Tit for Twat?

Ah, my poor husband. It must be like having three kids instead of two sometimes,(me being the third), because I am bone idle and lack self-discipline.

So recently, the penny finally dropped that if he just suggests things I could do around the house, they probably won’t get done. For example, you wouldn’t tell a three year old, “Maybe you could put your toys into the toy box, if you feel like it?” Now would you? You’d tell them.

Well, the same goes for me. I told him to give me set jobs each day, which I would complete. Also, I said that there should be consequences if these tasks were not completed. Mommy should be given a punishment or a Time Out to ‘think about the consequences of her actions.’

So this morning he said I should do two hours of weeding today or he wouldn't do oral sex on me this evening.

Well, I must say I am nuts about oral sex, but, what with one thing and another, I only completed one square foot of weeding today, and when he got home I said, “Oh shit, I guess there’s no oral for me tonight, because I didn't weed for the required length of time, right?”

He looked dejected and replied, “No, I’m going to have to give it to you anyway, because otherwise I’d miss out on going down on you, and I really love doing it.”

He actually said that. One in a million, is all I can say.


So, in the end I had to give myself a Time Out. I sat in the garden and drank some wine called Mommy’s Time Out and thought about the consequences of whether, in time, my husband might divorce me for being such a lazy cow.

But not that lazy, I suppose. We have had rather more success with a fitness scheme called 'Laps for Laps.' Which is that each lap I do at the pool equates to him giving me one minute's oral sex when we get home. I seem to be much more motivated to achieve sporting goals when orgasmic goals are set as an incentive.

And now, after a couple of glasses, I am starting to wonder how typical this kind of ‘tit for tat’ or ‘tit for twat’ behavior is. For instance, does your partner ever make bargains like that with you, i.e. “If you don’t paint the window frames, I won’t give you a foot massage,” or “If you do scrub the encrusted lasagna dish I will dress up in that French maid outfit that gets you off?”

Is this kind of bargaining normal amongst couples, or am I totally on my own here?

Now excuse me, I'm off upstairs to find out the oral sex equivalent to one square foot of weeding.....I'll keep you posted!

Old Bags R Us

I have a friend called Kira, who is always trying to look on the bright side regarding her health, despite the fact that she is getting on a bit.

She tells me things like, "I'm so pleased I still have 20/20 vision, because did you know your eyes start to go at forty?"

And: "My back is still in good condition, even though my parents started getting back problems in their thirties."

She also often says, "I really need an afternoon nap." Sometimes she even takes one.

I tell her that her gratefulness that her hair has not yet turned white, that she still has her own teeth and that she can still walk without a Zimmerframe (okay, maybe I'm exaggerating a bit here), is misplaced. After all, she is only thirty-six. Maybe it is because I come from a long line of healthy people, but I thought it was common knowledge that, apart from players of American football who sustain terrible injuries, heroin addicts who share needles, people who work in asbestos factories and street walkers, most people do not get any major malfunctionings of their organs or skeletons until their sixties? Am I right?

Anyway, maybe Kira's rubbing off on me, because after taking the kids to the zoo for five hours with her and her son yesterday, I was so zonked that I took a nap with my younger daughter, Sausage. My husband came back from work early and was pissed off that I was napping at three pm.

To which I replied, "Well, you try walking about a boiling hot zoo for five hours, inhaling eye watering gusts of chimpanzee urine, and see how refreshed you feel!"

I feel I was entitled to that nap, he doesn't. What does he know? He's only twenty-eight, for crying out loud. See what he feels like in another eight years.

The E-Spot: Too Tense To Tango

The E-Spot is a column in which I point out the fact that every cloud has a silver lining. Today I give hope to a lady with one or two sexual hang ups.



Dear Emma,

I am a twenty-two year old girl who needs your advice. I am pretty outgoing generally, but when it comes to sex and having to take my clothes off in front of a man, I get incredibly self conscious about my curvy shape. Some men tell me they like it, but I simply don't believe them. Usually, I try and have sex with the lights out.

I am also kind of tense and nervous in bed and don't ever relax enough to have an orgasm. Also, I have not had that much sexual experience and have never given a blow job. I feel like I want to do it, but am scared about doing it in case I don't do it right. For example, I have heard that you do not actually blow into the penis. Am I correct?

Also, when I get out of bed naked I always back away from the bed, because I'm too scared that, should he see it, the guy would laugh at my large behind. Is this normal?

