THE CONSPIRACY THEORIST.

Incident one

“So have you thought any more about having laser treatment?” Said Kully, my lovely waxing lady.
“Hmmmm…” I smiled trying not to take the conversation any further.
Last Monday night I’d gone to my usual waxing lady, who had converted her loft into a mini salon.
We were just finishing up when she bought up the subject of permanent hair removing laser treatment. For as long as I can remember, she’s been urging me consider the procedure.
“And just think you wouldn’t need to keep coming back.” Kully explained.
“I know but waxing as and when is fine," I smiled uncomfortably.
“Just think how convenient it would be for you.”
I must admit, it did sound like a fab idea. Was it an option? What about the consequences? “Perhaps,” I shrugged.
The word ‘Perhaps’ had barely left my mouth when I felt a gust of wind blew through the room.
I looked outside the sky light and saw how quickly it had clouded over. The change in atmosphere was like a slap in the face. The realisation of what I was about to agree to.
“Just stop harassing me…” I cried pleadingly as I ran from the room, out of her house and into the breezy air.

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Incident two - The following day

“Have you?” Demanded Bini
“Have I what?” Trying to fake that ‘I haven’t a clue what you’re speaking off’ reaction.
“You know what I’m talking about,”
“Do I?” I innocently purred.
“Look at the weather?”
“Hmmm,”
“Look. At. The. Weather…………….So I’ll ask again; did you?”
“Yea!” I sheepishly muttered.
“You’re so selfish…”


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I will now reveal all. – I can’t carry this burden anymore.

But first, I owe the nation an apology. Last weekend, over the bank holiday weekend, the weather was good, and then it wasn’t.

I kinda caused that.
I kinda cause that by getting my legs waxed.
Now don’t immediately write me off as some sort of wacko. Hear me out, please!
There is a direct correlation between my leg waxing habits and the turn of the weather. I kid you not.

I noticed it years ago. The sun would come out, catching me unawares. I’d think ‘great better get booked in for a leg wax and enjoy the sunshine.’ (As, like a lot of my girlfriends, in periods of winter and singleness I don’t bother)
But the moment I did. The weather would turn back again.
And this time was no different. Monday night I got my legs waxed – Monday night it rained.

If I’m honest its not just leg waxing. If I plan anything that needs decent weather, it turns, i.e. the proposed event that led up to my leg wax.
Mr DbT (Death by Thorntons) had asked me if I fancied a day in the country as he had the day off work. I’d had a really upsetting run in with an old flame the week previous and Mr DbT wanted to cheer me up.

He was given that nickname by my friends. He and I were walking through Brent Cross shopping centre last autumn. We were passing the Throntons shop on the first floor when I said I felt like an ice cream. He insisted on buying me one…the biggest one – with four scoops. I couldn’t decide which one out of my four favourite flavours I wanted, so he decided to get me all four.
He thought I could eat what I wanted and bin the rest.
I didn’t want to seem ungrateful and forced myself to have the whole thing – we hadn’t known each other that long.
So I spent the rest of the afternoon feeling ill with that sickly to-much-sweet belly churning feeling, and a sugar high headache.
Hence, he is now referred to as Mr Death by Thorntons. AKA DbT

So Mr DbT asked me on a day date.
(This still surprises me. Lets just say if you have read just one of my blog entries, it will come as no surprise that there have been a few times…Okay more than a few times…ample reasons for Mr DbT to think that I am a complete lunatic and he should run for the hills. But to my surprise, he doesn’t. In fact, he thinks I’m pretty terrific.)

So whilst visualising a nice picnic, lounging around in the sunshine, going for a scenic walk in my new 3¼ length cotton culottes, I happily booked the leg wax.
And true to form it pissed it down.
Apparently it was unexpected undercurrents coming in from Norway.
And to think, we took their AHA into our hearts. What a way to be repaid!

