How to be Good

Since I’m obviously too tired and too busy to read books, I haven’t posted about a good book in a while. I’ve resumed to reading TopGear (yes, what, I love the columnists!) and watching Jamie Oliver on television. Before any thoughts of me turning into a (desperate) housewife that drives a tiny red coupé and wears an oversized Diesel watch while wearing Police sunglasses, I did actually catch up with some of my reads. What scares me most is that I used to read so much these previous years and now I’m down to one book in 9 months. Horrible.

So I remembered I had read Nick Hornby’s ‘Fever Pitch’ a while ago. I’ve been a Gunners fan all my life albeit not watching much of it – partly due to television and lack of time during weekends. And I thought hey, I love it. Since I’m a person of few words, I can just say I ‘clicked’ with Hornby’s style and I decided to read more.

The next book that fell into my hands was ‘How to be Good’. First I thought it would be this terrible book preaching about how to be good in 21st century society – wrong! I hadn’t even read the fourth cover to read the testimonials when I first said that. So this time I just ran in, grabbed the book and left. I also entered my PIN code wrong about 3 times, convinced it was the right one so lost my credit card for a few days after having lost it previously in some french ATM. Anyway, the book was distraction enough for those few days before I got my credit card back.

Since I also fail at convincing people, being the kind of person that gives advice but never insists on taking them, I can’t say how great this book actually was. Probably the quotes speak for themselves but yes, I could see myself in some of the main character’s actions and thoughts. Cheeky bastard, except for the ending of course. I never could have done that

“Meeting a man at a Community Health forum, going out for a drink with him, going out for another drink with him, going out for dinner with him, going out for another drink with him and kissing him afterward, and, eventually, arranging to sleep with him in Leeds after a conference . . . That’s my equivalent of stripping down to my bra and pants in front of a plane full of passengers and performing a sex act, as they say in the papers, on a complete stranger. I fall asleep surrounded by pieces of the Guardian and have dreams that are sexual but not erotic in any way whatsoever, dreams full of people doing things to other people, like some artist’s vision of hell.”

“The difference between sex with David and sex with Stephen is like the difference between art and science. With Stephen it’s all empathy and imagination and exploration and the shock of the new, and the outcome is …uncertain, if you know what I mean. I’m engaged by it, but I’m not necessarily sure what it’s all about. David, on the other hand, presses this button, then that one, and bingo! Things happen. It’s like operating a lift. Just as romantic, but actually just as useful.)“

“So it comes as something of a shock to me that my words, big words, it seemed to me at the time, words that would change my life, might just as well have been bubbles. David swatted them away and they popped, and there is no evidence anywhere that they ever existed.”

In Aquascutum we trust

The Truth About the last four years

When It’s Over

I promise myself I will

- stop waking up at 6 in the morning

- stop drinking coffee and drink orange juice instead

- restart my jogging and biking routine

- start going to the pool again

- get a facial treatment every 3 weeks instead of every 5 weeks

- whiten my teeth

- renew my wardrobe so I look more like a girl

more to come