Looking good, looking fine, looking a leeeetle bit like something out of ZZ Top? [hums] She’s got legs, she knows how to use them [/hums]……come on, join in, singalongaspud. Oh CLAPS HANDS at this week’s theme for The Gallery…’mustachioed’…absolutely any excuse to drag these photos out again…from Secret 22….I used to be a biker from my 30 secrets in 30 days project.

I used to be a biker, in the very broadest sense of the word. In other words I had a motorbike, well a scooter, oh go on I admit it…it was a moped. She was yellow and white, a Yamaha Pasola, with a nasty white top box (adorned with my ‘Yuck! Your disgusting fur coat’ and anti-vivisection stickers – forgive me, it was the 80s) and a whole 49cc of an engine. Top speed? 38mph, downhill, on a good day and with the wind behind me.

Ah how I loved loved LOVED that moped, Speedy was her name. When I turned 16 I mithered my parents to buy me a moped but they were having none of it. Fast forward a few months and, on my return from a trip, my Dad told me he had a surprise for me in the garden. And it was Speedy! She was second hand and was a heap when he bought her, so he lovingly brought her back to life while I’d been away. Isn’t that the best surprise ever?

Moustache has slipped. Damn, that is ALWAYS happening to me...

Speedy meant FREEDOM. All of a sudden I was able to go where I wanted, when I wanted. To school and back, to the various choirs and orchestras I played with, to friends, to boyfriends…or just out and about on my moped for the sheer joy of being able to do so. Life on the open road, nothing can beat it. My Dad claims he could hear me approaching from about half a mile away from the house, due the the high speed I insisted on riding at and the rather strained note of the 49cc engine as a results. Kind of “EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!’

When I look back I think my parents must have been so cool to let me on the roads on a moped at the age of 16 – I certainly won’t be letting my boys do the same until they are, oooh, say…48? This was in the Stone Age when there were no mobile phones, so they regularly had no idea where I was or when I was coming back, for hours and hours at a time. No way of calling if I was in trouble or broken down for example.

Me and Speedy sped around Somerset for a couple of years until I went to university, at which point she went to the Big Scrapyard in the Sky. She’d taken to cutting out for no reason after a couple of miles, just sheer laziness I think.

But mostly we had a happy relationship, I fell off her a couple of times but nothing spectacular and I ran out of petrol once. I had to push her home and I stomped in to the house in a rage and shouted at my Dad, “Speedy is BROKEN!”. But, turns out, that needle thing…when it’s on red…that’s when you’re supposed to put petrol in.

How do you like my biker beard and fine and handsome mustache, blowing in the wind? Quite natty I think, although it gave me a hell of rash. Like a shaving rash in fact. Note that it has fake lips attached, those are not – I repeat NOT – my own lips. Since I have thin, evil mean lips as previously discussed in Secret 17…I keep a Grudge Book.

[hums] she’s never begs, she knows how to choose them [/hums]

Already the memory of the 30 secrets is fading fast; I was just looking at my photoset of the project on flickr, and honestly I couldn’t remember what a couple of them were from the pictures, I had to click through to the description. How could I already have forgetten Secret 27…I am a total faker? Or Secret 3…every day I go in to battle with my inner domestic slattern?

I’m so pleased that other bleeps are joining in the fun, and I’m enjoying reading their secrets WAY more than I enjoyed doing my own. It’s a fun project to look back on, but it was a bit stressy doing it. I made a crucial error by not mapping out the entire project at the start and, as the days went by, it became more and more tricky to nail the secret, get the props I needed, set up the shot and then actually write the damn thing. So, if you feel like joining in the fun (1) take my advice and sort out the secrets right and the start and then (2) tell me here and I will get a linkydinkydo thing set up so we can all enjoy your revelations.

In the meantime, take a twirl to Julocka‘s place, A Day in the Life of a Would-Be Bambi, Turning Stones and, newest entrant as of today, Deb at sojourner who has got off to an absolutely cracking start. They’re all sharing their secrets, so why don’t you?

Final thought on my secrets before I put them away for a while..my favourite secret? A tough one…the one that makes me giggle the most is the description for ‘Secret 16…I can’t dance to save my life‘. I know you shouldn’t laugh at your own jokes but, honestly, that one makes me bubble up and snort. But I think my absolute favourite is Secret 24…I wish I didn’t have to wear glasses. It’s the photo, it’s a thing of beauty..no?

