It's summer. Which means you must BUY...

 Hurrah! It's summer!

But when summer arrives, we all have responsibilities. Especially if we are planning to wear summer clothes. I love it that Boots is supporting us through this difficult time, and is giving us so much generous help. God forbid that we should embarrass ourselves by not living up to society's high standards.

We all know that if you are a woman, you have a duty to be:

- entirely hairless (except for head-hair, see below).
- bronzed.
- sweet-smelling (ideally of something edible, because that means the Men In Our Lives will find us mouth-wateringly attractive).
- smooth-skinned.
- smooth-footed (those pesky rough bits on our feet can really rub against his virilely hairy legs in bed).
- bright-eyed (those vitamins are really important for our appearance).
- glossy-haired (except for body hair, see above).
- beautifully made-up (but take it off at night, girls, otherwise you might get spots).
- young (the rest of us will have to fake it).
- wearing something strapless, backless and skimpy (ideally, of course, naked).
- dazzling (or as Boots puts it, "outshining the sun". Let's gloss over the slight logical problem there, and just take note that, as we're doing the dazzling, sunglasses aren't included. Those are for the men).

So go out, girls, and BUY BUY BUY! "Say 'YES'." How life-affirming. God forbid you should say 'NO'. Then you might end up ugly and no one will like you. Let alone fancy you, which is (after all) the Purpose Of Our Lives. Not fancying, being fancied.

If you're a man, you have a duty to be:

Oh, no. Wait.

Thanks, Boots. And FUCK OFF.

New Year's Resolutions

1. Send back the silver salt-cellar and pepper-pot to King's College. I am not going to give indiscreet details about how they came into my possession; suffice it to say that they shouldn't have. And I have held on to them for long enough (i.e. more years than I care to remember).

They will be going in an anonymous, unlabelled parcel, of course. My instinct for righting wrongs is not infinite.

2. Get my M.A. As this consists entirely of writing a letter asking aforesaid King's College to graduate me in absentia, it's rather embarrassing that I haven't done it yet. But sometime in 2012 I will be B. R. Collins, M.A. (Cantab). Promise.

3. Do something at least once a week that I haven't done before.

4. Fall in love with someone single, available, fairly well-adjusted, fairly solvent and living within ten miles of Tunbridge Wells. (Which is where I live, rather than just some arbitrarily picked area.) How hard can it be?

Oh, and resist the temptation to blog about my love-life...

5. Edit Edward Leigh. Finish The School of Glass. Think up an idea for my next book for Bloomsbury and write that too.*

6. Keep writing. Stop giving myself a hard time about getting a proper job. If I decide I really need a proper job, just get one.

7. Have more sex. As before: how hard can it be?**

(Note to self: lower standards if necessary. Possibly also applicable to Resolution 4.***)

8. Answer all queries about laundry, washing up, tidying up, emptying the dishwasher, cooking etc. with, 'Sorry, I made a New Year's Resolution not to do that any more.'

9. Live adventurously.

10. Stop getting really, really angry about politics. Do whatever I can, and then swallow unnecessary fury and try to achieve serenity. (Ha!)

Also, hold people in the light more. Try to see the good in everyone, even wankers, arses, idiots and total shits... (Yes, well. Possibly this one might need some work.)

11. Stop overusing brackets, italics, smiley faces, asterisks and... ellipses.

12. Stop buying lottery tickets. Except metaphorical ones. Buy more metaphorical lottery tickets.


* If I put these all in one terse, unchatty resolution I'm hoping they'll seem like less work.

** Oo-er.

*** This is a joke. Probably. :)

I am striking today in support of the public sector workers.