The naked truth

Last night at choir we were talking about hair maintenance and the effects of age. "Don't get me started," a fellow singer said, pointing firmly between her eyes, "my pubic hair starts here." I laughed a lot and then began a nineteen hour reflection on the many ways that growing older has changed my body and mind. When I was younger, I thought that people started getting noticeably old in their sixties and seventies. There were children (who were short), grown-ups (who were tall but basically the same), and old people (who had wrinkles and grey hair). The idea that I would start getting old while still in my thirties didn't cross my mind. Now that I'm here, of course, reality has hit like a netball in the face. And since revelations from others about their secret pubic monobrows make me feel better about myself, I thought I'd perform a public service and admit the dark secrets of my own moribund form.

I'll start at the top. My hair used to be lovely. Now it is drying at the ends, itches in the mornings, gets greasy when I moisturise my face and occasionally produces dandruff. This alone is enough to make me want to be sick. Then there's my face. It used to be smooth and even. Now it is spattered with large pores. I get regular spots - more every month than I had in a year as a teenager - and I have scars where I've squeezed them. There are tiny red veins visible all round my nose, which make me look like I have a permanent cold. There is hair on my upper lip. If I dye it, it appears blonde but thicker. If I wax it, I get a red rash and ingrowing hairs. If I have it threaded, I get spots. There are hairs on my neck, around the place where my Adam's apple would have been if I had been lucky enough to have been born a man. And there's a patch of skin stretching up my larynx to my chin where the pigment is strangely white. I think this is the onset of vitilligo, an incurable and ridiculously unattractive condition of the epidermis. Hooray.

Moving down, my bingo wings, which are here for life, now seem to be developing baby cellulite and, unless they are suntanned, are emetic, making the wearing of strappy sundresses ill-advised, a shame as my shoulders are basically the only part of my body that don't make me want to hurl myself into the contents of an open bottle bank. My fingernails - once strong and glossy - now peel and ridge. My back aches. My breasts, while still a fairly nice size, are covered in stretchmarks - white furrows that don't tan and thus become more obvious in summer, and when I bend over and look at them hanging down, the 'rocks in a sock' label becomes acutely recognisable. My stomach is no longer flat and the dark hairs known as a garden path on men have emerged, although I doubt they serve as such an enticing invitation to any visitor that should find himself in the vicinity. There is a weird white mark around my solar plexus where there was once a mole. My body surrounded it with a white 'halo' (official medical term) and then basically consumed the mole, so all that's left is a white, pigmentless blob. I think it's quite clever that my body got rid of something dangerous, but I wish it hadn't left a residual stain that looks like some bizarre fungal condition in the middle of my abdomen.

Lower still, and we're getting beneath the waist, into the truly nuclear zone. Beware the truth. As admitted recently, a good portion of my considerable buttocks is covered with red spots, as persistent as cockroaches and possibly less erotic. Thanks to my beloved course of laser hair removal, my bikini line is less horrendous than it might be, but unfortunately the laser was not able to remove several inches of fat and thus leave my legs in perfect order. My thighs are rippled with cellulite. I have always had it, inherited at a young age from my mother, but the older I get, the worse it becomes. It is deeply, deeply unattractive. If my legs were otherwise slim, brown or smooth, the cellulite might be able to be borne. Needless to say, my vast, white thighs resist all tanning attempts, and the hairs are dark. There are even several long ones that grow horizontally on the back of each leg in a patch around the size of an average paperback. These make me wonder whether I am actually human and not some sort of minotaur sent to confuse people.

Beneath the cellulite and the hairs are the onset of varicose veins, a blight that I have miraculously fought off thus far as my father was having operations on his when he was in his twenties. I have several patches of blue behind my knees, waiting to pop at the most inconvenient moment and ensuring that - if the girth, orange peel effect and wolverine hirsuitedness weren't enough - I will never wear hotpants.

Finally, my feet - once so long and slender, now covered in mysterious lumps and knobbles. There are several dark hairs on the neck of my big toes. I have bunions emerging, in particular on my left foot - a condition that I would consider justified had I spent my life in stilettos, worn while successfully wooing Russian oligarchs, but given my absurd shoe size, I have spent almost all my life in men's trainers and lesbian Birkenstocks and have wooed a succession of men that have been almost universally labelled Not Good Enough. My high heel use has only emerged in the past three years or so, during which time I have researched the incidence of bunions and discovered that they frequently occur even when people spend their entire life in orthopaedic flip-flops and barefoot. My mother's toes are ghastly, veering off in different directions like bizarre coral, so I think it's clear what's coming to me, in the pedal sense.