A Big...Fat...Liar..shame on you Spuddles

Oh yes, it’s true…I am a Big Fat Liar! Let the facts speak for themselves:

1. This is secret 30. No it isn’t, I miscounted, this is actually secret 31 and I purposely didn’t renumber the secrets to keep you all in suspenders. Lie 1.

2. I took the above photo myself. No, I didn’t. Peer closer (ignore wrinkles, sunspots, nasil hair etc). MrSpud can clearly be seen snapping me, reflected in my shades. He’s little, but get a magnifying glass and you’ll spot him, on tippytoes probably. Lie 2.

3. I told you 30 secrets. 31 if we include today’s bonus revelation. But, oh my, one of them was a Big…Fat..Lie. [pauses to allow collective deep breath]. I’m afraid so, I played with you and told fibs. And I don’t mean little white lies either. It’s a big, fat, black, hairy lie with boils on it. Lie 3.

So, to atone for my sin, given that I am Catholic and thus guilt is my watchword, I am giving away a prize to the first person to comment who can correctly guess which of my 30 Secrets in 30 Days was entirely untrue. Don’t be shy to have a go, I will post the prize anywhere in the world…and it’s (a) worth having and (b) will be personalised for you. I’m not telling what it is because I’m annoying like that. Don’t worry, it’s not my dressing up box. Or MrSpud.

A quick visual reminder of the 30 secrets…I feel stripped bare of my soul and will awake tomorrow feeling renewed and cleansed. But mostly just bloody grateful that it’s finished! Thanks for listening, thanks for the comments, thanks for all the laughs…now, get guessing. Which one was the Big Fat Lie? ONE GUESS PER PERSON! x

30 Secrets in 30 Days...but one was a Big Fat Lie

Her Royal Maj put Spud in the corner

Picture the scene. It’s the summer of 1977 and I am 6 years old. The UK is gripped with  Silver Jubilee celebration madness; the Queen had been ‘on the throne’ (snigger) for 25 years and we cracked open miles of bunting, shut streets and had parties in them and printed terrible photos of Her Royal Maj on cheap mugs to celebrate. Not to be outdone, our village had a whole day of celebrations including ‘Decorate your bike in red, white and blue’ (I won that, my Raleigh 14 had never looked so splendid – it even had a massive union jack rigged up on the back), ‘Fancy Dress’ (I went as Britannia) all rounded off with an afternoon of traditional games for the children.

It was going reasonably well and tantrums had been averted due to my success in the ‘decorated bike’ contest (I bet my Mum slipped a little something to the judge, she’d got the measure of me by then). I shed my Britannia outfit (recycled Angel outfit from the previous year’s Nativity play, plus trident fashioned from a pitch fork – er hello? Health & Safety anyone?) and limbered up to take part in a few races. Already it was a terrible idea given that I can’t run/jump/do anything atheletic, although I was about to find out that being crap at games was the least of my worries. A whole new issue was about to rear its ugly head in the shape of my big, fat tummy.

So, race 1. Easy enough. Amble up the field towards a line of school chairs, duck under the chair, amble to the finishing line…throw a wobbler due to finishing last as usual and have to be taken home, kicking and screaming. That was how it was supposed to go. In fact it went like this:

Amble up the field towards line of school chairs, duck under the chair…oh…it feels a little tight?… REALLY try to squeeeeeeeeze through…help! I can’t move…wriggle a lot while grunting…look up to see the other children have finished the race and medals are being handed out..meanwhile I am well and truly stuck under the chair and people are laughing…try to back out…can’t move….try to wriggle forward…am completely wedged in…start howling…look up to see my mother running across the field to ‘save me’…start shrieking at her….she lifts the chair off me using a degree of force as I am well and truly wedged under it…I throw a GIGANTIC tantrum out of sheer humiliation and have to be taken home, kicking and screaming.

So, your Royal Maj…I’m very sorry that I didn’t get in to the spirit of things as much as I might have done all those years ago.  I apologise for cutting short my hommage to your Big 25. I would have stayed but I’m afraid I was just too fat. Sorry about that.