I feel like there is a hot, horny sex goddess buried inside me who is just dying to get out. But I just feel like I'm never going to get over these anxieties to let her out.

Can you help?

Too Tense To Tango


Dear Too Tense To Tango,

This is a very common problem, not only amongst young girls like yourself, but also among older women, who believe that their figures do not correspond to some air brushed Hollywood ideal.

Now I'm not going to tell you that the way you look doesn't matter, but working out at a gym won't necessarily give you more confidence, and often makes women and men more critical about their bodies. The key to being a success in the sack is simple: confidence. I bet you are wondering how to get it, aren't you? But what if I told you that you can get this confidence very easily, and that anyone can get it? More on this in a moment.

Now, regarding going down on a man. I'm not going to give you a blow by blow account of how to give a blow job. I will tell you that you don't blow, but that aside, once you become more relaxed, you will find that you will instinctively know what to do. And believe me, you will no longer feel inhibited about your large butt either!

So, I can tell you're gagging to know, what is this secret to confidence in the sack? Hold your horses dear, I'm getting to it. Don't worry, I'm not going to give you a load of old hokey about tantric breathing and finding your inner chakra. If being nervy in bed could be cured by deep breathing and a few hours of doing yoga, the pharmaceutical industry would be out of business, and think what kind of a dent that would make in the US economy!

This is all you have to do. Yes, it's this simple. It's under $20 and it's available in your neighborhood.



Do let me know how you get on!

Best,
Emma


To all of you out there in distress. Don't suffer in silence. I am here to shoulder your problems! Lay them on me! Please send them to emma.theespot@[remove]gmail.com

Should morons be allowed to have kids?

Now we all know that there are a lot of morons about. People who haven't got a brain cell in their heads. For example, there are people who simply don't think. They just believe that eating 10,000 calories worth of junk food a day is an okay thing to do. They think that weighing 488 pounds is an okay weight to weigh. To which I say, fine, eat yourself to death, blow up like a whale and explode.

But what if what I am actually referring to is a seven year old child? Yes, there is a seven year old child called Jessica, who lives in Chicago, who has the dubious honor of being the fattest kid in the world. A child who weighs 488 pounds, whose bones are deformed through her weight and who cannot walk. Who, doctors tell the mother, is already dangerously at risk and could die if not treated.

Unfortunately, Jessica’s mother does not or cannot understand the health risks she is putting her child under, and continues to feed her 10,000 calories worth of junk in response to Jessica's 'healthy appetite.'

Now, I'm not usually for the state interfering in people's private lives, but this woman is obviously a moron, if not mentally ill. She needs to be told to modify that kid's diet or the child will be taken into foster care.

There are too many moron parents about, and something about this case really annoys me, not to mention depresses the fuck out of me.

What do you think? Should the state interfere in this case?

I want to be alone

Greta Garbo, who said, “I want to be alone.” A little known fact is that she was a Raving Lesbian (why do people call them raving lesbians, when not all lesbians go to raves. Actually, I don’t think raves even exist any more…but I digress).

I am wondering if I am too young to become a recluse. Back in the dark ages, all manner of spinsters were locked up in their houses and spent much of their lives muttering to themselves, growing moustaches and going slowly batty. But on the upside, they probably didn’t get their hearts’ broken, or suffer a nasty bout of the Clap or the Plague.

When I first moved to this house, four years ago, I laughed at my neighbor, who I'll call Sandy, who is a bit of a bird brain. She possesses several fat pampered cats that gaze at you vacantly, faces pressed against the glass, quite possibly considering suicide as a valid alternative to living in the peon to bad taste that is her home. You are probably familiar with the old lady décor to which I refer. A front room that assaults the eye with pastel shades from puke green to shimmering mauve. As your eyes adjust to the semi-darkness, you can make out porcelain dolls with sick grins on their faces, knick knacks of twee little thatched cottages and cavorting horses, crocheted doilies on every surface, as well as dust laden silk flowers crammed into cat shaped vases.

Now, my neighbor is actually married and pretty ancient, but because she drives her husband nuts, he’s still working, even though he’s seventy-odd. Anyway, Sandy is obsessed with feeding birds and gardening and hardly ever goes out. She frequently feeds stray cats and once got attached to a rabid tom cat who she thought was ill and half alive in my garden (she’d heard a cat moaning, apparently, and had consequently climbed over my fence and put out cat food for it in the middle of the night). I told her if I found a dead cat in my garden, I’d let her know, but in the meantime could she not put cat food in my garden, as it attracts rats.