And thus we reach the end of my thorough physical examination, a study driven not by self-pity but by a selfless desire to alleviate the panics of others through the admission of my own flaws. It is a sign of my own unbelievable arrogance that I do not believe my physical appearance to be the reason for my single status - rather, I think that, when covered up, I am actually quite attractive. I know for certain that I will never pull while wearing a bikini, but it's safe to say that I've missed the boat for a starring role on Baywatch, and anything that keeps me out of the arms of Mitch Buchannan is fine with me. May the fictional god bless physical imperfections - I'd be unbearable if I was beautiful.

Going viral

The arc of Wednesday was, well, less an arc and more of a diagonal plummet from a chipper morning, through an uneventful mid-section, down to an absolutely disastrous evening.

The day started off well as I crossed the road outside my flat and recognised my local LibDem candidate handing out leaflets in front of the tube station. She smiled at me as she passed me her flyer, campaigning about the proposed 82-week sporadic disruption to the Northern Line (a series of works that could be done in three weeks if it was tackled all at once), and I was able to smile back and say "I've already voted for you." She looked happy and I felt extra bouncy as I ran down the escalator, late comme toujours.

The remainder of Wednesday day trundled along OK - my world was pretty unremarkable, but outside was dark and gloomy for others, as Greece, then Portugal, then Spain's ratings were all lowered by S&P and the trading floor was briefly in a panic. Guys here are saying that this is, in many ways, far worse for the international economy than the Lehman's collapse in 2008, surely something Brown can point to in order to claim that Britain is not suffering uniquely at present. But then, Brown might not have a chance to address that in tonight's final TV debate because so many people are obsessing over him muttering, under his breath, in private, in a car, that one of his supporters was a bigot. I'm obviously not pushing for a Labour win, but if this really is a decisive issue in people's voting decisions then people need to Get A Grip. As Alan Johnson pointed out on the BBC this morning, there isn't a single one of us who wouldn't regret stuff we'd said if we were permanently miked up and broadcast on Sky. Freaking Murdoch. No WAY it would have aired if it had happened to Cameron.

So at 5pm the arc curved a little upwards as I journeyed home, a post-gym spring in my step once again, excited about having seen (and not heard) my first ever Toyota Prius Hybrid whisper past me in action, and keenly anticipating a relaxing evening at my lovely flat and a bit of a treat: I'd organised for a beauty therapist to come around and give me a facial. I'd paid £10 more than I have paid in the past for facials, but in exchange for those extra thousand pennies, I would be able to clamber off the treatment table, sit directly on my sofa and not move for the rest of the evening. It was an experiment about which I was most excited, in a zen way. And so she arrived. Tiphane (pronounced - go on, guess. You'll never guess. It's Tiffany) was pretty, curvy, bubbly, short, and struggling under the weight of all her potions and the folding table. But she set up within minutes and I was soon lying on my front, relaxing under the pressure of her satisfyingly penetrative massage and looking forward to her smoothing various masks and creams into my face, which would leave me glossy, healthy and unequivocally stunning.

Then, having asked me to turn over, she said, "I'll just be one second, I have to take some aspirin." Mid-rotation, I froze.
"Why?" I asked, forcing myself to sound sympathetic. "Are you OK?"
"Oh, I'm fine," she said. "I'm just getting ill." My eyes darted around awkwardly as, half-naked, I tried to position myself on my back and look relaxed while simultaneously freaking out.
"What kind of ill?" My voice surely betrayed my panic.
"Oh, you know, headache, sore throat... nothing serious," she said, breezily, as she plopped a soluble painkiller into her glass of water - MY glass from MY kitchen - and gulped it down as though it contained urgent life or death remedies that she needed without hesitation. And with that, she began the facial.

I went into a flat spin. Facials are not something that can be done at arm's length. They are an intimate process, involving continuous and precise application of emollients, unguents and balms, as well as macro-distance squeezing of blocked pores etc. Should one open one's eyes during a facial, one would see one's therapist inches away. Were one's therapist to be in THE MOST CONTAGIOUS STAGE of illness, one would want to run away very fast indeed. Immediately, I assessed my options. Holding my breath for an hour was sadly impossible. There were only three remaining courses of action: 1) ask her to don a surgical mask; 2) ask her to leave; 3) be brave.