For a professional communicator, I have a disturbing knack of saying exactly the wrong thing at the wrong time. I’m a lot better these days, but as a child and teenager my lack of tact was verging on the legendary. I think I must be over the worst of it though as I struggled to think of any recent examples but there are some absolute corkers when I look back in to my murky past. I present the evidence:

1. When I was 18, I was a prefect at school (well of course I was, such a good two shoes). One of the less glamorous responsibilities of being a prefect was controlling the lunch queue which had a habit of snaking around the entire school unless it was properly managed. Pupils were fed by age, with the little ones getting lunch last (seems very harsh looking back, but that’s English public schools for you). One day the queue was taking on a bit of a life of its own, and the master on duty kept shouting at me to keep the queue shorter. So I would get rid of 20 or 30 little pips and tell them to come back later. But the minute my back was turned, those little squeeks would join the queue again. Exasperated I shooed the ruffians away, and shouted that the next person to join the queue would be ‘ on fatigue’ (English public school for ‘given loads of nasty jobs to do as a punishment). That had told ‘em, the criminals.

So I couldn’t believe my eyes when, bold as brass, a girl walked up to the queue and joined it. That was it, I flipped and bawled at her in front of the entire lunch queue to Teach Her A Lesson. I finished up by shouting ‘What is the MATTER with you? Were you not listening to what I said? Are you DEAF?’. “Yes”, she sobbed…at which point I noticed her hearing aid. Cringe cringe cringe.

Lesson One: not all disabilities are visible. Do not make assumptions. Do not make flip remarks about disabilities, they will rightly come back and bite you on the bum.

2. A good few years ago I had the difficult task of taking a very senior member of the management team of the law firm I worked at on one side, to tell him he wasn’t allowed to talk to the media, and that he had broken every rule in the book by doing so and had put the firm in a difficult position. It was a very awkward discussion, he was more senior than me, more experienced, older. He took it reasonably well but his pride had clearly taken a knock. Determined to part on good terms I finished the meeting by saying, “No hard feelings, hey? Let me buy you a beer some day”. “I’m a mormon” he replied, “I don’t drink”. Cringe, cringe, cringe.

Lesson Two: do not make assumptions. Not everyone is a total lush like you. Stop insulting people, they don’t like it and it’s completely unnecessary with a bit of thought.

3.In my 20s, I worked in a small team of people headed by a wonderful, if rather scatty, old lady. She was a marvellous person, loving and kind and was so supportive of me – like a second mother really. But working with her was quite a challenge at time as her age was against her in many ways. One day she started wibbling around, I was on a deadline and didn’t have the time for any wibbling. Needing an outlet for my frustration, I emailed another girl in our team and said,

“Oh, X has only just walked in and already she is annoying me so much I want to kill her!”

You know, one of those exaggerating for effect kind of emails. Except I didn’t sent it to the other girl in our team, I sent it to X herself. CRINGE CRINGE CRINGE. And you know the worst bit? When she read it and I realised what I’d done, I burst in to tears…and she came over and put her arms around me and gave me a hug. Yup, the lovely, kind, caring lady gave ME a hug because I felt bad. Uh, I still feel sick with shame thinking about it and that was about 15 years ago.

Lesson Three: if you really must say something bad about somebody, either seriously or in jest, never EVER put it in writing.

I always fancied a career in the diplomatic service, but alas I’m not sure the quest for world peace would be well served by my bombastic style. Plus, I’d never be able to actually negotiate anything on the basis that my mouth is normally full of my feet.

I’ve already mentioned that I can’t catch or throw. Neither can I run – regardless of how fit I am, I just…can’t… run, I flake out after an embarrassingly short distance and have to lie down, gasping and panting. I also lack any kind of hand-eye coordination, I can’t jump and am very clumsy. Also, I’m quite a scared kind of person and I don’t like any kind of physical tackling type stuff – and I cry if I get hit with a ball, bat, racquet etc. Plus I’m a bad sport. If ‘Crap At Games’ was an Olympic sport, I’d be up there on the podium that’s for sure.

By the time I reached the upper sixth at school (age 18), it was widely known and accepted that I was hopeless at sport and that it was kinder not to make me do it anymore. So, on a Tuesday and Thursday afternoon while everyone else was out playing hockey/netball/tennis etc, I was allowed to go swimming. I wasn’t allowed to go unsupervised, so Mr Jackson (a very kindly maths teacher), came swimming with me. Up and down the pool we’d glide, well he was gliding, I was thrashing about of course. It was all very civilised and I was mighty relieved to be excused the hell of games for the rest of my life.

But, then, Sports Day rolled around and I was told in no uncertain terms that I ‘must’ represent my house. I was quite surprised about this given that my entire house hated me – I’d cheated in the cross country event earlier in the year and the whole house was disqualified as a result. Whoops – but in all honesty I wasn’t capable of finishing the cross country ‘amble’ (naturally I didn’t attempt to run it) without cutting out a good few miles of it. I will concede that it was unfortunate to be caught cheating but let’s gloss over that.

