Below I have detailed my top ten favourite Most Useful Products for every self respecting girl, without breaking the bank – to make sure as Tyra says, you’re always looking fierce! (Wow… I think I just got sick in my mouth a tiny bit…)

"See the difference? I'm smizing in this one..."

1. DRY SHAMPOO – Oh my God, number one holy grail… Any girl who doesn’t own a bottle of dry shampoo, either you’ve got majorly dry hair and you’re very lucky, or you’ve just been living in a cave like, forever.
I used to use it only for festivals when there was no other option except a gross shower full of disease, or a four day unwashed horror hairdo.
Many of my friends lives have been vastly improved by this product. I can confess, I spent the last 10 years of my life washing my hair every single day (bar the odd lazy Sunday of course) because Im one of those unlucky people who has a greasy complexion AND straight hair. This equally total mare in the hair department. But recently I discovered the answer. It means half an hour on my hair every second day, but it still saves time. I wash my hair, dry it, curl it (grease can’t move down curls as easily as it can straight hair), comb it through so its more wavy then curls, back comb it so that its lovely and big and bed-hairish, and then  the second day I spray a bit of a dry shampoo on it and Im good to go again. Similarly, its great for people with curly or frizzy hair. Once you’ve gone through the time consuming bitch that is straightening it/having it blow dried in the salon… you can make it last twice as long with the help of the lovely dry shampoo. Dry shampoo, time saving since whenever you were invented. I salute you.  

Champions among men

2. THE COMMON SHAVER – Hello, I’m your common shaving device. I am plastic and innocent and non-flamboyant. But can you imagine a world without me?! THE HORROR. Can you imagine it? Twud be like living in France in the 1850s… You wouldnt be able to tell the men from the girls, or the apes from the girls for that matter…

I'm the reason he didn't dump yo ass

3. HOME HAIR DYE – This might not be for everyone… I know some people are very particular about their hair… and can I gently say to those people… GET THE HELL OVER IT! Its hair not apartheid! Why are you so afraid of your own hair?  Salons, filled with savvy jacintas, make billions by saying things like “You need to get rid of all dem split ends love” or “You really couldn’t go blonde, not with that hair…” Listen. One think I know from not listening to hair dressers EVER is that they mainly talk crap. My hair is in wonderful condition, and I go to the hairdresser about once every two years. I dye it at home with Clairol every 6 weeks and its a beautiful colour. It looks sort of natural/just suits me, and guess how much it costs? Not hundreds… 6 euro every 6 weeks… Trust me, I LOVE my hair. I would spend the money on it if I thought it would make me look better, but the fact is, it actually doesn’t.   

4. Probiotics and Multivitamins – Every self-respecting party girl should know something. If you wanna drink every weekend, and live life in the fast lane (aka work hard and play hard) you need to look after yourself. Health comes from the inside and glows out in an irradecent beauty… kind of like a glow worm. If you’re binge drinking every weekend (and why shouldn’t you, you look fabulous in that dress!) then taking a daily probiotic keeps your stomach happy and your mood postitive. Alcohol depletes vitamins and so does eating rubbish. If you’re one of those ‘eat the sandwich on the go’ and have a ready meal when you get in type of gals, a good multivitamin (I’d recommend Multibionta probiotic multivitamin) can keep you away from sickness. After all, getting sick is boring… 

5 A Black Leather Jacket – They’re so in at the moment. The smaller the better. Sandy from Grease, eat your heart out.

"You betta shape up... cos I need a man..."

6. Coffee – Oh hell yeah. Every girl needs  a good coffee! Not the instant kind either. Im talking getting yourself one of those proper expresso machines or getting it made in the coffee shop. And Im not talking about this poncy starbucks shite either. None of this extra hot, extra wet, skinny tall frappalapachino with cream and hazelnut syrup. Go in and get yourself a proper manly double expresso and see how your productivity increases ten fold, without the extra sugar and calories… then down it like a man!