And, since I am only forthright in type and am a wuss when it comes to confronting hairdressers and their ilk with the truth, I chose option three. For the next hour, as Tiphane smoothed and applied, I was continually caressed by her virus-riddled breath, the waves of infection landing every few seconds on my cheeks and forehead, and, during one particularly painful moment, being blown directly up my nose. All the while, I could hear her swallowing painfully. I tried to time my inhalations to fit with the rare moments while she wasn't blowing directly at me, but such coordination was often not possible. It was an unmitigated nightmare. I couldn't have made myself more likely to catch her cold if I'd spent the hour french kissing her. Far from calming, it was perhaps the most stressful experience of 2010 as I lay, prostrate and painfully aware that I'd just paid somewhere in the region of a small fortune to get ill. I was livid. LIVID I tell you.

Today I have been monitoring my health levels closely and seem to have escaped thus far, but when, as is surely inevitable, I catch her disease, there will be trouble, I tell you. Even as I've been writing this, I've become aware of a slight tiredness and back aching situation building up, but it could just be a mid-afternoon slump. Assuming the illness does set in, I don't yet know quite how I will get my revenge, but it will be something involving the SARS virus and a letterbomb. Maybe.

In other news, if you're even considering voting LibDem, please read this. Thank you.

Six days in April

Rage. I've done it again: left writing my blog for so long that I am now overwhelmed with information and feel as though I should split it up under subheadings. Maybe I will.

Cocksuckgate
Last Thursday morning I phoned my mother just before I got to the airport, to say goodbye and reassure her that I had not yet died, an almost-daily ritual for which she seems to be grateful.
"Oh, Jane, I'm glad you called," she said, solemnly. "I was just about to email you." She sounded close to tears.
"What's wrong?" I asked in a high-pitched voice that indicated my panic.
"Your... your blog, Jane..." she said. I wasn't much the wiser.
"What about it?"
"Dad and I... we're both... shocked."
"What about?"
"I can hardly say it... You used the word..." (I tried to scan my memory of what the offensive item could possibly be) "...cocksucker."
I roared with laughter.
"So?!" I asked. Mum was not reassured.
"It's awful, Jane," she said. "So vulgar. So... unfeminine."
"Really? Worse than fucking?" I asked.
"Oh god, yes," she said, emphatically. "So much worse than fucking."
I told her that I believe this is a generational difference, but she seemed so gobsmacked by my labelling the volcanic ash as something that fellates that I felt it necessary to do a straw poll on arriving in France. I asked around twenty people in their early thirties, none of whom felt that a cocksucking volcano is any worse than a fucking volcano. Of course, we all agreed that fucking and cocksucking are both vulgar and unfeminine, so mother, you are indeed correct on that point. But for any of my mother's friends, or indeed any others, who read this blog and feel that she has failed in her parenting duties as a result of my free use of profanities, I apologise. Only the good bits of me are a reflection of her, i.e. my skin that tans, my love of birds and my US citizenship. Everything else is my dad's fault.

France
So I went to France for Emily's wedding and it was one of those cominglings of beautiful people and beautiful surroundings and beautiful emotions and beautiful food that made me simultaneously joyous and painfully and continually aware that, of the youth contingent, and as a fairly normal size 14 gal, I was the fattest female there by about nine stone. I kid you not. I genuinely reckon I could have got three of the other wedding guests into each leg of my jeans. There were literally miles of smooth, slim, tanned thighs on show, and the men's eyes were, naturally, out on stalks. I could have collected the drool and irrigated southern Africa for a month.