Frankly, for a while there, I thought she was a sandwich short of a picnic. But now I’m beginning to wonder if she might have the right idea, after all. For the last year or so I've been keeping busy having a mid-life crisis (I’m thirty-six, so I guess it was more of a third-of-a-life-crisis). It was all about, God my skin is all saggy, I am so old, I’m going to die soon, my life is over. To stop thinking about this stuff, I started mixing with a bunch of party animals/degenerates, going to clubs and dabbling in illegal substances, and indulging in other nefarious activities not suitable for disclosure in such a wholesome and family-orientated blog such as this one (!). Actually, it was pretty good fun and maybe I’d still be doing it, only my husband told me to that I couldn’t lie about every other weekend with a hangover, and that it was getting a bit ridiculous. And he was probably right.


I don't like to brag, but Paris and I go back a long way. I used to be a professional dog walker when I was a nipper and often used to take her chihuahua Muffy for walks. One day we got chatting and I realized she was just a rich lonely girl in desperate need of a friend. We've been close ever since. The above is us on a night out on the town.

So, instead of being out there, I’m going to try being in there. You be the judge.

Am I a Recluse?

1. I have started gardening and find I quite like it.

2. I find baking cakes quite soothing.

3. I never answer the telephone unless I know who it is and even then I usually don’t answer.

4. I find keeping friendships up to be bloody hard work. That’s why most of the friends I have had long term are those types who ‘keep in touch’ or make 99 per cent of the effort to keep things chugging along. That is quite a bad attitude to have, but I just think cultivating friendships is a fag. For example, I never hang on the phone chatting for hours like most housewives. In fact, I barely use the phone.

I’d quite fancy ringing a service called dial-a-party and when, spur of the moment, you feel like, say, going out for a drink with a bunch of fun loving girls, you phone dial-a-party and they turn up and off you go for a night on the town, rather than having to make arrangements for weeks in advance that often fall through because someone can’t make it on Friday night, someone else can’t get a babysitter, someone else has a cold, etc etc. Tedious.

5. I enjoy doing DIY, painting window shutters and picking out new curtains.

6. I sometimes think about drinking alcohol before midday (haven’t done it yet).

7. I hardly ever enjoyed working in an office, apart from the social aspect, gossiping and going out for drinks afterwards. I don’t see the point of making money for someone else. And now that I am in the process of setting up a business venture where I will be making money for myself, hopefully I will not have to work for another tosser boss as long as I live. By the way, the business venture is not selling Avon, scented candles or The Cone.

8. I don’t think I like people very much (right now), apart from bloggers and that, let’s face it, is the most low maintenance type friendship you can have.

9. I really enjoyed it recently, when, for a week while my land line was broken, I could not make or receive calls.

10. I like going out on the razzle dazzle, getting rat arsed, letting slip lots of secrets that I shouldn’t and passing out in a corner.

Methinks number ten shows that I should become a recluse. I’m definitely going to give it a whirl for a few weeks. Don’t worry, I won’t suddenly buy a batch of mangy old cats, because I'm allergic to fur.

So, am I a Recluse? Also, would you care to join my cult? And what to call it? The Cult of the Hermit Crab?

Conemania Sweeps the Globe

Forget your Rabbits, your Dolphins, your double trunked Elephants and all your other penetrative vibrators, there's a new kid on the block and he's called The Cone. The beauty of the device, apart from its ability to give superquick orgasms, is that if it falls out of your bag in the supermarket, it does not immediately give you away as a sexually desperate housewife, because it is cleverly disguised as a stylish foot massager.


Since its launch, mass hysteria has gripped women (and men) the world over. After hearing these incredible testimonials (below), desire to get their hands on this handy little device exploded.

"It took my from 0 - Orgasm in 60 seconds."

"Ladies, don't keep The Cone to yourself - try using this on your man as well - mine has never quite been the same since last night! He loved it!"

"It feels just like someone's between your legs."

"I've only owned The Cone three days and I think I'm addicted already!"

But while everyone wanted The Cone rubbing against their privates, few knew that you had to purchase the objects from licensed sex shops. Very risky behaviour ensured, with people grabbing cone shaped objects and attempting stimulation. Casualties soon littered the streets, as conemaniacs indulged in risky and foolish behavior, in search of the ultimate quickie orgasm.