Down it in one

7. Pluckers – Im not an eyebrow plucker, Im an eyebrow pluckers son… No one wants to date quasi modo. If it wasn’t for these bad boys, Im sure I’d been languishing on some street corner begging somewhere in Equador… no one hires uni-brow girl. No matter how dope her ride is…

8. Hairspray – Keeping Bon Jovi in business since the 80s… or I don’t know, something like that. While rock stars of yore might have created that hole in the ozone by using so much hairspray. Do them a favour and keep it growing. No one likes a quitter. And no one likes flat or unruly hair for that matter. Show your unruly hair the door… 

9. Good Make up – Its not about money. Get yourself a good foundation (you don’t need to break the bank… 10 – 12 euro will buy you a decent one that lasts for ages) and get yourself a nice mascara – same price should do it, 10 – 12 euro or so, one of the brand names. Eyeliner doesn’t matter so much on the price I find, but make sure it works properly before you buy it by testing it on your hand. You need one of the soft kohl ones. I recently found a store that sells amazing eyeliners for a euro with a sharpener built into to the lid. Eyeshadow wise, I think its good to invest too – find out what colours suit you and invest in a good few and look after them. They last so long and are an investment. I can’t speak for the Mac range but I hear they’re excellent. I personally find Maybelline and Max Factor just great… oh and Sephora… but they’re not in Ireland yet sadly

10. Matt Powder – If you’re a greasy faced person like me, this stops the shine. It means you dont have to redo your make up and don’t even up looking like you’ve just come out of a sauna. Buy one nice brush. I got mine in the Body Shop two years ago. Its proper hair, cost about 25 euro and is lovely and soft. It washes well and is great for applying powder over my shine after a few hours of being out and about.

STAY AWAY FROM

Beauty wipes

Is that a spot I see? Hell no! Oh no he didn’t! I recently went on holiday. I bought face wipes. I now have THREE spots, including a massive one on my chin. They should rename face wipes – “spot creators of the universe” Someone please stop them making them. And please stop buying them. We need to protest against this scourge sweeping the world…

Look at them so innocently sitting there. Like they think we don't know what they're really up to...

SMOKING

Its not a product but it ages you. Need I say more?  

Here’s an excerpt:

The concert hall at the Syndey Opera House holds 2,700 people. This blog was viewed about 46,000 times in 2011. If it were a concert at Sydney Opera House, it would take about 17 sold-out performances for that many people to see it.

Click here to see the complete report.

Apparently, we first start to lie properly around the age of 4, when we realise all people don’t think exactly the same as us. Until then we think everyone loves ” Thomas the Tank Engine” as much as I thought everyone did, back in around 1989. 

And its not just humans. Deception is everywhere in nature. Even plants decieve with their colours. Certain snakes pretend to drop dead and emit a foul odour so they’re not attacked. Chameleons camoflage themselves.

 
Lying may have been a survival tool long ago. Let’s face it, a complex lie, takes a complex set of brain functions to perform. It takes alot to first anticipate what the other person is likely to think, then work a realistic lie around that, meanwhile maintaining an appearance of honesty. You need many traits such as empathy, forward thinking, imagination and acting skills! 

Lying is so rife. One fact that stuck in my head from this book is that we lie on average 3 times in the first ten minutes of meeting a stranger. For example they ask: “How are you?” and we reply: ”Great!” (When in reality we are feeling terrible!) One survey found the average person told a porkie 1.5 times a day – and that estimate was probably conservative.
For example, we fake enthusiasm for someones cooking, for the presents we get, our friends outfit and how we feel about people, well, all the time.

However out attitude is complex toward lying as a whole. We seem torn between bitter morality and scaremongering against it, meanwhile being simultaneously fascinated and impressed by our own lying skills. On the one hand we punish a child for lying about one thing, yet punish them for not lying about another (the fact that they actually hate that scarf from granny, when she asks). The book observes how there are even lies we actively approve of – like the lies you tell to save someones heartache or feelings. Then there are the lies told for the sheer fun of it (Holden Caulfield, Catcher in the Rye for instance: “If I’m on the way to buy a magazine, even, and somebody asks me where Im going, I’m liable to say I’m going to the opera. It’s terrible.”