To distract myself, I forwent my wheat ban and ate baguette, and I sunbathed and met tiny ponies. It was all going rather well until I got dressed up on Saturday afternoon for the wedding, and had one of those rare moments when I looked in the mirror and thought I had managed to make myself look momentarily bearable. To celebrate, I asked Kate to take some photographs of me outside for posterity. She snapped away for a minute or so and said she'd got some good ones. I retrieved my camera and looked at the screen. In the (approx.) six minutes since I'd put on my make-up in the bathroom mirror, the circumference of my face appeared to have inflated by around an inch. I briefly became convinced that I was the victim of a cruel pre-wedding allergic reaction but then I double-checked with Kate, who assured me that the photo was, in fact, normal and that I was looking at a picture of What I Look Like. This could not be true. Desperate for a second opinion, I showed Christianne the mutant image and was sorely disappointed at her distinct lack of horrified gasps or attempts to shield my eyes from the appalling aberration. On the contrary: it appeared that the grotesque image before me was not only fairly representative but actually flattering. Shortly afterwards, we got in the car and drove to the wedding, the other three girls chattering happily as I tried to come to terms with the realisation that I look utterly, utterly different to what I thought and that my fictional version was much prettier.

Of course, the weekend was not all about me. We had a fantastic few days in and around Mirmande, made all the more precious as the volcano had done its best to keep us away, and I made new friends and passionately loved my old ones. The bride was stunning, the groom's speech was excellent, the venue was magical, I didn't fall over on the dancefloor, the lunch the day afterwards was dreamy, my skirt didn't blow up in the wind and reveal my pants, the band were crush-worthy and best of all, I managed to get a mild tan which, as Kate continually stated, will "set us up" for the summer. Here's hoping.

Election 2010
What is weird is that I have voted. I posted it yesterday. Fortunately I haven't yet regretted my decision although I'm not denying that might happen between now and 6th May. I almost regretted my entire existence last night, however, when Sara, Rog, Grania and I sat through the most excruciating event ever at the Union Chapel. Instigate Debate was meant to be a cutting edge two-fingers-up at the mass media approaches to politics; the NME called it "the most important underground movement," which, if true, is enough to finish me off once and for all.

Invited speakers were Dame Vivienne Westwood; Deputy Leader of the Labour Party, Harriet Harman; ex-Labour MP and current Green candidate, Peter Tatchell; ex-Mayoral candidate and LibDem hotshot, Simon Hughes; and Shadow Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, Jeremy Hunt. Music was to be from the Magic Numbers, Shlomo and Rose Elinor Dougall, and we were promised comedy from The Amazing Tommy and the Weeks.

In reality, Dame Viv didn't turn up and nor did Jeremy Hunt - in their place we got the Tory candidate for Putney, a dumpy young thickie who tried admirably to compete with Tatchell, Harman and Hughes and got absolutely nowhere. The Magic Numbers turned out to be one-of-the-Magic-Numbers, which is a bit different, while Tommy and the Weeks were about as Amazing as a pavement. The host, John O'Sullivan, was a self-satisfied, shambolic, patronising blunderbus who encouraged the audience to ask questions and then ignored what they said and asked his own. He sneered at an intern who passed him a note during the evening, consistently called 'his hero' Peter Tatchell 'Thatchell', and introduced beatboxer Shlomo as 'one of the best rappers in the world'. The evening had an absurdly obvious LibDem bias which shat all over any concept that we were watching a genuine 'debate' and I was fully embarrassed to witness the politicians going through such a risible two hours. It was an unmitigated disaster. On the upside, Shlomo was great, but watching him work his magic in front of a stifled smattering of uptight politicos sitting in church pews was painful. £5 I would rather have spent on something useful, like Compeed or stamps. Meh. You win some, you lose some.

Right. Must go hang out my whites wash.

Surface tension

Last night I went to see Martha Wainwright sing songs by Edith Piaf at the Barbican. I've been a fan of Martha for a few years, having discovered her through my love of her brother, Rufus. Like her brother, she is classically trained, Canadian and pretty much bilingual. She's also had a pretty rocky time of it, albeit in a fairly privileged way, and where Rufus is openly gay and has written a lot about that, Martha is straight but has struggled with relationships, writing songs like Bloody Motherfucking Asshole and I Know You're Married But I've Got Feelings Too. I think she is clever and hilarious and in possession of an incredibly strong and sensual voice; I was extremely excited about last night.