So back to Sports Day. A quick look at the events made it clear I was in trouble. All track events were out as I can’t run, I’d never once managed to finish the 800m never mind more, sprinting was a joke, hurdles too hurty etc etc.  Field events weren’t looking too promising either though…high jump was out (can’t jump and too hurty), long jump too sandy, javelin too pointy. Hmm. So after much thought it was decided that the shot put was where I could do the least damage, either to myself or spectators.

Thankfully it was held in a quiet corner of the school grounds, and there wasn’t much a crowd. I was quite relieved about this as I actually had no idea how to shot put but, RESULT, Mr Jackson was in charge of the event and he gave me a quick lesson. Looked easy enough; nuzzle shot under jaw, wheel around a few times and then hurl it while grunting like a pig. Sorted. My first throw was 9cm. Hmm. At this point Mr Jackson started guffawing and this quickly developed in to helpless giggles. This attracted attention as it’s rare for maths teachers to start ‘losing it’ like this. A crowd gathered, oh great.  My second shot was 15cm (queue more helpless giggles from everyone) and my third and ‘best’ shot was 21cm.

21cm…let’s just stop and think about that shall we…get a ruler if you can be bothered…but take it from me, 21cm is basically just right in front of your foot. Despite all the wheeling  around and pig like grunting, all I’d managed to do was effectively drop the shot on the ground in front of me. I could have rolled the damn thing further.

The world record for women’s shot put is 22.63m. My personal best is 21cm. You do the maths…it’s not pretty. Let’s face it, I’m no threat to her…but I bet I’m prettier than her and, as we all know, that’s what counts.

Faking it

Nooooo, not like ‘that’. I couldn’t think of a title which encapsulates this secret, but faking is a significant part of it. And so the title stands. It’s a cheap shot for attention, I admit it, so shoot me…

Once upon a time in 2002, I went to Australia on business. I was working for an international law firm, as head of media relations, and started off in Perth for a conference with a group of partners. The Sydney office had asked me to ‘pop’ over to media train their lawyers after the conference so, along with around a dozen partners, I made my way to the airport once the conference was done.

I was booked to fly business class, but for some reason I was feeling awkward about it – as if the partners were wondering why a mere ‘staff’ member was in business, and I’d rehearsed a firm but not defensive position should I be challenged. So imagine my horror when I boarded to plane and found that I’d been upgraded to FIRST CLASS. Arrrgh. So now the partners, the owners of the business and the people who paid my salary, were roughing it in business class and I was larging it up in first.

I begged the cabin crew to put me back in to business (must have been a first surely), but it was too complicated and I had no option but to sink in to my oh-so-luxurious white leather seat and scowl at my ‘designated’ flight attendant who was kneeling in front of me with a glass of champagne and a selection of canapes on a silver tray.

Quickly I formulated a plan. Clearly the partners could NEVER know of my swankiness so, once we got to Sydney, I would wait on the plane until both first and business class passengers had disembarked and then I would shuffle off with the plebs in economy, who no doubt had spent the flight throwing buns at each other and such like and thus the partners would assume I’d been in the back all along. Genius.

Once ‘the plan’ was sorted, I settled back in to my seat and congratulated myself on my good fortune and cunning. I selected my movie choices (only ones I’d seen before, obviously), picked up a couple of trashy magazines and started making selections from the extensive wine list.

Until, from behind me, I heard a very familiar and rather surprised sounding voice saying ‘Hello Spud’. ARGGHHH, nightmare…it was my boss, the chairman of the firm. And she was looking a little startled to find her pooper scooper loafing around in first class. Crap, ‘the plan’ was stuffed. She took her seat directly in front of me and, cursing, I stashed the wine list and got out my laptop since, clearly, I needed to demonstrate my commitment to the firm and my role by working for the whole FIVE hours it took to ‘pop’ to Sydney.

She turned around and saw my laptop, nodded approvingly and then got her laptop out and started working, so I started to draft some document or other. About 20 minutes later my battery died. And for some, bizarre reason instead of putting my laptop away and doing some reading … I just carried on doing fake typing on my dead laptop. Every time she turned round or got up, I ‘typed’ faster and more audibly. What the HELL was I doing? Whatever it was, I was faking it big time. And I did it all the way from Perth to Sydney.