While many of us compare lying to the worst sins, denounce it as disgusting and accuse past lovers or enemies of it, the reality is we’re all at it, all the time. We decieve others and constantly decieve ourselves (self-deception is incidentally an important tool for saving us from clinical depression). We lie to ourselves that our existence is not entirely absurd and that we are all ‘reasonable’, ‘kind’, ‘intelligent’ people if when we’re carrying out mean or heinous acts, and inflicting pain on others. Even doctors in the holocaust managed to convince themselves it was right to gas people and that they were doing a good thing – perhaps the reality of magnitude of wrong they were committing was almost too large for them to accept and thus they self-decieved. 

Ironically, we tend to think of others as the decievers and ourselves as the truth tellers. We self-decieve into thinking we’re the only ones who are different, a complex being who never says what they mean and is ultimately a many faceted being, full of limitless potential for greatness.

While many may shun it, there have been thinkers who have recognised the benefits of lying.

Nietzsche said: “There is only one world, and that world is false, cruel, contradictory, misleading, senseless…   We need lies to vanquish this reality, this “truth”, we need lies in order to live.” Meanwhile, Oscar Wilde suggested it was an escape route from the insufferable dullness of real life!

The book gets very interesting around about the third chapter – Confabulators. Liars, Artists, Madmen. The opening quote is: “A writer is congenitally unable to tell the truth and that is why we call what he writes fiction.”
While reading this chapter I had to take a good look at myself and wonder to what extent I lied or have been a liar in my life. Usually, I consider myself a very honest person. Honest to a flaw… but then as a writer, I realised I must be terribly good at lying, if I basically do it for a living (not fiction for a living yet, but I write fiction every day, and alot of it!)

And when I write, I am basically lying. “Paradoxically, artists are able to control the point at which they reliquish control,” writes Ian Leslie. “When I asked Will Self if there’s anything that marks out artists from the rest of us, he recalled a remark made by the author Flannery O’ Connor to the effect that writers have to be ‘calculatedly stupid’.
“‘I can think of any number of people that are more perceptive than me, who have more learned and have more know-how,” said Self. “But what they aren’t is calculatedly stupid, in the sense that they are unable to preserve intact their ability to suspend disbelief. They can’t play, in the way that a child will build a den and say “This is my castle”. Writers can still do that. Creativity is just an advanced form of play, in which the normal rules of space and time are suspended.”

Essentially, the artist is the child that survived. “Every child is an artist,” quotes Leslie of Pablo Picasso. “The problem is how to remain an artist once we grow up.”

I re read that paragraph about Will Self many times. I liked it, and agreed with it. I do agree that when I write I go ‘somewhere else’. Into the zone, I call it, but really maybe I’m going to a dream or fantasy world where the sharp edges of reality no longer exist and I can disappear into an easier to deal with internal world. Some people do drugs, others drink or gamble, maybe even over-work or go to the gym every day. For me writing is my addiction. An addiction is something that distracts from an uncomfortable state of being. I remember as a teenager writing was something I did to escape. Now whenever Im having a bad day sometimes the only thing that helps me feel better is writing. If Im having an humdinger, after I’ve been to the cafe to work on my book, afterwards I usually feel a sense of inate peace – maybe similar to how a heroine addict feels after their fix! I don’t know. It is an escape. A suspended reality for me.  

This was where I found the book to be a conundrum. I wondered: as quite an honest person, do I make up for my lack of lying in real life by telling stories in the form of fiction? Do I just believe my own lies and therefore think I’m honest, but really I’m spinning my own fantasy of reality? What is reality (oh no my brain hurts!)

Children go through a phase where their lying peaks to an enormous level. To a place where they are just little walking, eating, sleeping, lying machines. They soon learn that they cannot continue at this level of lying if they want to be taken seriously. Like the boy who cried wolf, if they continue to lie, no one will believe a word out of their mouth ever again. To stay safe in the group, and cool with their peers – they need to become a tad honest again. Perhaps depending on how much you value being part of ‘the gang’ might reflect on how honest you choose to become. I know I always valued my friends highly, and would have paid a fairly high price (my enjoyment of lying) if it meant being a respected, accepted and loved member of my peer group. As a child at home, my biggest fear was always not being believed when something I was saying was actually true – like being locked away for a crime I didn’t commit when I was older! For this reason my strong sense of justice meant I began to tell the truth wherever possible. To never become that boy who called wolf. Honesty borne out of fear of being rejected from the herd perhaps?!