And then she walked on stage, and I gasped: she was pregnant. Very pregnant. Last I'd heard, she was singing about being a mistress, and now she was having someone's baby and wearing a wedding ring. I was thrilled for her, genuinely thrilled, but then, through all the beautiful Piaf songs, I couldn't stop thinking about it. I wanted to focus on the music, I wanted her pregnancy and marriage to be irrelevant, but the mental image I'd had of her had always been of a battler, and now she was happy. I think I'd feel the same if I'd seen Gordon Brown with a suntan or Jesus doing a 100m sprint - it was incongrous and, shame on me, I found it distracting. Her clothes got me as well. Her leggings in the first half were too tight, her top was unflattering. And after the interval, she came back on stage wearing a black silk dress over a strapless bra that squashed her boobs into a flat plank, making them look like a little shelf. The dress needed to be ironed and the hem was irregular but not in a way that made me think it was a deliberate design choice.

And so this gorgeous, hair-raisingly beautiful music is being performed by fantastically talented singers and players, including a seriously hot pianist, and all I can think about is the fact that Martha's going to have a baby but her bra is a disaster, and whether they have ironing facilities in the dressing rooms at the Barbican. What is wrong with me?! Why can't I pierce the outermost layer and get stuck in to what's really important? I'm like the worst bits of Trinny, Suzannah and a magpie, distracted by anything sparkly, or, in my case, helplessly drawn to unsightly bulges.

It doesn't matter who's talking or what extraordinary life changing information they're imparting - a stray facial hair or a sweat patch will render me entirely unable to hear anything other than the voice in my head that's going 'Should I tell them? I probably should. I'd want someone to tell me. But then, what can they do about it? Maybe I should tell that other person to tell them...' and on to infinity. Some people just don't even see these things. They are the people who walk around with unplucked eyebrows and VPLs, the hanger loops dangling out of their waistlines, labels sticking out of their neck, whose dyed hair looks perfect from the front but a wreck from the back, who are happily talking to a boy they fancy with red wine encrusted into the cracks on their lips, and they don't give a damn. They're blissfully ignorant and god they're lucky. I want to be like them. Maybe if I stopped wearing glasses I wouldn't see as many flaws, but my new frames are too cool for school. Hmmm.

[insert headline other than 'A Spot of Bother' here]

You know that I must be going on a date with someone I either quite like or quite like the sound of, when I become liberally sprinkled with spots. The highlight of these is a corker right below my left eyebrow, which was agony yesterday morning. I tried to be grown up and leave it alone, but then gave in to temptation after yesterday's gym session and attempted to go in for the kill by squeezing it. The Failed Squeeze: surely the most irritating act in personal hygiene, serving only to make the area more red, more angry, more painful and more likely to create issues requiring a trip to A&E. Following this disappointment, I took the only course open to me - the Vigorous Squash, where I tried to dissipate the bulk of the matter with firm rubbing. This appeared to work temporarily, but I woke up this morning and looked in the mirror to find that the area around my eye had been inflated by some mean bicycle-pump-wielding fairies while I slept, so that I now have difficulty opening it fully, and any sort of unexpected eyebrow raises that happen when I inadvertently indicate enthusiasm are now followed by a dramatic wince. I now look as though I'm doing a suspicious face at all times. There are 26 hours until I meet the guy. I can only hope that things improve a fraction before then.

The Mask

On the tube last night, I was standing in the corridor between the two rows of seats, and a bit grumpy not to have a chair of my own, when one of my favourite things happened: a woman began to apply her make-up. This is like my favourite kind of reality TV, happening live, in glorious technicolour, right in front of me. Of course, women putting their make-up on in public is not cool. I don't like it in principle. But sometimes time restrictions mean it has to be done, and as a spectator sport it shits all over rugby. I would rather watch a woman putting on her make-up on the tube than have an obscenely good looking boy to stare at in her place.

So I adopted my 'I'm not staring at you' face, which involves angling my book carefully, and looked more closely. This woman was really pretty, and had excellent skin, but was wearing too much foundation. Her eye make-up was impressively applied, even and natural. Then she got out her Touche-Eclat, drew two pale lines underneath her eyes and started to rub it in. At this point, I looked up for an instant, and noticed a guy further down the corridor. He was staring at Make-up Woman, agog. He was in his late twenties, very sweet, with spiky blond hair. I don't think he could have been more transfixed if he'd been watching a turquoise cat knitting a beret while singing Oklahoma! in a beautiful tenor.

