Shebangabang's Next Top Model #3

This episode of New Zealand’s Next Top Model is respectfully and sombrely dedicated to all those who were killed during the making of the program.
In random order, this includes:

- The English language
- The last vestige of credibility attributed to the hip hop genre
- My eyes and life
- Eight thousand brave, frizzy chinchillas
- The memory of Jackie Onassis.

Moment of quiet contemplation, please. Thank you.

The Judges.

Sara Tetro

Sara is no longer satisfied with just dressing as if she’s attending a Kennedy funeral. She’s dressing as Jackie Onassis. Come on now, hair and make-up people. You know that if you take your finger off the hair-spray nozzle, the hair-spray stops coming out, right?

Chris Sisarich

Even in a bad hat in a fake snowfield, Chris is hot. You know the kind of hat that rednecks generally wear when it gets cold – kind of a furry thing with flaps? Chris, you may wear mine.*

Colin Mathura-Jeffree

Colin Hyphenated-Surname, you kill my life. If I listed what you were wearing during the “hip hop” (*cough* Blossom-the-prostitute-years *cough*) challenge to someone who doesn’t watch the show, they would assume I was describing the contents of Jennifer Beale’s and Bernard King’s combined suitcases. And your hair during the dance lesson? Wait – I think I have a picture of it somewhere....

However, and I mean this with a heart full of dread and an oesophagus full of sick, the sour icing on the horrifying cake was the look you dragged into the Eliminarium. SHOW ME IN THE BOOK WHERE IT SAYS IT’S OKAY TO MAKE YOUR HAIR INDISTINGUISHABLE FROM YOUR COAT. That... that shit ain’t right. Wait – I think I have a picture of it somewhere...

The Icksint.

• The lesson this week? Densung! The style? Hup Hop! The level of ability? Shut! Even Colin can see that through his coiffure du canine, and describes the girls as looking like “whin you pull spaghitti out of the peckut end drop ut on a plate”. Aah. It’s funny because it’s pasta.

• Just before she gives up on life, Sarah starts small by saying she “hes a bed hidache”. She refuses any offers of Penadowl, though.

• Colin Hyphenated-Surname could not possibly have said the word “dindruff” more frequently in the Eliminarium. And he could not have looked more like he probably had some.

Budgetirry Lumutations.

• As the walking-challenge winner, Teryl-Leigh gets to go on a chartered flight around New Zealand. Lord knows what she’s going to do with the other twenty-three hours and forty-five minutes of the day. Pray, probably.

• For the snowy photo-shoot, the modules are wearing hats that have clearly been sourced from the Tatarariki Women’s Institute Knitting Circle.** It’s good to see the production team supporting local industry, and besides, what are they gonna do – run out of wool?

• No fancy snow-blowing machinery for this show, no sir! We’ll just get Dennis the runner to peg bits of ice at the girls for a sumular affict. DINDRUFF!

Bist Buts.

• I loved every single outfit worn by the modules in the hip-hop challenge, because when I burn things, I like them to burn fast, and I like them to burn bright. By far my favourite, though, was Teryl-Leigh’s shirt, which said ‘WHITE BY BIRTH. TRASH BY CHOICE’. It was. It was choice.

• Also losing at life today: Olivia, who a stylist decides will be wearing an eyepatch down the runway. A stylist I would like to kiss on the lips for making this very decision (unless the stylist is Colin, in which case there’s a brief thank you note in the post). Colin describes her runway performance as being a ‘bit flet’. THAT’S BECAUSE HER DEPTH PERCEPTION IS IMPAIRED, ARSEHOLE.

• Wow. We have racial tension in the house. Let’s spend about fifteen minutes dwelling on it, shall we? I’m not belittling racial tension, I’d just like someone to wake me up when there actually is some. As far as I was concerned, it was a fight between a shiny anorak and a sequinned t-shirt. SEQUINS WIN.

• Was there a reason that, for the photo-shoot, the girls couldn’t have just gone and done it in a nice warm studio, with nice warm fake snow? Or do you think that they did it in sub-zero temperatures because it’s so much more entertaining to see skinny girls’ internal organs crystallizing? I’m just going to leave that question open, really.

Sarah is kicked out because she’s homesuck, instead of Olivia being sent home because she sucks. No, because if you say it with an accent, it sort of sounds the sa – shut up.

E Haere ra, Sarah! You’re still the hottest epileptic ex-junkie single-mother dirty quitter I’ve ever seen, doll. Go buy yourself a rainbow.