That isn’t to say, and I’m sure most people can identify with this, that I didn’t go through a phase (for me it was about 8 to 11 years old) where I wasn’t highly creative with the truth. I remember making up horrendously creative and extravagant lies and telling them to my friends in school, simply for entertainment value and literally to spice up the boring school day. They wouldn’t always be self serving to the point of having anything I didn’t have, like a helicopter. No, it might have been a terrible illness that I could die from tomorrow in a dramatic fashion. Or an imaginary boyfriend or love affair that never happened! Even a funny indicident that never happened but that would make people laugh anyway. One of my friends, had not a bad bone in her body (now an adult she is closer to what seems like happiness then most people I know, a girl in touch with nature and humour and realness who I envy for her relationship with the world around her). I told inumerable lies to her. She was my best friend of two best friends in the class. We were a three. And she believed every word out of my mouth… until she didn’t. We’re still friends that meet up once a year or so and she still teases me about the stories I made up. I suppose I was too young to reflect, back then, if my lies were upsetting anyone. Lies are innately selfish most of the time… but remember, its not a lie, if you’ve convinced yourself that its the truth!

Nowadays, I dislike lies told deliberately to hurt, manipulate or control others to their detriment. But at the end of the day its hard to classify, because all lies can hurt another person even when they’re not intentionally meant to serve that purpose. Which comes to asking why do lie hurt? Maybe lies hurt because they make us feel unsafe, outsmarted and generally stupid. They break trust, and without trust humans beings can’t feel truly safe… 

Perhaps its not the lie but the weight of the lie that is important to observe. We don’t care if our friend lies about what he or she had for dinner. But we probably do care if they lie about the fact that they’ve been having it off with our partner behind our backs. 

As Ian Leslie points out, the reason that most of us are honest most of the time is that we don’t feel comfortable with deceit. Most psychopaths are terrific liars. Psychopaths know right from wrong, but they don’t feel right from wrong.  Hence they don’t feel bad with decieving people like most of us do.

So in summation, lying… is it important? Yes. Could we survive without it? Definitely not.  

Most people have seen the film Liar Liar where a man, played by actor Jim Carrey is forced to live for a day without lying, making his job as a lawyer very difficult. Although hilarious, the film does make a valuable point that we need white lies to continue with our ordinary lives. 

In essence, lies are there to  help you rub along with people without arguments or offense. They are there to embellish truth with creative design and playful decorations; they’re there to get us out of sticky situations and most of all to save feelings. Self-deception and cognitive dissonance also stops us from going insane or losing the will to live, and it brings us joy. Lying is our free will. So is accepting deception as reality. We’re designed to absorb and believe illusions. 
Without lying, in my opinion, human beings would be colourless, dreary creatures devoid of freedom, choice and imagination. One dimensional and far too simple. To live in reality all the time would be grey, communication would simply be for earnest functionality and creativity would be non-existent.

“Lying is an accursed vice,” wrote the sixteenth century philospher Michel de Montaigne. But what he didn’t take into account was the thoughts of a world without it. Even in the bible, the author so astutely points out, it wasn’t Adam or Eve that was the liar… it was God.

I remember a time back in uni, about 5 or 6 years ago, when liking Banksy was mandatory around the place if you wanted to be cool. I was looking up some of his recent stuff today. I liked. I now share again through this medium of online blogsphere… For more of the below images go to www.banksy.co.uk

 
“My tap’s been phoned”…

Needless to say, my friend and I are perfect, we just haven’t met the right guys yet.
If I was a guy, I would definitely marry my best friend. The fact that, to date, no man has been able to see what a gem we have in our midst and snapped her up, is the biggest mystery to me ever. She has also mentioned on many occasions that any man who would let me go is obviously a complete fool. We may fill a mansion full of kittens one day when we’re 50 and move in together should it come to that…

As we come to the end of the year, I realise this year has been all about the ‘letting go’ of the dating books and the rules. Never have I learned so much about myself as this year, and especially in the dating sense.
“Why men marry bitches’, ‘He’s just not that into you’, ‘The Rules’… this list goes on of books ready to tell you how to play the game.