A father of four (never to be five) in Intercourse, PA, inserted his member into a Waffle Cone Wizard, with disastrous results!


A man who simulated sex with a traffic cone in an Edinburgh street has escaped with a warning after appearing in court.


A woman in Little Sodbury, Avon, caused a six mile tailback when she stood in the middle of the road, dressed in a traffic cone, grunting and groaning, in a fruitless attempt to achieve satisfaction.


Even innocent toys have been lured into the mass hysteria surrounding this product, with news that a Mr Potato Head from Sac City, IA, inserted a cone in an anatomically incorrect position, with near fatal results.

The casualties of this cone epidemic are manifold. We all want to go from 0 - Orgasm in sixty seconds. But be careful. And so I urge you all to go to The Cone website, and to study their diagrams (below), before any of you damage yourselves with wanton misuse of cone shaped objects the world over.

Ten Reasons Why I Couldn't Be A Man

1. I couldn't piss in a straight line

I would pee all over the toilet/floor, probably wall too, because I am something of a klutz (Evidence: the photo above is the result of a recent attempt to use a milk foamer in a cup of hot chocolate).

2. Having to ask women out all the time

What a flipping fag. Not to mention the fact that, unless you look like an Adonis, you get knocked back a lot. Not only knocked back, laughed at. Hmm, I don’t think my ego would be able to cope with some filly drunkenly braying, “I wouldn’t go out with you if you were the last man on earth.” How do men cope with it, I wonder? I know some of them do lots of over compensatory strutting around, muttering macho phrases like: “Oh, she was a slag anyway, I just asked her out for a laugh.” You’re not kidding anyone mate, we know you’re crying inside!

Well, some are like that. But about asking women out, maybe these days it’s different, and women pursue men more via texting etc. I am no expert on the world of dating via texts, but some of you are, of course, and could maybe chip in here.

3. Having to stimulate a woman to orgasm

What a flipping fag. How the heck do they keep going? Day in, day out, rotating a finger on an area the size of a pencil eraser, for five, ten minutes, while saying, “No, I’m enjoying myself, really I am, dear.” Or what about all those troopers who brave pubic hairs in the teeth and all manner of tedious road directions, “Up a bit, down a bit, no stay there. No there!” while tonguing away, with no end in sight. It must be like driving in the dark. You know that eventually you’ll hit a wall, it’s just a question of when.

Heterosexual men and lesbians are certainly brave souls when it comes to selfless pleasuring. But frankly, I don’t have it in me. Not only is it easier, it’s also quicker to get a man off. Thank God.

4. Having to give most of your money to your wife

Women slag off men day and night, but when you really think about the inequality of the sexes, it’s really quite weighted in the woman’s favor. How many men slave day in, day out, often in jobs they hate, risking heart attacks and God knows what, to financially support women who are at home with the kids? How many women haven’t worked a day in their lives and are financially supported by men? Millions.

Now I’m not saying being a housewife and bringing up kids isn’t work, it is, and in a lot of ways it’s harder than being in an office, but still. It’s an amazing sacrifice isn’t it, handing over most of your cash every week to a woman? It’s incredibly romantic in a lot of ways, actually. It’s like, I am basically your slave and as long as you shower me with love and affection, I’d like to be your slave forever.

I just can’t in a million years imagine financially supporting a man, even if he was a stay at home dad. Which is wrong. I know that. But I just can’t. I’d think, “That’s my flipping money. I’ve slaved for it and I’m not handing it over.” But maybe that’s just me?

5. Not being able to let it all hang out without getting in trouble

As a woman, you can get hysterical, cry while watching ET, start sobbing at a wedding, scream like a banshee while giving birth. No one cares. It’s expected.

Not so if you're a man. I don’t mind men crying. Actually I think it’s pretty sexy in a weird way, if it’s your boyfriend and they’re crying over something private with you, sharing their feelings. But that’s by the by. I never saw a guy cry at work, and if I had, I don’t think he would have lived it down for weeks. I reckon that as a guy you’d have to keep it bottled up a lot. Which would suck.

6. Having to spend hours driving about, while being totally lost

You know how you’re in a car going somewhere with a guy and at some point you realize he is totally lost, and you say, “Stop at the garage, I’ll ask for directions.” And he says, “No, I know where I’m going.” And then he drives around in circles for another hour. And finally you start screaming, “You don’t know where the fuck we are, do you? Let me out, I’m going to ask that school kid smoking a fag in that bus shelter for directions.” And he says, “Shut up. I’ve had it with you. We’re going home.” To which you reply, “We’re lost aren’t we?” Of course, he’ll never actually say, “Yes.”

