Blaguards, Miscreants and Womanisers (BMW drivers)

Life truly does deal blow after blow. I've spent the summer bank holiday weekend:

• Window shopping in Newcastle with Madam Noir. A lovely experience (especially as cheese scones were involved), but in order to cheer me up she perkily asked me what I would buy if I was not facing imminent bankruptcy. On hearing her question my mind was instantly filled with the beating wings of beautiful things: Bobbi Brown shimmer bricks, Lola Rose beads, cashmere jumpers, Barbara Pym novels, rose petal meringues, bottles of damson gin, a new car free of dog drool (thanks Cyril) and rust. I was rendered speechless by the enormity of the question. It only served to depress me. All I bought today was an M&S pork pie. And even that was a disappointment.

• Hiding in bed. It is cold here. I cannot afford to switch on the heating. Last winter my utility bills were £200 per month. So, like one of those balaclava wearing pensioners featured on Panorama, perpetually huddled in front of a one-bar electric fire, I am spending my time cocooned in bed, betwixt flannel sheets and my beloved electric blanket. It is where I am now. The only grit in the oyster is . . .

• The ongoing failure of my mission to teach the dogs how to make me a cup of tea and serve it to me in bed. This must be possible. It MUST be possible. I hate having to get up and make my own tea. If brainless bozo Nick Clegg can run the country, if Katie Price can write a bestselling novel, if NASA can send chimpanzees into space, then surely to God a lurcher can be trained to brew a decent cup of Yorkshire.

• Two depressing, utterly depressing disasters this weekend: my dishwasher is broken, so I am facing a future of domestic drudgery. Oh, and someone/something has smashed a pane of glass in my sitting room window. I can only assume it was ANOTHER attempted break-in. Either that or one of Sunderland's obsese and drunken seagulls (they dine on Greggs' pasties and brewn ale) has crashed into my beautiful art deco stained glass. I can't afford to get it fixed. I have had to make my own temporary repairs with cling film and sellotape. I can't bear the thought of another break-in. I want to move. Back to the 1950s preferably.

• I visited my elderly Uncle Stan yesterday. It was torturous. I endured several hours of listening to impassioned tirades about immigrants, gypsies, muslims, single mothers and gays. Oh, and capital punishment, of course. Capital punishment for immigrants, gypsies, muslims, single mothers and gays. During his hate-filled monologues Uncle Stan positively shakes and fizzes with venom, usually with his flies still open. Thank heavens for the calm and sensible influence of Aunty Margaret, who kindly agreed to accompany me.

And now. I have saved the best till last. I had some rather shocking news of Rochester this weekend. I told him that I had seen his brother, Senor Boldon, recently. The elder Brother Grimm pulled out in front of me. (I am referring, of course, to a vehicular rather than a sexual maneuver.) I made some throwaway comment that,

'I was pleased to note that the Lexus Lothario at least indicated first, which is more than many of his sort do (I refer of course to ex BMW drivers).

Rochester's response? 'I have just bought a BMW. What does that make me? Uncle Stan sounds okay to me.x'

DEAR GOD!!! Rochester driving a BMW! Well, dear reader, I had to point out the error of his ways. This was my response.

'Whoa there bonny lad. That was 3 sentences you wrote there. Pace yourself now. I’d hate for you to get repetitive strain injury from all that typing.

Do you really want me to spell out what is wrong with a BMW. Are you serious?

I discussed this very issue on my blog some time ago here

Basically, BMWs are driven by arrogant, sneering, middle-aged Tory business men who are lousy in bed. Or is it lousey in bed? No, lousy ( I meant inept, rather than lice-riddled). BMW drivers are a complete cliché. Have you really got one? Whatever next, a Jeremy Clarkson leather jacket and perm and 22 year old girlfriend?

The equivalent behaviour for a woman to owning a BMW? Well if I started having Botox injections, got a spray tans, wore ‘fuck me’ shoes and hung around in wine bars drinking Chardonnay and feeling the arse of every teenage waiter who passed, then that would the equivalent to a man owning a BMW.

Also, why are BMWs made without indicators? My Ford Focus has indicators, and it was a quarter of the price. Then, there is also that irritating BMW advert about how they manufacture ‘joy’. (vomit) I thought you were a tortured misanthrope at heart? Surely you should have been on the look out for a car manufacturer that bases its campaign around gloom, misery and despair. Possibly a Volvo? They are much beloved of the suicidal Swedes (the accoutrements for gassing yourself come fitted as standard with a Volvo). I can’t take this in, Rochester. This is harder to come to terms with than that picture of you looking clean-shaved in a suit and tie.'

He has not replied to that yet. Maybe I have gone too far. Especially as I added a footnote, wondering whether he would be able to take a BMW dogging. (It surely lacks the requisite seediness).

Ah, I did laugh today in Fenwicks. Whilst browsing in the cosmetics department, trying on Bobbi Brown lipsticks and attempting, surreptitiously, to give myself a free manicure at the OPI counter, I noticed that you can now get your eyebrows 'threaded' there. Why anyone would want to have their body hair attended to publicly, in the middle of a heaving department store is a mystery to me. Especially when the demonic-looking ladies make you sit in a dentist's chair, attack you with a cat's-cradle of dental floss and leave you looking like some sort of red-browed baboon. Well today, there was a man in the hot-seat, getting his brows done.

'Obviously a man of the female gender.' I noted to Madam Noir. 'I wonder if Rochester gets that done now he is a BMW driving, suit-wearing metrosexual.'

We silently gave the matter some thought.

'Blimey. With his monobrow they'd need dental floss as long as the Great Wall of China. The shop floor would resemble the grooming section of Crufts!'