What I really want to do now is write a book called: “You know what… I actually don’t give a monkeys a**e. I’d rather be single.” It might be a bit long for the front cover, but whatever.
We as women, many of us, spend our whole lives trying to figure out what men want and what makes men happy and wondering whether he likes us! Do we ever stop to think – like, what about me in all of this?!!

This, worrying about what men want business starts as early as the playground… I remember sitting around with my friends who were pulling petals off daisies on the grass and chanting: he loves me, he loves me not…. he loves me, he loves me not…. he loves me, he loves me not… Is there any wonder I turned out the way I did? 

Then there was the inevitable arrival of girl talk, and writing the name of the boy we loved on the treehouse walls. Then it was the competition in the discos. I cant remember a point where I was encouraged to wonder whether I liked him – just to worry whether he liked me enough!

There was only one article recently that ‘spoke to me’. I think to be honest, that this article may be right. The thing is, I think some women do what this article advise instinctively, and other women don’t do it instinctively. I’m not even sure if its something you can learn, but I think it had a point.

It talks about how, when women start to really like a guy, they sometimes get insecure and start chasing him subconciously, hence driving him further and further away. It might not be in an obvious way, but its sort of like making herself really available, offering to do loads of things for the guy, acting needy etc (if you’re getting uncomfortable here, don’t worry, so did I… it was like realising you’d put the red sock in with the white sheets, that sinking feeling of oh yeah! I did that loads of times!) The article speaks about how when women fall into the chasing role, they lose their ‘feminine energy’ which makes them so attractive at the beginning and start to have more ‘masculine energy’ (and its not talking about cutting your hair short or wearing trousers… trust me… I manage to be very good at the old chasing role when Im wearing a skirt or a pretty dress…)

Ever see those girls who are always in really long relationships with a guy who is still mad about them? Look at how they act. You can be sure they’re not acting needy, insecure, over-bothered, or doing any of the chasing. Remember reading Sweet Valley Twins back in the 90s? Did Elizabeth constantly check her phone and worry whether Todd was going to text back or come over later to help her study? No, she was like “Im a hot blonde girl, albeit the boring twin, but he totally can’t even touch this!”

So my advice: 1 – Dont subconciously chase/go for the men who from the very beginning are the bad boys and just not that into you cos likelihood they wont change! 2 – Dont wonder or overanalyse why a guy likes you, if he does he does – its cos you’re frikkin amazing! 3 – Learn who you are and to truly love yourself without a man. Stop always trying to please people. Let them accept you for who you are, all of your glorious self!!

These are only my on tips coming off the top of my head.  In short, its not about acting, or trying to be someone you are not, its about finding who you are  – calm, fiesty, shy, sexy, or outspoken – and embracing that woman. After all, its you that he falls in love with and stays in love with!

I know I’d rather be weird, crazy me that scares him off – then the boring bitch that he ‘wants to marry’!

Ah things… material possessions…. you have to love them. Needless, silly, lovely things. Things that surround you in that warm glow of enduring contentment making you feel all special and worthy and great about life. Yes, things.  
“Things” don’t really bother me for the most part. And I’m sorry to make this into a personal column, but it is a blog after all - I have to say, I am good at saving money for this reason. That is… until I have a bit more of it then I’m used to. Then it burns a hole in my pocket and I go all lavish and strange. As if a shopping monster has entered my being and taken over. A shopping zombie if you will. Shopping zombie Sinead has no limit… she sees no price tag. Tis all attainable in her eyes…

It was this evening when one such strange and random occurence happened as I was waiting in Dundrum shopping centre for one of my best friends who I was meeting for our Christmas meetup dinner. I left the carpark and innocently decided I might peruse Penny’s for a skirt, and then in the space of half an hour I managed to spend 65 euro. And not even all in the one shop either.