And the sting in the tale? I arrived at the Sydney office the next morning, exhausted from all that ‘typing’ ready for the media training session that the partners had begged me run for them. Not one person turned up, not ONE. I had literally flown to the other side of the world for absolutley no reason. They had set up a video link for the Melbourne office so they could join the session. And the link? Showed a big room full of empty chairs. Those aussies have got a whole Grudge Book to themselves…and, believe me, I’m not faking it this time.

Oh how MrSpud just adores this story…

Let’s go back. Way back. Way back when. Back to the early days of me and MrSpud’s courtship, when we were young, less lined and at least one of us was a whole lot less shouty. Let’s go back to Christmas 2001 shall we? We’d been dating for 3 months, it was getting serious – he’d given me a key for his house, I’d introduced him to my cats…you know the score.

He’d impressed me with his ability to actually ‘give me a call sometime’ and I’d started to adjust to Life with a Little Bloke (although I was still hoping he might grow at that stage, or that he might consider built up shoes?)

And then, out of nowhere, it was Christmas and it was time to meet ‘the family’. I remember parking outside MrSpud’s family home feeling a little shaky with nerves, but felt a whole lot better after spotting MrSpud at the window upstairs and giving him a cheery wave and enthusiastically blowing kisses to him. Thank GOD I didn’t take it any further as it turned out to be MrSpud’s brother, and not MrSpud, at the window. Not a brilliant start I will admit.

After that it all went swimmingly. I loved them, they loved me, we all loved each other. There was a ‘bit’ of a moment when they forced me to endure 3 hours of Hobbit related nonsense at the cinema but I was full of bonhomie and only penciled them in to the Grudge Book, for review at a later date.

And then came the time for ‘The Exchange of Gifts’ between me and MrSpud. Naturally, this being our first Christmas, I had spent hours researching and sourcing unusual and fitting gifts…a book he’d mentioned he’d love that was out of print…a tedious TV documentary he had loved as a teenager…and a ‘new to the market must have’ watch with a camera in it.  Each lovingly wrapped and beautifully presented. He was thrilled with them all…I had triumphed.

Then he handed me a couple of plastic carrier bags and mumbled something about ‘not knowing what to get me’. I was alarmed at the weight of the bags but quickly computed that heavy = loads of gifts and relaxed.

I started ferreting around in the bags and was a bit puzzled to find a sea of white tissue paper. At this point MrSpud started to look a bit shifty and mumbled something about not having had time to wrap my presents. These days I would immediately start berating him for such a transgression, but it was early days and I let it lie (whilst frantically scribbling the Grudge Book).  Fiinally I got to the bottom of all the tissue paper and unearthed…a set of saucepans. With the price still on. AND THEY WERE 50% OFF.

Yes, that’s right. My husband bought me saucepans, in the sale, for our first Christmas together. And didn’t even wrap them up, he just handed them over in the bags from the shop. WHAT…THE..HELL…WAS…HE…THINKING?

He will never, ever live this story down. His friends howled at him when they found out. As a punishment he has to cook my dinner every night for as long as those saucepans are still intact. They are Le Creuset. They have a lifetime guarantee….who’s laughing now, saucepan boy?

Oh I was a HORROR as a child. Feisty, angry, bossy, aggressive (scratching other children was a favoured pastime) and moody. What a delight I must have been! Add in a temper as quick thing from quick land and it was a heady mix. But way worse than any of that was my penchant for throwing monstrous tantrums, often several times a day, for up to an hour at a time. And that went on for years.

My mother, who must be nearing Sainthood by now surely, used to call it ‘having a paddy’ or, more often, ‘throwing a wobber’. “Spud is throwing a wobbler again” she would say, pointing with resignation to the seething mass of chub on the floor – screaming like a banshee, puce in the face, body rigid with fury and arms and legs flailing up and down like paddles. When I go to my Pilates class and attempt ‘full Pilates swimming’ (lying on the floor, arms and legs outstretched and moving opposite legs/arms up and down a few inches) it feels like a graceful version of ‘throwing a wobbler’ and I often take a moment to consider what it would be like if 20 grown women spontaneously moved on from ‘full Pilates swimming ‘ to ‘full on throwing a wobbler’. I think we’d all feel very cleansed, don’t you? Although the instructor might feel a little alarmed.