Mr DbT and I did set off hoping it would clear up, but no. We got as far as the first motorway service station before deciding not to carry on any further.
Instead, we spent the rest of the afternoon sat in the service station restaurant playing the travel Connect Four that we’d bought in the sweet shop.
(In actual fact he played, I just cheated…and I also realised he really did think I was pretty terrific. Despite each attempt becoming more obvious and outlandish than the last, he just shook his head, laughed and let me win.

Yes, on the one hand I realised it doesn’t matter where you are, if you click with someone, you click! And you don’t wanna be any where else but in their company.

But in the other hand surely my weather changing theory now could not be dismissed as sheer coincidence.

At first, I used to treat it like a silly joke…I’d laugh and make an off-the-cuff statement such as, ‘Oops sorry for the weather guys, got my legs waxed’
Until I noticed how often I was saying it.
My friends would equally rib me, 'Ha Ha, its raining, get your legs waxed did you?’
I’d quietly mutter ‘yes.’
And they too noticed how often I’d quietly mutter ‘yes’.

And suddenly it was publicly being acknowledged. At first, as a running joke.
But now, I can seriously see the worried look on everyone’s face.

What if there was more to this?

THOUGHT PROCESS AT TIME
Oh my god! I think I yield the power to change weather.

Did I? Could I ruin a loved one’s outdoor barbeque with a mere pluck of a hair follicle?

The responsibility!


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Wednesday - early evening

I walked into a bar in London’s Covent Garden to meet Julia and Bini. They had both taken the afternoon off work. Since the weather was predicted to be nice all week everyone had decided to take their time owed in lieu.
So as you can guess, they weren’t too best please with me.
“Girls if you’re gonna start I don’t want to hear it.”

“Actually now you come to mention it, we have been thinking about the coronation between you and the weather changing…” announced Julia

“You mean the correlation” I corrected

“That is what she said,” Bini jumped in.

“What if you do actually wield secret weather changing powers?” asked Julia.

“Really, you actually think so?” I sighed with relief.

I hadn’t been looking forward to coming here, especially after Bini’s outburst I was expecting a contempt filled stare that said ‘How dare you choose happiness over my enjoyment of sunshine.’

Yesterday after her outburst and accusations of selfishness I kinda broke down.
I was being victimised. No less than 7 –yes 7 friends texted me on Tuesday, demanding I explain myself.
All I have to do is innocently walk past the tubes of immac in the supermarket and a gust of wind is sent crashing round the earth. What did she know of the burden I carried?

Hence my reaction to permanent laser treatment – I’d bring on the bloody ice age.

I’d known all along I had weather chainging powers. But I could never acknowledge it publicly. Just look what happened to David Icke when he said he was the son of God, he was ridiculed. Of course I had to keep making light of my realisation.

However I was glad to see they’d seen the error of their ways and decided to be there for me. I didn’t have to carry this burden by myself. I now know how Superman felt when he finally confided in Lois Lane

“You could be like one of those characters in ‘Heroes’!” suggested Julia

Bini agreed immediately “Yes, you have the power to change weather. Only you didn’t realise it at first, let alone know how to harness it. You could never explain the weird things that would just happen.”

“So instead you lived your life as some freak loner,” Julia said “…Only you’re not, coz you’ve always had us.’ She added on as an after thought.

“But one day, the earth comes be under attack from the super villain Global Warming Man.” Described Bini.

“You and he are polar opposites. He with sunshine and you with rain. You were meant to work in harmony to keep this planet safe. Only his head was turned by evil,” Explained Julia. “And then you realise, you need to use your powers to save the world. You and you alone can make all this extra sunshine disappear, by having extra sunny thoughts,”

“And the only way to save the world is to feel happy. Only you can’t, coz the weather will only change when you envisage happiness.” Bini began to crank up her story telling technique by introducing dramatic hand gestures. “And how can you conjure up the feelings of happiness when the world is in peril.”

“When your loved ones are in peril,” Julia dramatically added on.

There was silence…

“And then you see him.” Bini suddenly pipes up causing Julia and I to jump.