And I realised, once again, just how odd it all must seem to the uninitiated. So for the benefit of my male readers, here is a quick insight into the contents of my make-up regime. Item 1, foundation. Flesh coloured product that attempts to even up the skin tones. Without this, I would look marbled, streaky, creased and possibly diseased. Item 2, Touche-Eclat. Having used this for several years, I am still not convinced this actually does anything, but it is a supposed miracle product that allegedly contains light-reflecting particles that reduce the appearance of dark circles. Since my mental state generally leaves me fairly sleep deprived, I normally have bags that could double as handy pouches for stolen cars, so I assume it's better safe than sorry. Item 3, blusher. This is the one pretty much everyone gets - a flush of red on the cheeks clearly adds to a healthy glow. But it's not all simple: too much and you look like Aunt Sally from Worzel Gummidge, too little and you look anaemic. The danger is palpable. Item 4, eyeliner. Again, fairly obvious - dark lines around the lashes make the whites of the eyes look brighter and the eye appear more defined and thus more striking. Risky to apply on the tube but, in my case, crucial; the second most vital item in my arsenal, after foundation. Item 5, mascara - to make lashes long and lustrous, opening up the eye and adding contrast. In my opinion, pretty useless without eyeliner, but that's just me. Item 6, lipstick. This can basically go one of two ways - red, to draw attention to the mouth, or pale, to make the mouth blend in more with the rest of the face, thus making the eyes the main feature. I tend to go for the latter as I think I look a bit whorey with dark lips, but it certainly suits a lot of girls. Each to their own.

So. Those are my six basics. Not many items, and a fairly standard routine for me - but infinite combinations for each woman. Watching how someone else uses their tools - whether they've gone for a powder or a liquid foundation, matte or normal finish, and whether they apply it with a brush or their fingers, patting it or smoothing it - it's all endlessly fascinating. And just when you think it can't get any more interesting, they get out their mascara and start to apply, adopting their version of the eye-bulging, lip-stretching gurn that is so pointless given that one's eyes do not open more than one millimetre further when our mouths are gaping (I've checked). The gurn is too good to be true and my personal highlight of the whole procedure. Yesterday's was particularly gruesome - the heretofore attractive woman turning into a taut gargoyle that shocked her blond admirer, who looked relieved when she finally packed away her equipment. I remember a similar look of astonishment on an ex-boyfriend's face when he watched me transform myself a while ago. I wonder if, for boys, they'd rather not understand - too much of an insight, like learning about tampons and vaginal tears. Ah well. Too late. And even if you'd rather not have read the above, fear not - that is only scratching the surface. We haven't discussed primer, eyeshadow, bronzer, Lipcote, lip liner, lip gloss, that green stuff some people put on to counteract rosacea, eye make-up base, liquid vs. kohl eye liner and hundreds of other intricate processes that can affect us ladies, should we choose to accept it. But no matter what your level of comprehension, here is one fact you can have for free, just for paying attention: if you ever hear a girl saying she hasn't ever worn foundation, be aware that every other girl in the room wants to stab her.

It's not for lack of bread...

Hmmm. I appear to have misplaced my blogging va-va-voom somewhere around here. It might be to do with the fact that my brain has crashed following three nights out - singing at Damian's on Monday, a very rowdy book club at mine on Tuesday and a night out at Ed's in Brixton yesterday. Far too much cheese and wine consumed for my diet's liking but it's all been very fun. Tonight I am off to get my barnet seen to and I cannot wait - loved my monosyllabic Polish hairdresser last time because he properly argued with me when we were discussing my style ideas, but was also wowed by the fact that the salon has massage chairs at the sinks; the prospect of lying in a massage chair on the 'firm' setting while someone washes my hair is so wondrous that I feel slightly weak-kneed just thinking about it. Bring. It. On. Although obviously the fantasy of haircuts is always slightly better than the reality, in that I go into the salon thinking I will come out looking like one of the Olsen twins, and in fact I come out looking exactly like I did before, but with my make-up slightly washed off and streaky around my forehead, and my hair a lot more blonde and bouffant, in a state of high gloss that will not be recreated until I return to the professional ten weeks later, and you get that weird thing where they whip off the protective gown and you see your same old clothes and your same old thighs and you realise that your hair is about eleven times more glamorous than the rest of your body, and it's like someone's started giving you a make-over from the top down and then got distracted after job one. Hmmm. Slightly wishing I was just going straight home to watch last night's Apprentice.

PS - ten points to anyone who gets the title reference.