My favoured response to anything that didn’t please me was to ‘throw a wobbler’ but my other party trick was to take a gigantic, audible breath and then hold my breath for as long as I could, meanwhile going purple in the face while my mother begged me to breathe. Eventually I would have to breathe, of course, at which point I would launch in to high pitched wailing accompanied by running on the spot with my arms pumping the air at the same time. That was called ‘having a paddy’. Sometimes, just to mix things up, I would start the show by ‘having a paddy’ and finish up by hurling myself to the floor and ‘throwing a wobbler’.

Outtake shot...NB purple sparkly eyeshadow used as face paint

After a few years of this tension was running high Chez Spud, as you might imagine. But a quick trip to a motorway service station on the M6 put a stop to it, more or less. I went in to the shop with my father and demanded a Cadbury’s Chocolate Machine. Dad refused (what was the MATTER with him? Had he not learnt by now just to give in and let me have my own way?). I pushed a bit harder, he stood firm and refused to buy it. So I retaliated with a ‘warm up’ paddy as a kind of warning that the full monty was on its way. Naturally, the show drew quite a crowd and my Dad finally flipped…he had Had Enough. So he rolled up the newspaper he had in his hand, and walloped me round the back of my legs. I went flying. He gasped, the crowd gasped…there was silence…I considered my options. I can remember this moment in time so vividly, I was SO shocked as my parents never, ever hit me. I decided it was game over. And that was the end of the tantrums, I never did it again (well apart from one in 2005 when I was 34, but I’d shrunk my favourite T shirt in the tumble dryer so I really think that was justified?).

My Dad and I laugh about it now, but at the time he was very shaken. It wasn’t against the law to smack children in those days (hell, he WAS the law…he was a policeman!) but certainly wasn’t in his nature to do so. Still, I’m sure he must feel there is a certain karma at work right now as Diggy LOVES to tantrum. He nearly always ‘throws a wobbler’, but any day now he might broaden his repertoire and ‘have a paddy’.

Diggy doing the 'wobbler warm up' - NB bottom lip, nice touch

Today Bertie tantrumed all the way around the supermarket, most unusual for him I must say. Not to be outdone, Diggy had a couple of turns too. I noticed they both piped down momentarily when I approached the newspaper stand though, wise move my boys, wise move….;-)

Bertie having a 'warm up' tantrum in the car this morning

As we all know, men don’t make passes at girls who wear glasses…which is why I spent most of my 20s squinting. As, in my crazy head, the vague, distracted, squinty, wrinkled up nose look is an absolute WINNER.

I just don’t like wearing specs, it’s a vanity thing. I hate the way they leave a mark on your nose, or hurt your ears, or slide down your nose, and that awful ‘steaming up’ thing and the way they got lost and broken every 5 minutes. I hate the whole process of buying glasses as I have my Dr Spock eyebrows and droopy eyelids to contend with, plus ‘that’ pointy nose etc etc. Mind you I think these googly specs are quite something, don’t you think? Although they do make me look like Mitzi from The Koala Brothers.

I..hate…specs…but the specs are having the last laugh as the legacy of all that squinting is a whole bunch of deep wrinkles. Shakes fist angrily at the gods – curses to you ye gods of spite.

I also hate contact lenses and, on the rare occasion that I wear them, I am always very unpleasantly surprised when I look at myself in the mirror, wondering who the hell that old hag is peering back at me. One of the few upsides of being a Speccy Twat is that, with glasses off, you see a fuzzier, less wrinkled, less eye baggied version of yourself in the mirror. It’s generally quite pleasing. With glasses on, many of the wrinkles/eye bags are hidden and it’s reasonably pleasing. But with lenses in, and specs off, the full horror is revealed.

The only other advantage to poor eyesight is the ability to ‘take the edge off’ the world, without engaging in any kind off illegal activity. Specs off, and the world is a little blurred all over, it’s not unpleasant…like living in an impressionist painting. Best of all, you can deploy the ‘specs off’ trick to lessen the impact of a shouty email or letter. You know those times when you bang off a feisty email, telling someone how it is…you press send..you sit nervously awaiting their response…and when it arrives you can hardly bear to read their stinging response.

So, you pop your specs off, push your chair back from the desk and then just scan the email, just get the gist of it without causing yourself any unnecessary stress or emotional hurt by digging down in to the detail.Works every time. many a potential Grudge Book entrant has been saved by the ‘specs off’ trick – I’m sure of it.

No secrets this weekend, sorry folks! We are away, I will schedule a few bits but these secrets take more time and energy than I have today. Back Monday for more revelations….