“Him?” I ask

“Him, Mr DbT. And you think of your life with him, and you smile. Suddenly Global Warming Man screams in pain. He is weakening….And that’s when you realise how to use your powers. You take them happy thoughts and transfer them and use them against Global Warming Man.”

“And you save the world…Yaaaaaay!” Julia smiled, jumping up and down and clapping like a demented seal.

And once again there was silence.
At this stage I’m very worried as they both have very high paid, high pressured and high powered jobs in the city.
However this Jackanory tag team continued.

“Despite saving the world, your happiness doesn’t last,” Bini began again.

“Does it not? Why?” I asked

“Well its like we said, you have power to change the weather with your emotional intent. And the kind of happiness you imagine having with Mr DbT could also take the world to the brink of destruction, in the opposite way to global warming.” Julia explained with a rather sober tone.

And well, (dramatic pause – really the wrong friend studied drama) for the sake of the planet, you have to give up your love.” Bini now looked a touch confused. She couldn’t decide if this was the bit where she should burst into tears at the so called loss of my love. So instead, she just stood there and shrugged at me.

“But you won’t be lonely coz you’ll have us!” announced Julia, with Bini suddenly nodding in agreement. I was now faced with two sets of teeth beaming at me.

“Wow I feel so much better knowing I have you two.…Have the pair of you been drinking all afternoon?”

“Yep!” obediently came two dodgy nods in unison.

At which point I turned towards the barman and said, “I’ll have what ever they’re on – make it double.”

For the record, before either of their bosses read this and decide to fire them on the grounds of being mentally unhinged. I can assure you they do not believe I have genuine weather changing powers.
The pair had no intention of being supportive of my burden, but rather abuse it for their selfish gains.
They were after a freebie.
A TV guide magazine was running a competition, ‘write a treatment for an episode of Heroes set in London.’
If Julia and Bini won, they get a holiday for two in the states, which includes, flights, five night accommodation at a top hotel, £3000 spending money and they get to meet the cast of ‘Heroes’.

THOUGHT PROCESS AT TIME
Oh! How lonely at the top?

MY OATH TO THE NATION - I, Jo Jo – Miss Havoc on legs, do solemnly swear that from this point onwards shall never envisage any thoughts of being happy in the sunshine… no, not at all. Not one thought will enter my mind…although I might wear my new 3¼ length cotton culottes on Wednesday as Mr DbT is taking to see an open air Jazz concert…Oh it’s clouding over…Yikes!!!!!

Causing a stir!

There has been a last minute change of plan to this week’s blog, I’m afraid. Now I’ve never been one to be political but it seems I have opened up a hornets nest. Something I’m going to have to talk about further.

So I’ll begin.

Day – Saturday

Venue - Pub


“Sorry I’m late…..” said Stan looking at me slightly tense, “had to pop into Boots” making a point of waving the carrier bag at me, so I could see his purchases for myself.
I smiled and nodded acknowledgment of what he was showing me. Having had the approval he needed, he relaxed his smile and sat down,

We’d all congregated in the pub to watch the footie. (I just go for the community spirit)
Stan was the fourth guy of my mixed group of friends, that had made a point of showing me his weekly toiletry purchasing.
Each and everyone so far, walking in, looking like a schoolboy nervously clutching a bag of marbles hoping to impress their school teacher.

Their problem – they were scared to be seen as a SISM. (smell in summer man)

Since last week, all of them had upped their grooming regime, drastically.
When I said use deodorant, I never expected this kind of paranoid hysteria.
Stan had a look on his face that desperately oozed ‘I’m not a SISM! Please don’t write about me in your blog…Hey, let me buy you a wine…large?’

For the record - When I wrote about SISMs it wasn’t in reference to my boys who are more than nasally acceptable. (Hence why I choose to spend time with you gits in the summer months.)

However, there have been others who, to my shock, have come out in defence in SISMs…
Que Terrence, a flatmate of one of my friends. He’d found himself at a lose end and was joining us for the afternoon.
Now Terrence can be described two ways:
1) Men would describe him as a bloke’s bloke.
2) Women would describe him as a Neanderthal.

