buffybot
goodbye
auf wiedersehen
Adiós
ciao
adieu
sayonara
ma assalama
до ѿвиданиѿ
Welcome to Whetstone. You'll never leave.
So, erm. Funeral Parlour or Beauty Salon? Whatchya reckon?
How to catch a husband . . .
I am wholly qualified to speak and advise on this subject. Being single qualifies me. It does. So, shut up.
Age 7
What works:
Kebabs. This is the key to a snotty 7 year old boy's heart. Everyone knows that. Unless they're European, in which case they'll make a mess of their first love-affair by offering said boy brussel sprouts. Boys who smell of sprouts are terrible kissers.
Anyway. Kebabs. Bribe mother with the promise to be quiet for one afternoon, mother will agree to make extra kebabs in exchange, lovingly place kebabs into a wam pitta bread, proudly carry to the boy you love - who is playing football in the playground - and offer the sandwich in exchange for an appreciative glance (which you can live on for the remaining 4 years of your crush on a white boy - oh, forbidden love).
What does not work:
Kiss chase. Especially when it is your job to "mind the bags."
Age 14
What works:
Superstition. Take a page from your maths book, write out your name and the name of the one you love. Cross out all the letters you share in both names. Count the remaining letters. Subtract this figure from 100. The answer to this sum is the % chance of you marrying said boy.
Buffybot Isbest
Robbie Williams
would leave these letters
uffyt bst
R William
So, 16 letters in total. 100 - 16 = 84 (is it? 84? you see what happens when you fill the pages of your maths book with love-struck nonsense). Hence, the chances of my 14 year old self marrying Robbie Williams is 84%. That is mathematical FACT.
What doesn't work:
Sending an anonymous Valentine's card to your Geography teacher who has endless samples of your handwriting available.
Age 21
What works and what doesn't work (the success of this one rather depends on your commitment to the feminist war on men):
Introductions. My first was to a 27 year old ear-nose-throat doctor who lived with his parents and in fact meeting him was not at all traumatic but rather wonderful because I really liked him. But, this is a story that involves Middle Eastern Muslim families and so the trauma is present in abundance and needs only to be teased out gently. I arrived at his family’s Dockland flat looking rather spiffing even if I do say so myself (although being escorted by my Dad and Mum did not really compliment the look), and from that moment on until I left five hours later, no-one, and I do mean no-one, was allowed to speak unless they were male, over fifty, and a patriarch. You can see how this made conversation and general jollity rather problematic. Although, notching this one up as ‘the most tedious day of my adult life’ would not have been so bad if only that title were not so swiftly followed by ‘also the most humiliating day of my adult life’. Why? Well, guess what big unapologetic boo-boo Buffybot made? Yes, she spoke!! And yes, she disagreed with comments made by the arch-patriachs!! (the world faints and falls off of its seat). I was taken aside by my prospective's sister and told "not to shame my family."
When it's not all fun and games
I can't stand it. I really can't stand to hear one more person say one more thing about the war, the White House, Iraq, or anything. I came home last night to the most wonderful news. My mum walked into the bathroom while I was brushing my teeth and asked me to come sit with her in the living room. I acquiesced. She was sat on the sofa holding a picture of our family in Baghdad.
My mum's cousin was driving his cab through Baghdad a few days ago when he was hijacked at gunpoint by a gang. He was pulled out of his car and beaten to death. Two days later the US military dragged his body home to his three school-age children. They had found him dumped in the road with one piece of ID left on him.
Everytime this happens, it is happening to you and me, every one of the twelve hundred people that are cheated out of a life every month in Baghdad is you and me. Our lives are an accident of geography.
The smart ones are the ones that try to escape. To leave and face any kind of life elsewhere.
I wonder how long my family has got, how long it will be before their luck runs out. They try to make a good home, to earn a decent living, to raise a young family. Somehow their blood is cheaper than ours. This is not ok with me. It is not ok for the people I meet to be ignorant and spoilt and safe and to take all that for granted, to place a good haircut at the top of a list of priorities for the day.
Sometimes I think I'm going to lose all patience with people here and start shaking them and screaming, "Wake up!" Politics is just a fucking byword for people and the things that they will do to other people.
I don't want to suffer the mediocrity of our papers and news stations, to watch any more fucking films or documentaries about 9/11, I don't want to keep spreading the compassion thin, sometimes it's obvious who the victims are and whose fault it is.
