Miss Underscore's Weekly Digest(ive)

Friday: Knickergate

I was touched to receive Rochester's much promised mix tape (well, CD). It was great, despite starting (bizarrely) with The Carpenters cheesy anthem 'I'm on the Top of the World'. My 3 favourite tracks:

1. The Lemonheads: Rudy with a Flashlight
2. Jarvis Cocker: I Will Kill Again
3. Lucinda Williams: Fruits of my Labor

It was also a great day as I took delivery of my new FLANNEL bed linen. It's in a rather vivid kitsch, 50s floral. It's from the 'Romantic Incontinence' range, designed by Thora Hird. Anyway, I love it. I couldn't wait to go to bed. Oh, darn it. I feel like that every night. But this was going to be special. I had Mad Men to enjoy, Rochester's CD to listen to and the softest, cosiest flannel bedding (complete with Doris Day, bubble-gum pink sheets).

I had a flurry of texts from the swarthy rogue that day. I offered him a bedroom picture (of the new linen, of course). He was certainly up for that. His beer glass of testosterone was running over that night. He'd had an alpha male showdown with his boss you see. He modestly sent me the details

'I felt like Clint Eastwood walking through the silence of a large, packed office to knock on his hamster cage in the corner. I told him, very calmly, that he is a cunt and should not fuck with me. I told him he need not speak as there was no need to embarass himself further. He remained silent. I spoke for about 5 minutes with all of his staff looking through the window. I was superb. You would have liked it I think.'

Consequently, that night, Rochester was like a dog with two dicks. He brazenly began to request a knicker shot to accompany the bedroom shot (that dream he'd enjoyed several weeks earlier of me dancing, nay prancing, through a sun-dappled meadow in white cotton knickers was obviously still very much on the rogue's mind). I obliged. With both a bedroom AND a knicker shot. Hell. I'm a modern girl. I grew up in the Cosmopolitan age. I'm no prude.

Strangely I don't think it was quite what the rogue had in mind. I'm not sure why. I thought it hit all the right notes: explicit, yet tasteful. I had deliberately edited out the mug of Horlicks and packet of Werther's Original on the bedside table, for that would have been just cheap and tawdry. I quite like this picture, you know. I figure it could be a winner of the Turner Prize. I prefer it to Tracy Emin's bed. That was just plain skanky. And I'm sure her sheets were poly-cotton.

The tremulous sight of my flannel bedding and my knickers did seem to send Rochester into fanny rat overdrive. It was only to be expected. He is but a man of the male gender, after all. He is also a MARRIED man of the male gender. In the end I stopped our textual intercourse. I was beginning to feel guilty. The bitter taste of wrongdoing was so intense even the Werther's Original could not remove it.

The next day I sent Rochester an email asking, in essence, what the fuck are we doing? That was 8 days ago. I have had no response.

Candy Stripe Bedding

Do you remember the obligatory candy stripe bedding of the 60s and 70s? It makes me think of hot water bottles and my mum reading me The Adventures of the Little Wooden Horse after bathtime. I have been trying to track some down for quite a while now. Then I discovered Cath Kidston has launched a new candy stripe range. I do love Cath Kidston stuff, but I object to paying extortionate prices for products that essentially look as if they've come out of your granny's attic or from the local church jumble sale. However, I have relented and bought the set (with my EBAY profits). It is fantastic. I confess, it doesn't look quite as elegant as this on my bed. My bedroom is certainly more shabby shite than shabby chic.

More Interweb Dating Desperadoes.

OK. I have been flirting, albeit rather half-heartedly, with interweb dating again. Out of the many illiterate and unwashed suitors only two have seemed remotely interesting. Both are angling for a date.

The first is a very nice sounding architect. He seems erudite and well-read. He wants to take me to the local art-house cinema and then out for a meal. How terribly civilised and middle-class. I just think he seems a little dull. Plus, in his profile he describes himself as 'sensitive' (shudder). I think he is possibly a Lib Dem. I think he may eat granola. I expect he reads The Guardian. He refers to me as a 'lady'. None of that is good. It is not good at all.

The second is a shoe designer. I am not making that up, I swear. His occupation sounds a little gay. He got a little huffy with me when I didn't reply to one of his emails. He is a bit on the short side. Plus, I don't think I'll measure up in the shoe department, my beloved ballet pumps will just not be chic enough for him (I am currently sporting a £7 pair from Tesco). Cyril will inevitably ruin things for us anyway, with his rampant shoe cannibalism. I imagine one day Cyril would surely destroy some prototype design that was just about to set the shoe-world aflame. It could never work.

To be honest, neither of them do much for me. Madam Noir says I should keep an open mind. I think you just know about these things.

Middle Class Injury of the Week

I have had no more M.C.Is Not since I split my lip open on a scented candle in John Lewis. Madam Noir has, however, had two. Firstly, she put her back out whilst recycling red wine bottles. Secondly (and this is my favourite) she over-did it on the L'Occitane foot cream, leapt into the shower and nearly broke her neck.