It’s one of those mysteries, why men don’t ask for directions, but they don’t. Frankly, I don’t think I’d have the patience for those kinds of shenanigans.



7. Having to wear boring clothes

What a pain. Unless you were gay or thick skinned to ridicule, you’d have to wear mostly blue, black, brown and beige in bloody boring styles. Unimaginable to have so many things forbidden to you, like bright pink nail varnish, blusher, purple eye shadow, high heels, short skirts, red silk negligees and patent leather boots. Yeah I know Eddie Izzard braves the world in skirts and stilettos, but frankly he doesn’t carry the look off too well.

8. Having a penis

Don’t get me started. I mean, I know it’s more or less the same as having a vagina - you can get excited at the most inopportune moments - but for men, it’s all on display. You get an erection on the diving board at the swimming pool, and basically, you’re fucked. You get one while walking along the street after seeing some knockers on a billboard. Well, I don’t know what you do. Just walk funny for a bit and hope it goes away? And what about when you can’t get an erection and you are under pressure to get one? I can’t even begin to imagine how embarrassing that must be. Goodness me, this exercise has really helped me empathize with men.

9. Having to watch a lot of sports

I don’t see the point of sports. Balls get kicked about. Someone wins, someone loses. And? But if you’re a guy, you probably get a thrill out of it, like the kind of thrill girls get when you get on the scale and have lost three pounds without even trying. I think that’s the correct analogy.

10. Not being able to experience the miracle of birth

That was a joke, obviously. Ever heard a man say, "God you women are so lucky. I wish I could feel the excruciating agony of pushing out an eight pound baby?" If there are any, they’re only saying it to pretend they’re sensitive, so they can get into your knicks. So watch out.

So that’s it then. Unless I’ve missed something?

First Date Nerves

He sticks his hand up my shirt and squeezes my breast.

“Are you nervous? You seem nervous.”

He squeezes the other.

“No, I’m fine.”

It’s just that I’ve only known you two minutes and you’re already fondling my breasts.

“Right, they seem okay. Now, put your legs up in the stirrups.”

It was my first date with Dr. Knutz, my new gynecologist. Actually, my first gynecologist, because in the UK your regular doctor does your pap smears. So this was a big deal for me.

We’ve all been there, haven’t we? We’ve all made an extra special effort to trim our pubic hair and make our vaginas look as appealing as we possibly can before a trip to the Gyno. Because, let’s face it, docs like Dr. Knutz have seen more pussy than the greatest porn actors in the business. One can’t help wondering, as he gently eases in his speculum, How does mine measure up? Is it pretty or ugly in the grand scheme of vulvas?

No, I didn’t ask.

First he wooed me, saying, “Right now you have the brightest cervix in Baltimore.”

Why, thank you, kind sir.

Then he broke my heart.

“Now I’m going to put a vinegar solution on your cervix. If there are any irregular cells, they will show up white. It'll take about a minute to work. Don't look so worried, I'm sure you'll be fine." It's very disconcerting, because he's still staring up my vagina, not making eye contact. "Actually, hang on, there's something showing up. I'm going to biopsy the spot. Nurse! Get me a sample jar. Hold tight my dear, this should just pinch for a moment."

Me: "Aaah!"

"There we go. No, actually, there's another spot I'm going to take a sample of. There we go. All done."

"But why are you taking a biopsy?"

"Mostly the cells that show up as irregular turn out just to be inflamed tissue, but if they are pre-cancerous, they are perfectly treatable. We'll call you with the results in a week. Don't worry, you're not going to die!"

Well actually, Dr. Knutz, if there's one thing I am sure about, it's that I'm going to die at some point.

Now, should I ask? Do I dare to say, Listen Dr. Knutz, I'm dying to know, in the grand scheme of things, how does my pussy measure up? Is it up there in the top ten per cent of good looking pussies?

I have a feeling he wouldn't have minded if I'd asked. Maybe I'll ask him next time. Although I don't really want another 'date' with him soon, despite him being a bit of a laugh. Getting your pre-cancerous cells burnt off doesn't sound very romantic.

So, I'm curious, what thoughts go through your head when your legs are up in stirrups at the Gynos? And men, what thoughts go through yours when the urologist is handling your crown jewels?

