my favourite spam (note how polite it is, especially considering what it’s selling) - plus, in italics, the response i’d like to send. (if i replied to spam, which you never, ever, should, boys & girls!)

Hi dianechitticks, love my new nickname! working hard? how did you know?

The answer is quite clear. You re overworked, man, I can tell! But chill out, there s plenty of people just like you. phew! 

Do you know that an immense grow of people suffering from a sexual disorder is observed, the number of people JUST LIKE YOU is nightmarishly huge. a number of people JUST LIKE ME would be nightmarishly huge, you’re right! but let’s just stop and look back at that grammar, shall we? - wow. i recommend david crystal’s book ‘rediscover grammar’, it’s helped an immense grow of people.

Questioned? - this is the kind of thing david crystal can help you with. one word does not a sentence make. you mean to say: ‘don’t believe me?’

It s the price for the life you lead. YOU ARE TO EARN THE MONEY. i am?

The whole money making process is all yours. woo-hoo!

What did you think you d gonna get? - i dunno, an apostrophe perhaps?

To sum it up? Too tired to go on. i really am!

You re now experiencing your sexual engine failure. oh no. 

No wonder your lady is pissed off , your girlfriend is on her way to pack up her stuff and get off. - so i have a girlfriend and a lady, or are they one and the same?

But what would you say if I tell you that. full stop in the wrong place, dude.

I can lend a hand. no pun intended? ha ha ha 

Be your self medicator, feel different, feel you FANCY THAT and YOU CAN. i fancy what and can what? 

And WE LL ENCOURAGE. i bet you will. i just don’t know what you’re talking about.  » more…

is rubbish.

as women, if we’re tired or stressed we’re supposed to have baths and light candles and drink red wine but i DON’T LIKE doing those things and they don’t make me feel better, so there.

what if i was a man? could i also do those things to de-stress or would i have to have a beer, watch sport and play-fight with my buddies? cos i DON’T LIKE those things either.

i like lying on my bed reading magazines, watching great american tv or stuffing my face with food. i like insight meditations, podcasts and blogging. and i don’t like going to sleep, but it’s the only thing that truly helps.

so there.

and no, i’m not stressed at all now. not me. i just seem to have a LOT to do, that’s all…

shame on me. shame!

using my always brilliant trend predictor skillz, i declared that i would never partake of video podcasts.

the fun of podcasts, i self-righteously asserted, was that you could listen to them with your eyes closed. it was radio reborn, not (sneery sneer) amateur tv.

one woman changed my mind.

that woman, ladies and gentlemen, is cali lewis.

» more…

not enough for a blog post of their own, here’s a three-fer of little things i’ve been meaning to blog about:

night at the museum

my stepsister asked me if i wanted to go to lunch and look at the exhibits at a (lovely!) museum in town. i gleefully accepted, and off we went. of course, lunch was the first OAB and, shamefully, turned out to be the last.

we talked and talked and ate and ate and talked (and ate) some more, and the museum had closed by the time we’d finished. the gift shop was still open, though, meaning i haven’t progressed beyond the age of six, when i thought the cafe and shop were the only good things about museums.

sigh.

drop dead gorgeous

i went for my first ever facial a few weeks ago. which was… quite nice. it was a dermalogica one and it was relaxing, but not very intensive. still, it didn’t make my skin all red as i’d feared, and i bought the largest face wash in the world as a souvenir. (v v expensive, but it will last me until 2010. good job i like it). the moisturiser however… not so much. it’s ‘clarty’, as my mum would say. so i’m going back to clarins once i’ve used this up in about nine months’ time.

bone deep

i’ve started having kinesiology/chiropractic/cranial osteopathy treatment at the LOVELIEST place that only takes me nearly an hour to get to by walk-bus-tram-bus. and yet i don’t care, because it’s so nice, and so is the practitioner!

have you had kinesiology? it’s so ODD, and yet so GOOD! and this new treatment fits in so well with my new ethos of letting the body’s infinite internal intelligence heal itself. fabby. plus the lovely practice holds lots of classes, courses and workshops, so i’m always reading the leaflets on the walls and in the waiting area for something i might do. lovely!

but… my last appointment was just HORRID. i felt spacey, tired, headachy and unbelievably miserable afterwards, and for days later. ugh. all she did was cradle my head and swing a pendulum over one of my chakras (shut up). i’m having a couple of weeks’ break as she’s away then i’m away - probably for the best.

the mitfords really are - as my guardian blog today is titled:

The 20th Century’s Most Fascinating Sisters

Unity, Diana, Jessica, Nancy, Pamela and Deborah.Or, if you prefer: a Nazi with a self-inflicted brain injury, Oswald Mosley’s wife, a communist muckraker, an infamous snob/talented novelist, a muse of John Betjeman turned late-in-life lesbian and the Duchess of Devonshire. Call the Mitford sisters what you will - and they’ve been accused of many things - but you could never call them boring.

1. readers, i cheated. i added a book to my librarything before i finished it. in my defence: it was very short. also: i was a bit bored. and not because the book was bad, it was quite good but i found it a bit disjointed, very fragment-y where i wanted more straightforward memoir. the book was julie myerson’s not a games person, which my dad spotted about a year ago and thought sounded like my type of thing. i did finish it in the end and i totally related to it, i must say. but not because i’m unathletic, of course. god, no. *cough*

2. jennifer weiner and joshilyn jackson both have new novels out next spring, when i am away in west australia, land of full-price (expensive!) books. pah. i will snaffle them up if i have any spending money as soon as i get back…

3. questionable decision-making in action:

in the library: ooh! queen of babble. i like the cover. but keris said it was only okay… and i’ve got plenty to read. i’ll skip it.

in the secondhand bookshop: ooh, queen of babble! *buys queen of babble*.

oh well, it’s for charity.

(and: i really liked it! it’s total (total!) fluff but just the escapism i needed. want to go back for more meg. but to the library next time.)

4. my kindly guardian ed sent me this as i’ve just written a book blog about the mitfords. it’s ENOURMOUS but FAB! (however, if you’re completely new to the mitfords i’d recommend this first). it’s making me want to compose everything i write in the manner of jessica mitford’s letters:

darling readers,

thank you so much for your comments on my blogaversary post, you do make me shriek with laughter and you can skeke believe how important they are to one. sorry not to have written for such ages but i have been terribly busy. do please keep reading.

with very best love, and much love to boud…

ahem. the blog should be up on wednesday.

my mum and i were talking about how fab it will be when the new high-speed train to paris is up and running. i said i’d love to go there for the weekend when i turn 30.

my mum:

“will you go with your new boyfriend?”

“er… i don’t know - what’s he called?”

“i think james.”

“i think octavio.”

“yes! he’s a mature student too, from italy.”

“but not old.”

“no, 32.”

“that’s a bit old.”

“you’ll be 30.”

“oh.”

a piece i wrote about single women on celluloid (back in july, before the release of nancy drew was delayed) is in the guardian film blog today:

When did Drew become such a Nancy girl?

In the books, the teenage detective is quick-witted and brave. So why has Hollywood transformed her into a shy, socially awkward Bridget Jones type?

read the whole thing here. (if you like).

really!

*(sorry, couldn’t resist.)