Thats why tonight I blame THREE FOR TWO.
Three for two… whaaaaat a load of baloney. I only went in there for black eyeshadow and then I came out with 35 euros worth of make up in a massive bag! All because of a little chain pharmacy named Boots!
Black eyeshadow indeed. The last one fell out of my bag at my xmas work party a few days ago along with my brand new Samsung phone that I had treat myself to after making do with a rubbish one for months. (I must have been hammered. But I did manage not to embarrass myself spectularly by not snogging anyone at both of the xmas parties I attended (not for lack of trying!) (I am now back using the rubbish phone again, joy of joys!) 

So I went in… found the make up section. Maybelline had a three for two offer on. Oh hello, black eyeshadow… just €6.99… but three for two? Well I do definitely need some new mascara! So if I get the new mascara, and the black eyeshadow, then you’re saying I can have another thing – FREE?!! COMPLETELY FREE?!! 
So I pick a mascara… The thing about mascara is… Theyre all the same really. I mean okay, Yves Sans Lauren isn’t the same as Boots own brand, but most of them are pretty similar. They just give themselves extravagant names. Its between Volum’ (they remove the E for no reason in particular, just maybe to make peoples spelling worse and sound more French)  Express Mascara, The Colossal Cat Eyes Affect – which promises me, wait for it, “Colossal Lashes Go Feline” and a “Full Fan of Wild Volume”. It has a collegen enriched formula too, apparently. I dont need to worry, I have naturally quite long eyelashes… I don’t have a size issue, Maybelline… I mean come on. You’re not marketing penile extensions to men! The other choice is – The Falsies Black Drama Mascara (Note: I have enough drama in my life without this mascara), which as the name belies, basically is meant to make you look like you’re wearing false eyelashes it is so good. The other choice is Volum’ Express One By One Mascara – A Fierce Look with up to 7 times more volume. SEVEN TIMES?! How the hell is this possible. If it has seven times more volume, are your eyeballs meant to end up resembling a camel? And how do they prove its seven times? Who picked this ridiculous number out of the air and who measured someones eyelashes with a ruler to discover: “Yes, seven times… its seven… we thought it might be five, or maybe even ten… but no… 6.98 times longer which we can just write as seven if you want…” 
I picked the first one. I’ve always wanted to be a cat. So I needed a third. That was when I discovered Silk Glam by Eyestudio. Four eyeshadows ranging from a pale golden colour to a warm, browny dark gold. The dark gold looked gorgeous on my eyes. It reminded me of a gold colour I found in Sephora in New York three years ago. My eyes suit browns and golds and greens as I have hazel eyes and a sort of pale yet tannable skin with no freckles (I used to want freckles so badly when I was a kid). So yeah, I fell in love with the dark gold so I had to get the whole palate. This would be my third thing. But then… oh then… I spotted Maybelline Intense Green. At this point I was distracted by a crazed woman talking about mousse make up and the sand colour, and in my mind I got an image of an arab carrying a bag of sand, on a giant moose coming into Boots and pouring a load of sand on the floor for her. My imagination is worrying sometimes. Anyway so I tried the Intense Green, which was bright and wonderful and lovely. It was perfect – just perfect. It was exactly like the green I found that time in Sephoria three years ago in New York, on the same day I found that beautiful gold colour, it made my eyes pop out and look amazing.
And my eyes my only real nice thing, apart from my wonderful pair of personalities, so I need to make the best of them. But then Im in a quandry. You can’t buy four things in a three for two sale. Its just plain wrong. It would upset the balance… no I couldn’t buy four. It was three or six. Or nothing. So I start thinking… well I mean, technically… if I get six, Im only paying for four. And I do really need new make-up. And for a few weeks now I’ve been doing without matt powder to go over my foundation when I go all shiny… since I lost my other Mac one (only piece of Mac make up I owned, present from a make up loving friend… and yes, also lost on a drunken night out, and yes, I was indeed hammered again).  I realise Maybelline do a lovely similar verison called “Dream Matter Powder” which I get in ”Rose Ivory”. So then I have five… the next thing is free. But I realise I now, categorically, do not need or want anything else. I mean, Im not a nail varnish girl. I have eyeliner, two in fact at home… and I dont need liquid eyeliner cos I never use it… I dont even wear lipstick cos it looks stupid on me… but lip gloss. Light, friendly, youthful lip-gloss suits everyone and it smells good, right?! So I get Colour Sensation Lucious Lipgloss in Freshly Sliced flavour. I’ve just realised I SOUND like I am marketing for them. Don’t worry. I am not. Im accusing them of THREE FOR TWOING ME! Emotional, three for two blackmail of the highest order!
Apart from the fact that my hand now resembles a clown from all of the make up all over it, I get to the till and get the shock of my life. 35 yoyo pleethe, says the Chinese girl with a tired look in her face. She’s probably seen hundreds of suckers like me already. Endured thousands of 3 for 2 gift buyers, buying a load of over-priced crap (honestly check out some of it) for people who dont need or want it just because they think they’re getting the third one free.  
I am happy though. I like my new make up.
I then went to Bershka and saw an awesome pair of figure hugging trousers in orange and decided to buy them. After wearing skirts basically for the last six months because I suddenly hated how I looked in jeans, I could do with a pair of trousers that are actually cool and look good on me, I realised.
As I was paying my phone rang. “I’m nearby, where are you?!” Says my friend…
Buying tings. I think. Lovely, tings…

