2005-04-11

Several items to bring to the attention of the Committee:

a) Yesterday I passed a car with a yellow diamond-shaped sign in the rear window reading �Tiny Person on Board�. Cool! I thought. Like a midget? Or a leprechaun? until I realized that they were merely showcasing their offspring. I hate those signs anyway. Do you really think that someone who is gung-ho to give you a bit of the old Ben Hur will see your little sign and go �Oh my God! They are carrying precious human cargo!� and graciously wave you on? Fuck off. �Baby on Board� signs are more obnoxious than those maternity T-shirts that read �Baby� with an arrow pointing down, which should really read �It�s Not My Fault I�m Fat�.

b) It�s NOT my fault I�m fat, because fitness magazines for women are a joke. To be more accurate, they are a nonentity. They are mythical, like leprechauns. Perusing the gigantic magazine aisle at Asda, the closest thing I could find was �Diet and Fitness�, which contained nothing but creepy testimonials from frowsy housewives about how their dramatic weight loss had Changed Their Lives (�My husband didn�t want to go out in public with me when I was overweight, but now that I�ve lost two stone he�s proud to be seen with me again!� NOTICE: Your husband is an antediluvian prick), and tips on how to do my makeup. Here�s a funny idea � I�m actually concerned about fitness, and not in the Darwinian �ripe for breeding� sort of way. Men�s fitness magazines don�t seem to be much better: they have a few good weights routines, and then a lot of advice about locating the G-spot, which I fully support in the abstract but don�t find personally useful.

c) I am trying to get fit in order to quickly, silently and efficiently murder whichever of my neighbours VOMITED all over the communal bathroom and then sloppily mopped up, leaving a lingering reek of sick and visible splatters of puke on the toilet base and the walls. THE WALLS. What happened in there, an impromptu exorcism? Ye gods, I hate living in a bedsit. It�s like living in a dorm, except instead of virile young undergrads it�s full of shifty night workers who look as though they�re considering serial rape as their next logical career move.