* Just in case there’s any doubt, I’m talking about my vagina.

**That’s totally a thing! I looked it up! I may have made up the Knitting Circle bit, though. I was kind of asleep from looking at the website of the Tatarariki Women’s Institute. God, no wonder they take up knitting.

Office Face.

It will come as no surprise to regular readers that I like to make up games.
It will come as a surprise to everyone, including my closest family members, that I have an actual job that I work very hard at. I arrive at the office at sparrow's crack, and often don't leave until late at night.

At some point, these two surprising/unsurprising things were bound to cross paths.
Ladies and gentlemen, I give you my newest game: Office Face.

It all started quite simply, with a cupboard near my desk.

Slowly it escalated to the paper-recycling bin in the hallway.

I then started to think a little bigger in the office kitchen, with questionable results (please add points for unwavering attention to foreshortening and difficult angles).

At this point, I noticed that my desk-neighbour, the awesome and good-eggy Jen, was having what is known in professional circles as A Bugger Of A Day. I suggested to her that perhaps some stress relief may come in the form of a quick round of Office Face. She agreed, making light and brilliant work of both the office trophy cabinet and the kitchen 'fridge.

By this point, we were so full of company-condoned alcoh... er, enthusiasm, that we started seeing faces everywhere, and even paraphrasing Crocodile Dundee.

That's not a fax machine. That's a puppy dog.

Last (for now) but not least (perhaps), I present to you the (so far) pinnacle of excellence in the game of Office Face (up to this point).

That's right. You guessed it. It's the smoking adjacent microwaves.

I seriously, seriously doubt that this is the last round of Office Face. I haven't even explored the office toilet yet. In... in any meaningful way.

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Shebangabang's Next Top Model #2

I was seeing this guy once – he was hot, smart, talented and dressed well, and I was smitten as a kitten (New Zealand readers – please say out loud). The relationship lasted a few months, then he moved overseas. I missed him. I wished he’d come back. I started hanging out with his brother. The brother wasn’t as good-looking, a bit on the thick side, had almost no discernable talent, and dressed like he’d picked clothes at random from a blind man’s washing basket. DAMN, he was good in bed, though.

Okay, so that’s not strictly true, but you know what New Zealand’s Next Top Model is? It’s an ex-boyfriend’s brother with a big penis.

The Judges.

Sara Tetro
Moment of silence, please. It seems another Kennedy has died, and Sara is on her way to the funeral as soon as this shoot wraps. She’ll be fine, though – she’s hiding a triple-pack of tissues in her beehive. Woman is incapable of dressing for day.

Chris Sisarich
Whether he’s wearing a close-fitting black t-shirt or a pork-pie hat, I still think he’d look better wearing my legs. You want a pork-pie hat, Chris? I’ll give you a pork-pie hat. Without the pie or the hat. Apparently in this episode he says some stuff, too.

Colin Mathura-Jeffree
Colin Mathura-Jeffree, you are BREAKING MY EYES. When you stand in front of a wind tunnel wearing a cape (and let’s face it, who isn't), you look like an intensely gay bin liner that’s been blown against a tree-branch in a storm. From his Wikipedia page: “His acting debut was as the sword wielding Prince of India in ‘Xena: Warrior Princess’, where he played the reincarnation of Gabrielle into a powerful and handsome warrior willing to sacrifice himself to save his Kingdom“. Right, so he played a reincarnation of a chick who was okay with dying. COINCIDENCE?! PS: I’m okay with you dying too, Colin. And I bet your eyeliner will be the last thing to decompose, and will be found thousands of years into the future by robot archaeologists who I’ve given you more words than you deserve already so now I’m going to stop.


The Icksint.

A few pearlers this week:

• Sara’s voice-over recap of last week’s episode alluded to the girls who didn’t make the cut, saying ‘Before long theer shups hed sailed’. Except by ‘shups’, she means ‘jit boats’.
• Sarah, the ex-junkie epileptic, takes pill-popping to the extreme in the kitchen. Now, let’s just make a bit of a list of words and phrases that sound brilliant in a Kiwi accent:
o ‘ex-junkie epileptic’
o ‘pill-popping’
o ‘kitchen’
o ‘anti-depressants’
She’s not sure that the judges will be impressed with all her ailments, though, adding that “Un theer eyes, ut wull probably be a nigatuv”. I love that pasty, frail, morphine-shooting gal. She’s a hut et parties for difunut.
• Colin Hyphenated-Surname introduces the modules to their weekly challenge by asking them to “guv me your bist top model pose in a suxty-kulometre wind’. Thank you for not making it forty kilometres, producers. Thank you so much.
• Colin tries to make Teryl-Leigh look angry in the wind challenge by shouting “Scream! Someone’s stolen your kuds!”. Um... Colin? That’s kind of a prucky thing to say.Go touch up your kohl.
• I’m calling this week’s aeroplane-themed photo-shoot Chucks On The Wung. Because I’m hilarious, and because taking the piss out of the NZ accent hasn’t gotten old yet.
• Photographer Jackie Meiring uses the word ‘aviatrix’. Clearly Jackie Meiring is now my favourite person in the entire universe.