Bad Sex - I Want It!

Today I’m launching my Bad Sex Competition. Why? Because I think you have the imagination to really give it to me and write me an erection droopingly bad sex scene.

The Challenge

Take two or more famous people or bloggers (pick me! pick me!) and write a sex scene crammed with godawful unerotic moments, that will have us reaching for the sick bag or at least give us a good giggle.

The Prizes

Here’s the juicy part: If you win this competition, you can have sex with me in virtually any position you like. You can do it for twenty-four hours straight and make me shout “That’s amazing, Mr President!” every time you ejaculate. But bear in mind we're talking virtual sex here. Still, I guarantee you’ll have a good time. And if you’re a woman I’ll give you, well, anything you want, sex obviously, as well as a full body massage and a goody bag full of virtual Lancome make up.

There are also lots of cash prizes. Thousands of dollars in virtual money is up for grabs, so let’s have your entries and make them good.

This is how we do it

I’ve written a particularly gruesome scene featuring Luscious English Muffin Nigella Lawson:





and our very own blogging stud troika (steady ladies, don’t faint with excitement. He’s currently based in Hong Kong, and he’ll get to you all in his own sweet time).

The scene: A dinner party in Islington, which Nigella is catering for a group of stuck up media types.

While Nigella is in the kitchen, troika approaches her from behind, slaps her arse and burps.

“Got any Stella? The Belgian beer they’re serving out there tastes like rat's piss.”

Nigella spins round, cleavage a-quiver over her low cut gown.

“Do you mind? Who do you think you are, talking to me like that, not to mention man handling me in such an intimate way?”

“Yeah, I know who you are. Nigella pissing Lawson. So, do you?”

“Do I what?” says Nigella, licking batter provocatively from her spoon.

“Have any Stella?”

“I can’t think what you mean.”

“Never mind," Troika says, taking the spoon from her and throwing it aside. “Listen, this might be your lucky night, because I quite fancy putting my pork sword into your toad in the hole.”

“I beg your pardon? I am married you know.”

“Don’t worry about that, I’ll be in and out in under ten minutes.”

Troika grabs her tits, sticks his head between them and makes a snuffling sound.

She starts to pant. “But what about my soufflé? It’s in the oven. It’ll be ruined!”

“Stuff your soufflé.”

“Oh, well, I must admit you are rather a charmer, albeit in a rather Neanderthal way. Go on then. How do you want me?”

“Oh, just lie down on the granite top and show us your muff.”

“Very well.” She lies down, lifts up her dress and urgently pulls down her knickers.

Troika kneels down and spreads her legs.

“Fucking hell, just my luck to pull a posh bint with a stubbly chuff. I don’t want to get razor burn off your badly shaven minge.”

“Oh, oh, please! Thrust your tongue deep into my vulva.”

“All right, but only because you’re not a chav. Not every piece of skirt would get this sort of regal treatment.” He goes down on her for a while.

“You brute! You animal! You’ve ignited a flicker in me that’s about to set me aflame. Oh, there. Stay right there!” Presses his head into her crotch.

“Oh chuffing hell, I’ve been on the job three minutes, what gives? I haven’t got all night to wait for you to come, you know. I’m going to flip you over and finish off like that.”

Rolls her onto her stomach, and, after a few thrusts, pulls out, punches the air and shouts “Goal!” spraying his load in every direction.

Troika idly wipes his cock on the velvet curtains, before zipping up his fly.

“Sorry about that, some of it got on this tray of pistachio sprinkled apricots stuffed with crème fraiche. I think they should be good to go if you wipe them down a bit. See you around, love.”

Troika wanders off.

THE END

So, I hope that’s got your juices flowing. Please put your Bad Sex Scene in my comments or, if it’s a magnum opus, send it to me at emmakcontact at yahoo.com

I await your entries with bated breath!

The long road from Bastard to Nob (my life story)

So there's this beautiful working class young Viennese girl, I'll call her Heidi, (my mum), who runs away from her dysfunctional family at 21, ending up in London working as an au pair. It is the sixties. She goes to the Rolling Stones concert in Hyde Park where they released all those white butterflies. One of the butterflies lands on my dad's (I'll call him Jaspar) shoulder. Eyes meet, cosmic forces collide. He is an upper class twit, she is well, an Austrian. They make beautiful music. Someone doesn't know how to use a condom or the pill. Whatever. The result is, I am conceived.