When Stan walked in with his lotions and potions, you should have seen Terrence’s face. Sat there, all horrified, his expression oozing ‘Toiletries? For a bloke? What are ya man, French?’
“This is how a real man smells” Thrusting his smelly arm pit in my direction, “Get a whiff of that, pure animal magnetism.”
Funny how its only guys who have no chance of ever getting a girlfriend who say stuff like that.
“That is NOT how a man should smell!” I retorted in disgust.
But it is alleged that guys like Terrence do actually have a point.
According to the laws of nature, I should not have reacted like I did in the club last week.
Apparently (and yes I am using the word apparently because I think the scientist have got it wrong), so apparently, there is something in men sweating that gives women the urge to mate with them.

Hmmmmmmmm

Out of all the things mother nature could have done to man to make him attractive to a woman, she makes him pong.
This is part of nature’s big attraction game? If that’s the case, then I’m missing a trick.

“Its part of nature,” Terrance informed me.

THOUGHT PROCESS AT TIME.
So are alligators…but you wouldn’t find me going coo-chi-coo to one.

Not all elements of nature are to be embraced. Not that this argument holds much water with the likes of Terrance. He was convinced he could talk me into it. What did he expect me to do? Go ‘Oh okay, I’ll train my nose to adapt.’

“You’re just saying that in your blog because of modern influences. When man first started on this earth, then it would have been a different story for you women.”

THOUGHT PROCESS AT TIME.
Oh hell no!!!

I can tell you, without a shadow of a doubt, if this was billions of years ago and I was joyously skipping around my cave room trying to figure out which animal skin to wear that day, (Oh please! Like I’d be any different to what I’m like now!) and some hairy arsed caveman came trundling along, reeking of sweaty onions and a glint in his eye that said ‘hey baby, how about it? Fancy being dragged back to my cave by your hair?’ He’d have been bitch-slapped on his way, regardless of how many boars he could catch and store for the winter months.

I expect a certain level of grooming. And basic hygiene.

WARNING FOR MEN - BO will not make a woman want to mate with you.
It will get you female attention, that’s for sure. But you won’t get to take her home.
Guys, if you want to catch a woman, take it from me, repeat the mantra - grooming, hygiene, romance…. grooming, hygiene, romance…. grooming, hygiene, romance….

Au Naturale!

Nature is a wonderful thing, especially during the summer months. The sunshine, the flowers, the summer romances, running through meadows of yellowey flowers with a new love…(Okay if you’re in the centre of London on a Friday night, or not appearing in a Timotai advert, that last one doesn’t count)

Nature has put together some fool proof ways for the sexes to attract to one another, giving us lovelorn a helping hand. Our eyes dilate. The heart rate goes up. There’s a stirring in the pit of the stomach.
And it’s true! I react like that every time I see Rupert Penry Jones. (He played Adam Carter in Spooks – it’s all I can do to stop myself licking the TV screen when he’s on)

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Let me fill you in.

It was just a normal Friday night in a bar in Covent Garden.

I was just standing there with the girlies, sipping my Mojito when he appeared, all smiling with a ‘hey.’

Then it happened. It began with a stirring inside me, and before I knew it whoosh, this out of control sensation overtook me. The whole room began to spin, I was light headed and could barely catch my breath. I became increasingly breathless and could feel my temperature rising. My stomach flipped, my legs turned to jelly ready to buckle from beneath me. An overwhelming emotion came over me – revulsion. He stank of body odour.

THOUGHT PROCESS AT TIME.
Oh good God, on what planet…there is no excuse…

And there really wasn’t! This place like most others had an attendant in the loo that would have let him have a squirt of something for the measly sum of a pound.

What’s more shocking is that this was just another out of many incidents in the last two weeks or so.

The Friday previous my friends and I were bopping away on a dance floor when this guy giving it all the Usher moves went gyrating past leaving a array of traumatised and collapsed women in his wake. (Funny how blokes don’t react this way. They seem to be immune to the effects of B.O, whether its their own or each others.)
And similar incidents happened (at times - weather permitting) during the middle four months of last year. In fact every year so far!