Budgetirry Lumutations.

One of the weekly challenges is to strike poses in front of a big fan. So basically, this week the production budget can afford air that moves really fast. I believe that is all that really needs to be said.


Bist Buts.

• Teryl-Leigh is goddy as all get-out. From naming one of her kids ‘Zion’ to attributing her self-styling challenge win to god’s intervention, to calling the house’s stripper pole ‘dirty’, she’s like the world’s hottest happy-clappy. I’m a bit concerned about her belief that god is looking after her kids while she’s away, though. I sure hope he knows where they keep the fruit roll-ups.
• In the wind-tunnel, Victoria says that her outfit is a downer, because she can’t move her legs apart. I pour a gin and put my feet up, as this shit clearly just writes itself.
• We get it. Olivia and Lucy are sisters. There’s rivalry. Until there’s some blood spilled or some hair pulled out of someone’s head, can we move on please?
• A word, Rebecca-Rose? I was kind of hoping you’d let us know if you’ve ever had any modelling experience. Oh, you have? In that case, could you please mention it eight or nine thousand times? Also – just something to look out for – I think there’s a chance that your disproportionately large head might actually be getting bigger each week. If you stay in the competition long enough, we may have to convert part of the house into a Ginger Containment Unit. Just a heads up, is all.
• Ho(sanna) is labelled a bit of a try-hard, which I have to at least partially agree with. She’s trying hard to close her lips over her giant boogie-board teeth.
• Rhiannon’s body and Teryl-Leigh’s face make me cry. Like, good, supportive tears. Totally different to they’re-not-tears-my-corneas-are-just-melting-from-looking-at-Colin tears. DIFFERENT.
• Chris, I’ve installed a lounge, pillows, and tea and coffee making facilities for you in my underpants.
• HOT PHOTO SHOOT. Most of the modules scrubbed up decent, the actual photographs were artful and dramatic, and I’m waiting by the ‘phone for you to call and tell me how I can get almost every outfit delivered to my house by the weekend. In my size. Which is.. er.. totally the same as they used in the shoot. Carry on.

Anyway, Tiffany is the last one to have her name called in the Eliminarium, so she can leave Auckland and go back to Awkward. See, because they sort of sound the same, and so it... no, but they’re... I’m talking homophones, peop – forget it. E haere ra, Tuffany! There. I learned a word. I am letting this show educate me. You should too.

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Shebangabang's Next Top Model #1

I want to make one thing absolutely and patently clear: I will not, repeat not be making fun of the New Zealand accent in my synopses of New Zealand’s Next Top Model. To do so would be condescending, unkind and rude.

PSYCH! Of course I’m going to make fun of the accent. Without the accent, this show would just be about judges-I-can’t-look-at called Colin, clown-haired-models-I-can’t-look-at called Frankie, morphine-shooting epileptics and racks full of coloured thongs. BORING. I’m going to take an academic (eck-a-dim-uck) approach to this show, carefully analysing the cast and summarising each scenario with the keen acumen of a PhD supervisor, brandishing a sardonic microscope, and listening to Wagner. Plus, I’ll probably hang a bunch of shit on it.
RIGHT!

The Judges, In Order From Least To Most Terrifying

Sara Tetro
Pah. A successful businesswoman and ex-module who seems intelligent, articulate and probably likeable. HOW DOES THAT HELP ME, PRODUCERS?! The only thing she seems to do wrong is wear after-five frockage when it’s only a quarter past four. Granted, in the last scene of the show she looked like she was dressed for a Kennedy funeral (and let’s face it, that’s a new frock every couple of years), so maybe there’s hope.