Jaspar tries to avoid the situation by hiding under the bed at his Nash house by Regent's Park (I'm serious) where he still lives with mummy and daddy (he is 21).


Jaspar's dad goes and visits Heidi and offers her a bunch of wilted flowers and a few bob to get the situation 'sorted out'. Heidi tells him where to stuff his ten bob note and the flowers and ends up having the baby (me) and living in a tiny flat with no bathroom, a bit like this one:



Meanwhile, she asks Jaspar for a bit of money, but he is not very interested in this idea, believing that babies are self-sustaining. Getting a bit desperate, she asks his parents if maybe we could live on one of the six floors of the mansion? This gets short shrift from them. She is, after all, a bloody foreigner! Also, the basement flat is occupied by a family of bloody foreigners who clean the house (Spaniards).

So basically, we live in a bit of a shit hole, waiting ten years for a council flat. Hurrah, it arrives! Now we have a BATHROOM. Crack open the champagne. Unbelievable. Then, if some of you are wondering how it is I speaks posh, it's because I got a free place at a nob's school, aged eleven (explanatory note for Americans: 'nob' means: a person of wealth and high social standing, a member of the upper-classes, it can also mean idiot and penis). So there I is, poor as a church mouse, yet talking posh. Then, when I am fourteen, I throw a party at my council flat, with lots of cider, hoping to get laid etc. Now, naturally, all the girls at school have the manors in Hampstead and the lads from the local public (note for Americans: this means a private school) school have the mansions in Highgate. So one posh bloke says to me, when he comes to the party: "Wow, nice of your dad to buy you a little flat of your own to hang out in." "No," says I, "I actually live here!" He laughs his head off. Somehow I don't think he believes me.

All of which is a bit of a background for my surprise when my six year old, Scarlett says to me yesterday, "Mummy, we're poor, aren't we?"

I almost fainted!

Three bed house, yard the size of a football pitch, two fucking bathrooms, two cars and she asks if we are poor? This is America. Oh God. She is six and doesn't know that this isn't poverty.

When I think of what I had as a kid, and she thinks we are living in poverty, just because we don't have an SUV. Oh boy. I supppose she simply doesn't know the value of money. Makes me laugh. In England one's accent defines what class you are. Here it about how big your house is.

I guess at some point, when she starts getting pocket money at seven for doing chores, she will realise that money doesn't grow on trees, that it is quite hard to come by and maybe learn that it has a value. Right now she gets angry when I say she can't have the hot lunch at school because $1.50 for a slice of pizza seems a bit steep and that she should just take sandwiches instead.

How did your parents teach you the value of money? Or how do you teach your kids the value of money?

The Age of Aquarius my arse

This is the dawning of the age of Aquarius
The age of Aquarius
Aquarius!
Aquarius!

Harmony and understanding
Sympathy and trust abounding
No more falsehoods or derisions
Golden living dreams of visions
Mystic crystal revalation
And the mind's true liberation
Aquarius!
Aquarius!

From Hair the Musical .... and from the Forty Year Old Virgin (of course).

Back in the sixties, when hippies were tuning in and dropping out, and women were burning their bras, the belief was that people could free themselves from existing hierarchies. There was going to be equality for all.

Thirty years on, the acid trip has long ended, Timothy Leary has kicked the bucket and the promised Age of Aquarius still hasn't dawned.

Of course, nowadays certain freedoms have been achieved - for the rich.

I know this guy - I'll call him Jeff - who works four days a week, and consequently has to watch his two pre-schoolers all day Friday (one of the days his wife works). He moved here from New York, and still keeps in touch with a lot of his filthy rich friends there. He informed me today that for the 'elite' female Manhattanite, the ultimate status symbol is no longer the megabucks career. In fact, it is the two fingers to the career thank you very much stance that is gaining in popularity for those lucky few whose spouses have hugely swollen bank accounts. The ultimate lifestyle is to not work and to have one, two or even more nannies working round the clock to look after your kids, freeing you up to live a life of fun and frivolity.

Now, these are not society women, just ones that were career high flyers before popping out the sprogs and who now fritter away their days having their hair done, buying Gucci loafers, playing tennis and having long $300 lunches (the lucky bitches!).