And alas this event brings me to my point! What happens men during the summer months? They turn into smelly hogs.

I’m not making a sweeping generalisation, after all the lynx factory is still in business for a reason, so there must be someone out there buying the stuff.

But, it has to be said, there are quite a fair few, especially those who seem to travel with me on the tube, who become SISMs (smell in summer man)

I do understand us women are lucky; Impulse cans are small and dinky; they now even come in half that size so they can slipped into an evening purse. But a can of Lynx can is hardly the size of an oil tanker. Jeeze, Tesco value roll on would do.

BE WARNED – the reaction I had to the guy in the bar, a man should only envisage causing that out of delight not disgust.

Men aren’t made to suffer in the same way.

My friend Pete loves the summer. Girls randomly start appearing, all tanned and girlie with flawless legs in sexy dresses. They’re looking all cute and little flashes of pastel coloured bra straps are showing. They leave the scent of flowery perfume wherever they go. They just alluringly start floating around the street, and on the tube and outside café bars.

We women have needs too.

My ideal scenario would be a cross between Rupert Penry Jones meets the Diet Coke man. Que Diet Coke advert music. His rippling muscles on display whilst he effortlessly chops down a tree with an axe. (Oh hell, sod the axe, he rips the whole tree out by the roots with his bare hands.)
And yes there are pearls of sweat trickling down his well chiselled cheek bone, before the atmosphere becomes a touch ‘Lady Chatterley’s lover’

In no part of my perverted summer fantasy does he smell like a donkey’s play pen.

So its not fair that where women become tantalising packages of nasal and visual delight, men develop a malfunction in their brain that makes them go ‘Hark its summer, let me throw out my deodorant with reckless abandonment.’

What happened to equality?

My shameful secret - Part Two

Continued from last week. So if you haven’t read it I suggest you go back a week…

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THOUGHT PROCESS AT TIME.
Just walk normally and act natural.

But of course I was looking anything but natural. That was due to ‘the thing’ that was being hidden inside my jacket, under my arm.
It wasn’t securely placed so I had to keep pressing my arm firmly against the left hand side of my torso to hold to steady thus having a debilitating effect on my movement - One side of me normal, the other side stiffly shuffling along like it was auditioning as an extra in a zombie movie.

THOUGHT PROCESS AT TIME
Just get round the corner and you can remove it.
Nearly there, nearly there….

And I was nearly there, just a few yards to go when she suddenly appeared in front of me – She being Mrs De Sousa, the Mauritian lady/busy body from down the road.
(Being Mauritian having no direct influence on her busy body nature, before I am accused of something objectionable)

“Hello,” She greeted, as if surprised to see me.
Don’t know why?
As a writer, I work from home; a concept that she’s never quite grasped.
She seems to think this means I’m unemployed and therefore when ever she sees me the first thing she says is ‘there are jobs going in tescos,’ whilst staring at me thoroughly unimpressed

“Hao” I slurred.

Mrs De Souza’s expression went from thoroughly unimpressed to disdain.

“I’b jus cumb frob ver dentissssss,” I quickly added on. I was aiming for ‘I’ve just come from the dentist’ but that was the best my speech pattern could manage.
I thought it best to explain given my incoherent gabbling and my dodgy walk, adding her opinion of me being an unemployed scrounger; it was obvious she was thinking I was now a wandering drunkard.

“Ohhhhhhhhhh,” She nodded cautiously. “Who do you see? Mr Wong doesn’t work on a Wednesday…”
“Mussis Acter”
“Mrs Akhtar?” She repeated, with correct pronunciation whilst sounding surprised.

And I already knew why! Yes, we then did the whole ‘Isn’t she the kiddie’s dentist’ routine.