Spare some change, Guv'nor?
My most favourite thing to do when I was seven was to play at being poor. To throw my shoes off and head out onto the grimy streets of East London and walk along the pavement until my feet were mucky enough to satisy my pseudo-pauperism. Then I dashed back into the house ('cos poor people always run, they never walk, that's tantamount to carefree dawdling) to slyly swipe some roast chicken off the dinner table. I crept back outdoors, carefully cradling my food (lest another desperate guttersnipe dupe me into giving up my hard won scraps) and sat on the front doorstep, shunning cutlery, devouring a drumstick with my bare hands in the style of a true vagrant.
Tired, unwashed, undernourished but driven by the demands of a subsistence level existence, I went out to look for work that would pay a pittance, preferably pay in currency other than money, like stale bread, or fruit stolen from my mother's fruitbowl. I always settled on street cleaning. I fetched the broom from the kitchen and dragged it behind me, weighed down by my misery and the hopelessness of my situation. After doing this for an unendurable amount of time, I paid myself with some food and a few copper coins tipped out of my piggybank.
Privation was fun. I excelled at being oppressed. I was efnik, it came naturally.
When I was seven and a half, my parents banned me from playing outside again. Ever.
Sweet Talkin' Woman
I had a friend (deliberate use of the past tense here) who, whenever people asked her what she did for a living, would reply, “Oh, I work for Amnesty International.” And that was everyone’s cue to begin cooing over how fabulous she was.
I struggled over several years to establish exactly what she did there. As the years passed I grew ever more cynical. I became convinced that she was responsible for nothing more than washing the 4th floor windows at Amnesty HQ. After all, even AI requires the services of ‘building technicians’ every now and then. A pure soul alone won’t get those windows clean.
During this time, whilst my erstwhile friend was courting the envy and adoration of those around her I made better use of my time. I clogged my CV with job titles such as Library Assistant and Senior Library Assistant (Secondment). I took a ferocious amount of pride in becoming the most boring girl in Finchley. I derived endless delight from watching people’s faces glaze over when I told them I worked in a library.
Then shit happened.
I left libraries.
And for this next fortnight, as I delicately sip from my wine glass at soirees, I shall turn to strangers and tell them, “Oh, me? Oh, I work for the Guardian Newspaper. Anyway, enough about me, what do you do?” Other women will envy me; men will want to go to bed with me. God it’s great being shallow and pretentious.
What do I do at Guardian HQ? Hmm. I’ll leave that to your imagination.
No time wasters please
There are a myriad of things I could do to alleviate boredom. Watch the entire back catalogue of Lost (er, can I have a 100 hours of community service instead?) Become a BB7 convert (only if they stop letting the bastards go). Apply to become a Justice of the Peace. Yeah, that one, that’ll do nicely. I’ll spend a few hours fighting for justice, rights and democracy and then I’ll bugger off to a coffeehouse to lounge about like the unemployed loser I am?
I have sat on the fence my whole life (piles beckon I fear) but today I dump the fence and join the bench. The Department for Constitutional Affairs has inspired me and rendered me a vital human being once more. I, Lady Loser, am here to touch you gently on the shoulder and encourage you to follow my example. Britons, your county needs you!
The DCA has launched an extensive propaganda effort. Their literature is as seductive as a pretty woman sucking on a cherry-flavoured lollipop:
· Magistrates make decisions which affect the lives of ultimately everyone in the community. They don’t have any special qualifications.
· As a magistrate, you will develop personal skills, such as decision making, communicating and team-working which can be invaluable in your career, if you have one.
· You will not be appointed as a magistrate if it is unlikely you would have the confidence of the public. Other disqualified candidates include: traffic wardens or their partners, employees of the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals and lay visitors to police stations or prisons, unless they are willing to give it up if appointed.
· Training is based on a competence framework and includes reading exercises.
· Training will be delivered using a variety of methods, which may include CCTV.
· Candidates are asked to answer the ‘are you of good character’ question on the application form. A ‘No’ answer will not necessarily prevent you from being appointed. However, there may be details which we need to know about so as to avoid embarrassment later on. Examples might include having aspects of your private life exposed in a newspaper.
· You should not seek as a referee anyone who is likely to appear before the court to which you might be appointed.
Damn, I’m disqualified on all of the above. Bugger, now where did I put that Lost DVD?