Chris Sisarich
Being an ex-model and a photographer, his career bears a remarkable resemblance to that of America’s Next Top Model’s Nigel Barker (the only difference being that Nigel’s name wouldn’t sound quite so awesome in a rap). Accordingly, I would like to extend the same invitation to Chris as I did to Nigel, that being to live inside my pants.

Colin Mathura-Jeffree
Colin’s Wikipedia page says “Colin has been an model for 15 years”. An model should really see an different hairdresser, use an different eyeliner and stop giving me an aneurism. Whilst he was on screen, my housemate Nat did two things – covered her eyes, and said “PLEASE GOOGLE HIM AND TELL ME WHY HE’S THERE!!”. I did. I can’t.


The Icksint.

Here I’d like to summarise the most eloquent examples of the meandering twists and turns that the Kiwi accent lends to the English language, sufficiently rivalling the bends found in a triple helix. I would also like to hear a New Zealander say that last sentence aloud.

- The voice-over at the start of the episode tells us that Kiwi models are known for a number of things, including their “work ithuck”. At this point I smile, nod, and ecstatically close my eyes, just as I do when I have the first bite of some delicious cheese. This show is delicious cheese. Just in case you didn’t get the whole I-use-metaphors thing.
- When calling a mother-module to tell her she’s made the semis, Sara says “You kuss those kuds, and peck your begs – you’re go-ung to Queenstown!”. Don’t forget to peck some sendwuches for the trup.
- One of the girls has (say it slowly) epilepsy. She’s asked how long it’s been “sunce she hed a fut”. She also used to shoot up morphine, but sadly isn’t asked how long it’s been “sunce she cleaned her kut”. She has a nervous vomit before the photo-shoot, but nobody says “Thet chuck hed a chuck”. More’s the putty.


Budgetirry Lumutations.

Shebangabang’s Next Top Model seems to suffer similar budgetary shortcomings to those of its mainland counterpart, although it takes a keen eye to pick them out. Luckily, I was watching closely:

- Usually, semi-finalists arrive at their lodgings welcomed by a teetering pile of free goodies. Our kiwi modules are greeted with a new ‘phone and a laminated lanyard. What, no Chup-A-Chup?
- The New Zealand Tourism Commission certainly did their bit to try to help out, ensuring that everyone arrives everywhere via either jet boat, go-kart or cable car. If bungee-jumping isn’t mentioned or engaged in during this entire series, I will pluck, skin and eat a Kakapo Parrot.
- The walking challenge is staged in a vineyard, however not a single grape makes it onto camera. I suspect this bit was filmed in a warehouse in South Auckland, staged by the same people who faked that whole moon-landing thing.
- For the first photo-shoot, the modules wear their own swimming costumes. I hope this trend continues, and we see the modules waxing themselves, doing their own make-up and telling themselves that they have to lose weight.
- Jandals. Thongs. Flup-Flops. It doesn’t matter how you say it, none of these words scream ‘expense’. The girls scream a lot, though, when they’re running up a beach towards a rack of thongs with their names on them, to see if they’ve made the cut. Next week, I assume the eliminated contestant will just be the girl left over after a game of musical chairs.


The Bist Buts.

- Rebecca-Rose-Ranga needs to eat, and needs to blink. If she ever looks up to the camera and says “But mummy, I am your daughter”, I. Am. Out. Of. Here. Freaks me out, man. As I said to Nat, “she lecks pugmintation”. I’m fucking hilarious, you see.
- Frankie. Hair. Sideshow Bob. Says “I’ve got a different look”. Spooky is what.
- Ho(sanna) seems to be our resident uppity bee-yarch. After getting almost every other module off-side, she claims that she would do anything to win this competion. START BY NEVER WEARING THOSE JEAN-PRINTED LEGGINGS AGAIN EVER. Yeah. See how that goes.
- One module’s claim to fame is that she won a chilli-eating competition, and she demonstrates her mad asbestos mouth skillz to the judges. This is on my television. That I paid for. I’m tongue-pashing this show as soon as I get the chance.
- I still can’t look at Colin Hyphenated-Surname. Ugh. Ick. No.
- In her audition, Rhiannon brings in a picture she drew. Rhiannon. Honey. It’s a modelling audition. If you don’t bring in a dried pasta collage at the very least, you’re dead to this industry, and to me.
- My new lover Chris tells one of the girls during the photo shoot that she needs to concentrate more on how she uses her mouth. Ladies. This is the most important lesson you can ever learn in modelling. ALWAYS BLOW THE PHOTOGRAPHER.
- Successful finalists are told “Peck your begs, girls – you’re go-ung to AUCKLAND!”. The disappointment is tangible, until they all leave on another fucking jet-boat.