Mrs De Sousa kept talking to me, not that I was listening, I was focusing on ‘the thing’ in my jacket, which I was failing to keep hold of.
Even as I pressed my arm tighter and tighter against my body, I still struggled to keep a good grip. I could feel myself losing it…And then it slipped.

There, lying on the pavement for all to see. My shameful secret.

MY OPENING STATEMENT AT KLEPTOMANIAC'S ANONYMOUS.
Hi, I’m Jo Jo and I steal old ‘Hello’ magazines from medical waiting rooms.

But in my defence.

I’d entered the dentist that morning at 10.20am, ready to be seen at 10.25am. But they were running late…There it was, a seven page spread on Jennifer Aniston, and her emotional recovery post Brad Pitt.

Yes, I know that’s no excuse.

Yes, I know it happened over five years ago.

Yes, I know this must be the 100,978 millionth article on Jennifer Aniston where she ‘finally breaks her silence’

Yes, I know since then Brad’s settled down and had kids with the ‘other woman’

Yes, I know it’s a case of ‘what more is there left to be said’.

Yes, I know, how many more times can this one person ‘finally break her silence’

Yes, I know every journalist is trying to do a ‘Helen Fielding’ and get a novel published, in the hope Richard Curtis will turn it into a film; so yes, you’d think there be more creativity and originality.

Yes, I know it’s not too much to ask for one of the journalist, in this vast nation of ours, to come up with a new and exciting angle for a Jennifer Aniston article…

But hey, it sells! We women buy it by the bucket load. (Or thieve it…)

Granted not for the repetitive ‘life since Brad Pitt’ stuff.
We readers are equally as bored and think the journalists need to get over it by, either, cold turkey or therapy.

We readers just like to have a good gawp at her outfits, if the truth be known

So, by the time the dental nurse called me in, I was only on the third page.
I was in the middle of looking at the pictures of what she was wearing as she casually hung out in her open plan kitchen, organising a light supper for Courtney Cox and David Arquette, who were coming over later that evening.
I was yet to see what Jen would actually wear once light supper had commenced – not to mention how she’d style her hair.

I came back out of the treatment room and was stood in reception wanting to make payment and there it was, on the table, taunting me with the remaining four pages.

I wanted to take the magazine home, get a hot cup of tea and few chocolate hob nobs, put my feet up and leisurely read it whilst Phil and Fern were on in the back ground – this is how a magazine should be read.

The receptionist turned her back for split second and before you could say ‘law abiding citizen,’ it was in my jacket.

Due to the speed of the theft, I was unable to place it securely under my arm and it balanced around my lower hip with my wrist and elbow, holding it in place.

Mrs Akhtar was just coming back into the reception area from their staff room. The poor lady was quite taken a back as she watched me dragging, what must have looked like half a dead carcass out the door.

What had I done?

She was probably sat there worried thinking she’d miss-aimed the local anaesthetic, hit an important nerve and had permanently paralysed my entire left hand side.
I could picture her now, crying whilst reading the small print on her medical malpractice liability insurance.

How selfish am I?
I know, being of Hindu persuasion I should have stopped and thought about what effect my actions would have…

But surely these surgeries have to take responsibility somewhere.
They put these magazines out enticing your curiosity, then, they run late, without bothering to give you time frame of how long you have.
So you sit there, not knowing where you stand…

THE PATIENTS THOUGHT PROCESS AT TIME.
Do I start reading?
How long do I have?
Can I actually start the article, will I have the time?
What if I’m half way through something good and I’m called away?
Perhaps I should play it safe and just surface skim, but that’s not much fun?
What if I surface skim, and then still left with lots of time, then I‘m going to kick myself that I didn’t read the original article?
Now if I start reading it, I’ll definitely not have the time!
I think I’m going to cry!

Every time you sit in a waiting room it’s like they’re playing Russian roulette with your peace of mind.

What next, Chinese water torture?

Hmmm! Must remember to write to local MP with the suggestion that if the NHS is lacking money maybe they can hire their waiting rooms out for interrogation purposes.
Even the cleverest of criminal masterminds would crack with the use of such underhanded mind games.