I am all for charity. Hell, I’ve even registered myself as one. But I’m sick to the impacted wisdoms of the clipboard-wielding hippies taking over the streets, imploring me to sign endless reams of direct debit forms for the sake of the poor children/donkeys/amputees/the entire continent of Africa.

It is the same with all these things. The more you are saturated with something, the more it a) irritates the fuck out of you and b) the more you become oblivious for your own sanity. Right now I am more of the ‘A’ persuasion, but I am loitering on the borders of ‘B’.

Perhaps we would all do better to buy The Big Issue from one of the many homeless souls in London. After all, the influx of free papers must be putting the poor bastards slowly but surely out of business.

Charity begins at home but the UK seems to be terminally overrun with the po-faced Nimby Brigade, who would rather lament the state of every other country except our own. This doesn’t apply to America of course, from which such mentalism pours we just shit ourselves instead.

It makes me cranky.

Hello there. I’m back, albeit in a different guise.

I guess you’ll be wanting the skinny on the radio silence. Here it is…

I got blog-spotted and sold www.Ladyshambles.com. I ain’t no millionaire, but it was definitely enough for a new pair of shoes and a 36-hour bender. The new, commercial, all-singing, all-dancing Ladyshambles.com will hit your computer screens later this year. In the meantime, I’ve been whoring myself round the freelance scene of London to find gainful employment. Mission accomplished and I’m back.

So, to clarify: Ladyshambles and Ms Hush-Hush are one and the same. I’ll be continuing where I left off, except this time I won’t be living up to my new name quite so much.

Tootle pip, tally ho, etc.

Hi there,

You may have noticed there’s a new girl in town in the guise of Very Hush Hush, aka Ms Hush-Hush.

I’m sad to say, Ladyshambles has been lured by the bright lights of the city. That small town girl just got her big break somewhere else and she ain’t looking back. So I - Ms Hush-Hush - am here to pick up where she left off.

I’ll be keeping you posted on what happened to Ladyshambles in due course but in the meantime, play nice. I will bite.

Ms Hush-Hush
X

PS And don’t forget to update your bookmarks! You don’t want to miss out…

Some very good friends bit the dust last night and got engaged. It is very exciting and thrilling news.

Amusingly, it has prompted some serious panicking from The German. He’s the last one of his close friends to hit the ground on bended knee and pop that question, you see.

After consulting my crystal ball, I can confirm two things.

The first is that I’m quite happy for him to hold out for a good while yet. The second is that this fact will not prevent me from winding him up at every available opportunity. And recruiting everyone else we know to do the same. Feel free to take a cheap shot in the comments section, dear readers.

Poor bastard.

I’ve just returned from the most marvellous session with my chiropractor.

My neck has been crunched four times, the back three times and my right hip once.

However, there was a small moment of horror when he told me that adjustments to the neck have an approximate one in five million chance of causing a stroke.

I still signed the consent form, but I can’t pretend my stomach didn’t somersault at the thought of coming home with a face like melted wax.

Newton Faulkner revolts me.

FACT.

I’m not racialist against the gingers, ho no no.

It’s the disgusting dreadlocks and his butchering of Massive Attack’s gorgeous Teardrops that makes my toes curl.

Get thee gone, Devil in hippy disguise.

Do you ever wonder where the people you went to school with ended up?

Thanks to Facebook and its evil ilk, much of the mystery has been smash-and-grabbed into oblivion with hourly updates such as, “Lily has just given birth to twins and is not sure the surgeon ’stitched her up like a virgin’ as requested.”

However, there are some sensible souls (and I am ashamed I cannot count myself as one of their number) who never signed themselves up for social networking in the first place. And thus, they remain an untapped source of, ‘Oh my God, she was always so shy at school!’ influenced shock/awe/disgust.

So imagine my glee when I stumbled across the life path of one such former classmate.

Guess what she does? She’s only office bitch for a Page 3 girl agency in the heart of London’s Soho. Given that I know where she comes from, this career path certainly indicates a fall from grace.

Mummy must be sobbing into her cashmere pillow.

I have an objection.

This is to being called ‘babe’ by the man in the newsagents when I enter his premises to purchase fags and soya sauce. (Staples of a freelance life, you know. Along with Diagnosis Murder and Haribo.)

I am no one’s ‘babe’. Not even The German’s. Being given such a moniker is an unsavoury reminder of a vile ex boyfriend and the fact that when it comes to the endless battle to enforce appropriate behaviour, some men clearly need their trenches redigging.

Apparently this overfamiliarity is a sign of the times. More a folded down corner on the cultural page than a direct attempt to piss me off.

But just because someone else is jumping of a cliff into an abyss of social incongruity, does not mean I have to as well.

Eyes front and hands where I can see ‘em, boys.

I know it’s not very genteel of me to say so, but I fucking hate my neighbours. You’ll soon see why.

Specimens 1 & 2

South African couple. Live downstairs. Play shit ‘world’ music at full volume. Shout at each other over shit ‘world’ music, instead of turning full volume down.

He and she leave for work at 7.25am and 7.30am respectively. He and she slam inner and front doors separately, in quick succession, as if in blind rage and attempting to rip doors from hinges. Wall behind inner door is now dented and about to crack like a Californian fault line. My alarm clock is rendered useless.

Fucking inconsiderate twunts.

Specimen 3

Unemployed, BNP voter next door. Married, one son, looks like a pitbull. Beats his wife. (Probably.)

Pride and joy is a vintage Jaguar. Dark blue, leather trim, walnut dash. Kept under wraps to presumably protect against scratching and vagaries of British weather.

Woke whole street up at 2am on Tuesday morning roaring, “OPEN THE FUCKING DOOR! OPEN THE FUCKING DOOR, YOU C*NT!!!” and bashing on the driver door of a Peugeot 206 parked outside his house.

Turns out Peugeot 206 had accidentally nudged gift-wrapped and beloved Jag. Pitbull continued intimidating shouting at full volume for 15 minutes, while attempting to drag Peugeot driver out of car, presumably to rip them to shreds with his bare hands.

And how did Pitbull see that Peugeot 206 had dared to breathe on his car at 2am?

Because he was sitting in his house, staring at the damn car like a demented watchman, that’s why. Just waiting for a reason to go absolutely fucking postal.

Atrocious, eardrum-perforating music and certified psychopaths. Welcome to my manor, readers.

I’m fucked, aren’t I?

Hmmmm. Interesting goings on in the Ladyshambles bathroom this morning.

Last night, I and a group of fabulously talented ex-colleagues and dear friends, known collectively for the sake of this blog as The Lab Rats, visited vegetarian gastric outpost Manna Restaurant.

You see, one of our party is a vegetarian. He is a bilker of burgers; he cold shoulders the cutlets. Steaks? Eschewed and unchewed. But since the last venue for our soiree was one of London’s finest meat emporiums, we thought it only fair to sample the delights of all things herbivore.

While the food was surprisingly good - the kitchen positively excelled itself with the organic fruit crumble - this morning it appears we’re all suffering from a force eight gale in the bowel and more burn than even Jane Fonda would recommend.

I’m afraid as lovely as this carnivore’s jaunt down the tofu track was, I’m heading back to commune with the cows.

It might take up to three days for a juicy slab of sirloin to wend its way through my colon, but quite frankly, when it comes to digestion, I’ll eat the hare and hitch a ride with the tortoise.