knees, seems to be a little flimsy too. But things like bottoms seem well-nigh indestructible,and probably go on after death, imperishably. Hardy things, aren't they? Some people don't have them at all..it's uncanny. Just a flat section, and then thighs. British people used to be becomingly bashful about their behinds; "This Englishwoman is so refined;She has no bosom and no behind", as Stevie Smith once wrote. Alas, these days they are coming at you from toutes directions. This is a Continental practice, I feel , encouraged by the Internet. In my day, your bottom was for sitting about on, keeping in a spotless state, wrapping up in navy blue big pants, and every now and again, a spanking. Nothing erotic about bottoms in the 50's. Now they have totally got above themselves, and have started behaving like breasts. And being Americanised as "asses" all over the shop . Not to mention the fact that no sexual encounter these days can take place without a hearty helping of buggery. I protest, and so does my British bottom. In fact, we shall stage a sit-in.
Ooh look, it's Christmas! And here I am, banging on about bums. I think I shall finish this bottle of Bailey's, whilst watching Bill Bailey. Pleasing though this is, I don't suppose I shall be able to keep it up.I can do you Guinness, and Alec Guinness, though. Why not spend Christmas drinking the thing with the same name as the person you are watching on TV? After a while, none of it will matter. Even not shopping any more,or having to have your bottom bleached, or anything..
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