A bit more fiction for my blog… cripes. ”What happened to the sex in the city vibe??” you might wonder… well if you must know, this poncy fiction thing is actually where its at for me…  
I wrote this piece to submit to the ole Irish Times… heaven knows if they’ll publish it. The only thing I ever had published in that paper was a letter that I wrote to them when I was ten, and even then they only probably published it because I was ten. 
I called this story this name, because ‘pan’ means bread and ‘con’ means with…  and companion means ‘with bread’ in Latin… and blah de blah etc etc.

With Bread

It was a white Christmas in the end. The first one in years, they said.
All the weathermen and the newsmen advised – stay by the fire.
But here I was – rigged to the beam-lit bench, with frozen toes and a ridiculous bobble hat, gazing at my over-sized mittens clutching the basket of cold sandwiches.
The cling film was wrapped tight around the curling crusts, compressing the cranberries into the turkey and stuffing.
Outside the best restaurant in town they now looked as incongruous and pathetic as dead flies; as the smell of lemongrass blew languorously out the door in a hot steam, disappearing into the night.
“Are you going to have one of these?”
I had to ask. After all, it had been a struggle to drag myself away from the laughter, silly jokes and the annual game of trivial pursuit. 
Beside me, your mendicant breath made a foggy cloud, your heel scuffed back and you blew into your frosty mittens.
Then your voice came, as cutting and decisive as a whip through the frozen air.
“No thanks,” you said.
At that moment a jay-walking, tight jeaned teen crossed the road, and entered the restaurant.
She passed the crib glowing in the corner by the door. I noticed the sheep was replaced with a dog and the halo was crooked.
The long-limbed tawny youth dove into a gaggle of girls and they hugged and squealed so loud it echoed out into the empty street.
In the distance, an empty paint can clanked down the edge of the Liffey with a hollow sound.
Approaching the door with a Barbie-like woman at least 30 years his junior came a pointed newt of a man. His skinny turtle neck bowed and followed her as she teetered through the doors, his walking stick prodding the ground like it was wet bogland. The doors swished to a shut.
Inside, a waiter pulled aside a gold rope and stuck on a smile.
“Iron falsities,” you summated, raising an irate brow.
The click of your zippo. A warm swish of a flame. The sound of a cigarette being puffed to exhale. The smoky scent.
A new shoed family clicked by like the front of a brochure, with the children in coats buttoned to the neck, knitted tights and white toothed laughter floating behind them like a dream. 
The clock struck 6. Its chimes evaporated into a city that seemed suddenly, to be holding its breath.
I looked back over.
Your lips were pulled into a grimace.
“You don’t have to sit with me you know,” you said uncomfortably, not meeting my eye.
“I mean, it’s Christmas,” you added gruffly.
“Don’t you have some place to be?”
We stared at the couple leaning in to kiss, in the window. The man put his hand on her face. The sparkle mirror ball twirled and a disingenuous waiter, with perfect white cuffs, brought over a consortium of cheeses.
“Not really,” I said softly.
“I can stay another while.”