Yep. I’ll be watching this series. I just have to work out a technique whereby I’m not repeating the word “ip-uh-lip-sy” over and over again in my sleep.

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Extreme Avocado.

You know what makes me happy? Well yes, there’s that, but I mea… well yes, granted, there’s that too, but what I’m trying to get at is… what? Well technically yes, but that’s more a young person’s ga… LOOK. You know what makes me happy today?

The fact that I will have too many games to play come Summer.

You might remember that I invented Bee Bingo, and you may have also subsequently realised that this is a game that has taken the world by storm in a quiet and unobtrusive way.

WELL. My new housemate Lozzy, of oh errol fame, told me about a game her boyfriend plays, and I want to play it. I need to play it. I want you all to need to play it too. I’m an eddying maelstrom of wants and needs. See paragraph 1.

Lozzy’s squeeze has an avocado tree in his backyard (although this would work well with any tree that bears fruit or other heavy-ish, dropping things. Bats or possums, for example).
When the fruit is ripe, he and his friends crack some (many) beers and sit in the yard wearing custom-built helmets.

Each helmet is a bike helmet with a bowl super-glued to the top of it. Anyone who doesn’t already think this game is awesome even at this unresolved point has no business reading further. Helmet. Bowl. Dreams. Realised.

Whenever game-players hear an avocado dropping through the leaves, they RACE TO CATCH IT IN THEIR CUSTOMISED BOWL-HELMET.
Sometimes it's a long wait, so more beer must be consumed, rendering each subsequent avocado-drop more and more difficult. Also rendering all spleens burst. Because of the hilarity.

If you want me at any time during avocado fruiting season, you know where I’ll be.

Also PS: Please somebody tell me when avocado fruiting season is. ‘Preciate it. Thanks.

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The Hoey.

For those of you who are too young, too far away, or too…. um…. nope, no other excuses spring to mind, the Hopetoun Hotel (affectionately dubbed ‘The Hoey’) is a small, dank, malodorous pub in Surry Hills in Sydney. It hosts a tiny stage at one end, a long bar down one side, a seen-better-days pool table in the back room, a downstairs lounge that would crumble into its foundations if it weren’t for the mildew holding the bricks together, and the tiniest courtyard known to man.

It is also, to Sydney’s live-music-loving throng, the beloved crazy old aunt of band venues. It wears its leopard-print dressing gown to the shops to get milk. It smells like last night’s chops and this morning’s menthol cigarette. Its hips creak when it gets up out of an easy chair, and its fingernails bear traces of last week’s nailpolish. Even though you suspect it's a stubbie short of a sixpack and perhaps owns three too many cats, you look forward to every visit and the gifts it brings you in its never-fashionable handbag.

Yesterday it was announced that the Hoey would close until further notice.

Before writing this, I thought perhaps I should do some research to make sure I filled in any holes in my knowledge of the Hoey – like confirming the rumours that you can actually get food there (I’ve always placed beer higher on my priority list), and checking that they did actually still have a pool table, and it wasn’t just my memory tricking my eyes and brain, as so often is the case. But then I realised that it’s exactly my own experience and memories of the Hoey that make it special to me, just as it’s other people’s experiences and memories that make it special to them. Plus, I’m a lazy old bitch. But that’s neither here nor there.

There are very few things as clunky, cramped and cacophonous as the Hoey that can be described as ‘special’, but for reasons varied and musty, it is. And stuff your reasons – I’m going to tell you what my reasons are.

The Music.
I have to lead with this one. Hardly any artists of more than middling renown at the time play at the Hoey, but that’s the point. The big blackboard near the bar that lists the week’s gigs usually includes more bands you’ve never heard of than those you have. A not unremarkable percentage of the bands that have played there have been… well, a bit shit. But this is where you go to get close to the noise, discover the new stuff, revisit the old stuff, have a beer and a chat to the bands afterwards and occasionally be part of some unscripted, raw musical brilliance, all of it in what feels like your own loungeroom. The Hoey makes you feel like you’re a sincere part of the Sydney music scene, not just a one-step-back observer.

The Wood.
Pretty much everything in the Hoey is made of wood (except the bar staff, who are generally eighty-five percent body hair). I can’t explain why this makes me feel all warm, fuzzy and gently strummed, but it does – the floor, the furniture, the stairs, the bar – it’s all that deep-smudged, creaky, sonorous timber that screams ‘pub’ instead of ‘bar’, and whispers a raspy farewell at closing time.