All well and good you might say, but my point is this: In the first place, isn't there a bit of an ethical issue here in that, as a woman, you are paying other women (less well educated than yourself and often illegal so you don't have to give them health benefits or a decent wage), to look after your kids/clean your house etc. Aren't such rich women often exploiting poorer women the same way men used to exploit women by tying them to hearth and home?

Secondly, have you ever been to New York on a weekend, and seen all those preppy kids being wheeled about in their strollers by their nannies, without a parent in sight? It's a very sad sight, I can tell you.

So Jeff tells me, without a trace of irony, that it's quite a chaotic nightmare, this one day of looking after the kids. He said, "I simply don't think that with rushing around and buying groceries and cleaning that I'm giving them a good level of attention. I think it would be so much better if I hired a nanny for the day and then had one hour of quality time with each of the kids."

"Two hours a week quality time?" I asked, thinking I'd misheard him.

"Yeah, I feel I would be able to give so much more to them in a concentrated period of time."

Now don't get me wrong, I find kids as irritating as the next person. (In fact, I have long wondered if I could patent a soundproof glass screen like they have in cabs, that I could put between myself and the screaming kids in the back, thereby guaranteeing a nice quiet drive. If suffocation occurs a light could go off or something?) But even though they often drive me nuts, everyone sane knows that what kids need more than anything is your time, quality or otherwise. You have to give it to them. Why? Just because.

And if you're rich and can buy huge blocks of time away from them, I don't know, there's something kind of sick about it. Like they're a commodity that you can pay someone to keep at arm's length, thus preventing them from getting their messy fingers on your designer gown.

Yes, I'd love to have nannies around the clock and go to clubs and sleep off hangovers and have kids I see for fifteen minutes a day. But if that is the greatest thing this upper echelon of women have achieved, I wonder if that is progress? Well, I just wonder.

What do you say?

English Girls Are Easy?

I was at a party Saturday night, where I met a French man called Phillipe. I only drank one glass of wine and consequently didn't ask him for a threesome or even a twosome.

I'll come clean here, I don't particularly like the French. I've never really warmed to them as a bunch. No sense of humor, as far as I can tell. They are somehow too earnest, with their dreary discussions about philosophie and l'amour. Although one exception to that rule was Brigitte, this hilarious French flatmate I had in London who once faked an orgasm with me. Well, I started telling Phillipe about her. She was five foot one, a rather sexy mix of Spanish, Madagascan, French and Chinese, and had a voice like a French porn star on helium i.e. "Ah Monsieur, I am ze French Maid and I ave come to clean ze 'ouse. Ooh Monsieur I am not sure that you should be lifting my skirt like zat but ze way you are touching me feels so good..." She'd do these little skits for me. Quite an amusing girl, certainly, and the inspiration for two porn novels I penned. But she was also a little OTT in her choice of clothes, favoring micro shorts and tiny tops. Which would have been fine, I suppose, if she hadn't also dressed that way in the office.

For years she beavered away as a paralegal at a London law firm. Her dream was to become a solicitor, but the firm were reluctant to article her, that is, to train her for the two year training period you need to become a solicitor. One of the problems was that she used to wear a short skirt, coupled with a fitted jacket, and nothing but a bra on underneath it.

Once she got drunk at the firm's Christmas party, spilt something on her skirt and had to change into another skirt in the restroom. Apparently she came out of the toilet without wearing a skirt and wandered around a party full of the staidest, stuffiest lawyers in London, in stockings and a thong, until someone helpfully pointed out that she was missing a vital piece of clothing.

Actually, she did eventually qualify as a solicitor at another firm, she was pretty bright, I just don't think she understood what just how conservatively you have to dress at a UK law firm.

Anyhow, I said to Philippe, "I just wondered, is it typical for your average French bird to wear next to nothing to work?"

"Non, I mean, where was she from?"

"Montpellier."

"Ah, oui, some of the girls from that region dress a little bit more er, provocative. And you, where are you from?"

"London."

"Ah, you are an English. You know, in France we say that the English girls are easy."

"You say that like it's a bad thing!" I replied, making a stab at humor.

I don't think he found that funny. Something lost in translation perhaps? In any case, he didn't laugh.

"I mean, you're not complaining about it, are you? Haven't you ever had a good time with an English girl?"

"Ah yes, such girls are okay for one night, but not for a wife."

Which led me to thinking, are English girls really that easy? With English girls, is it: buy them a chip butty and they're anyone's? In your experience, which nationality are the easiest lays and which ones have knickers of iron (virtually impenetrable)?