The Toilets.
I reckon you can always gauge the quality of a music pub by the calibre of its toilet graffiti, and the Hoey is a pearler in this respect. I remember being chest-puffingly proud that an epithet I scrawled on the wall of the left-hand toilet in 1996 was still there when I checked during a Christmas party in 1998. Toilet graffiti at the Hoey is the kind that invites responses and dialogue – sometimes the kind that snakes off the wall onto the door and even onto the toilet paper dispenser. Graffiti keeps punters in that the smell would otherwise drive out. It’s important. It’s relentless. It’s hilarious.

The Courtyard.
I love the courtyard at the Hoey. Get there early and you can watch the first band suck back beers and squabble over their set list. Pop out between bands and you’ll make lifelong friends you’ll never see again, and accidentally spill the drinks of some of the most scruffy and talented musicians in the country. Swing a small cat and you’ll hit fifteen more. And if you manage to get a seat, cling to it like your last breath of oxygen.

The Relax.
There’s something about the Hoey. I’m one of those painfully insecure people who can’t stand to walk into most venues alone, and always has to meet friends somewhere else beforehand. But not here. For the first part, even if you’ve only been seeing bands for six months in Sydney, you’ll probably notice some faces you recognise. For the second part, it’s just one of those places that you can start conversations in, even over the ear-jarring slam of all that glorious musicky noise bouncing off all that glorious wood. In my head, it’s a room in my own house. With beer.

If there are things we can do to save the Hoey, we should. If there’s a way we can stop it becoming a smooth-edged, shiny, pokie-funded, cocktail-peddling bar, we must. Sure, nothing stays the same forever and progress has to happen, but progress can pick any other street corner it likes.

Keep informed here.

You Had Me At "Tooheys" #10 or This Week's Pick-Up Line

Wow. Haven’t done one of these in a while, which goes a fair way towards revealing what a slow year it’s been.

For the uninitiated, I’ll bring you up to speed – when I get approached by men with pick-up lines, it’s usually not how it happens on television or in my dreams. In fact, if you were going to place a bet on either the sun coming up tomorrow or me being targeted by a loser or a clinically insane raving freak, your money would be safer on the eternal darkness/Armageddon side of the fence.

To make matters worse, I have a pathological aversion to being impolite.* This means that I use gentle clues, body language and short, closed responses to indicate to the applicant that I’d rather eat bleach than touch their pasty person, when most people would just invite the gentleman to observe their middle finger and die, or similar.

Still, I reckon most normal blokes can tell the difference between:
a) a good time, place, and context to approach women and;
b) the queue at Gate 18 at Perth airport at one o’clock in the morning.

Hint: I don’t want to talk to anybody in the queue at Gate 18 at Perth airport at one o’clock in the morning, in fact I’m trying to figure out a way to turn the noise of my brain down. I’m tired. I’m cranky. My hair has looked better after skydiving. So basically, if you do even one, much less all of the below list of things, I will want to choke you with my complimentary head set and push you out the door of the plane. There is no safety demonstration telling you what to do in the event of being an irritating dickwad.

List Of Things Not To Do Or Say To Cranky Ladies At Gate 18 At Perth Airport At One O’Clock In The Morning:

1. Walk around me in a circle TWICE before starting up a conversation.

2. Have a shiny face. Might not be your fault, but really, really doesn’t help.

3. Tell me you partied last night until six in the morning, woke up at nine, and started again. I already know you’re a dick. Knowing that you’re a dick who only had three hours sleep makes no difference whatsoever.

4. Use the phrase “The good times don’t even start until 2am”. I get it. You stay up late. So does the dude who collects cigarette butts from the garbage bins in my neighbourhood.

5. Tell me you work for the Treasury like it’s a big deal. You can only use your job as part of your pick-up spiel if you’re an astronaut, a surgeon, a premium beer brewer or Roger Federer. Everybody knows that.

6. When a voice on the PA instructs anyone with an infant to board first, ask with a smirk “Do you think I qualify as an infant?”. I’m guessing your penis does.

7. Randomly and without prompting regurgitate quotes like “If violence is not the answer, then I don’t understand the question”. You. Are. An. Arsehole.

I don’t suppose the irony of the fact that I was flying Virgin is lost on anyone?



*In real life, I mean. Here in my own cyber-corner, I can be as rude as I like, and say whatever I want. Example: TIT FLAPS. See?

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