Whether it’s the over-cooked Brussels sprouts that you were forced to eat as a kid or the raisins in the pudding that made you sick one Christmas – it seems it’s a common Irish trait to avoid certain foods like the plague.  “Offal is definitely something people tend to avoid,” said Gareth Roache, chef at Darwins restaurant, Dublin 2.  “Chilled soup would be another thing Irish people tend to hate. They don’t like to go for anything too adventurous!”

But, Gerard Carthy from Taste of Ireland, says in his opinion Irish people might be taking their food aversions one step too far – avoiding food they haven’t even tried yet.  “Here in Ireland we are rubbish when it comes to eating anything that isn’t steak. Put tongue in front of an Irish person and they simply freak out, yet it’s a staple in places like Spain or Italy.  “When it comes to fish – if it’s not cod, it’s trying to kill you and should be avoided at all costs! We will eat cod, occasionally a salmon. As a result, much of the fish caught off the coast of Ireland such as mackerel which we have tons of and razor clams have to be exported.” But don’t worry if you’re a ‘play-it-safe’ eater – from the extravagant oyster right down to the modest aubergine, even our favourite Irish celebrity chefs, have foods they simply can’t bear to see put on their plate…

Oliver Dunne, Chef and owner of the Michelin star restaurant Bon Appétit in Malahide, Co Dublin.

 Boiled Eggs

“I just think they’re repulsive. When I was a child my mum used to mash them in a cup and force feed me! To this day I can’t eat them. And the other one is oysters, I don’t like the texture. People say they’re an aphrodisiac but I wouldn’t eat them for love nor money!”

Nick Munier, Co-owner of Pichet restaurant in Dublin’s Trinity Lane. Presenter of Masterchef Ireland, alongside Dylan McGrath

Aubergines

“I just never liked the texture and I never understood why they would be part of a dish. They used to call it aubergine caviar, in the oak room when I worked for Marco; it’s like a puree of aubergine that enhances the fish. I never got it because I find aubergines quite bland. That would be my pet hate. Another one I don’t like is parsnips, my mum used to disguise them as roast potatoes for Sunday lunch and I’d be like – oh no!”

Patrick Guilbaud, Chef and proprietor of that country’s most award winning restaurant, the Restaurant Patrick Guilbaud

Smoked Haddock

“I just don’t like it. My mum made me eat it when I was a young kid and I just didn’t like it!”

Rachel Allen, TV Chef, Cook and Author

Marmite

“I‘ve just never liked it. I know loads of people love it, my dad likes it, and I’ve tried but I can’t!”

Ross Lewis Irish Michelin star winning head chef and co-owner of the restaurant Chapter One in Dublin. 

Drisheen

“Made from pigs blood and spices; it’s got a very chalky texture. It’s a real Cork dish and I shouldn’t be saying that because I’m from Cork but it’s the only thing I’ve ever eaten that I didn’t like, and I’ve eaten plenty of very diverse things! That and Humble Pie – they’re the only thing I don’t eat!”

Derry Clarke, Chef, reality TV judge and proprietor of the restaurant L’Ecrivain. 

Caraway Seeds

“Caraway seeds, because of the taste. Bad food. And big portions, I can’t stand big portions, less is definitely more!”

Kevin Dundon, Chef, TV personality and author. Chef and Proprietor of Dunbrody Country House Hotel & Restaurant.

Nutmeg

“Its something about the smell, it’s very perfumed and pungent. I can smell it as soon as I walk into a kitchen. If someone puts nutmeg into mashed potato or spinach, it can overpower the whole thing. For me it just turns me off the whole plate. The other dish I don’t like is gratin potatoes. I put it in the same boat as creamy pasta sauce – I find as soon as I have one mouthful, I get full straight away.”

Dylan McGrath, Chef. Owner of ‘Rustic Stone Restaurant by Dylan McGrath’ and presenter of Masterchef Ireland, alongside Nick Munier. 

Spinach

“Spinach. I just find it a very lazy ingredient. A lot of chefs rely on spinach. It’s not that nice and it doesn’t really do anything for me, so I don’t use it that much. I find it’s just a ‘filler-in’ vegetable.”

Catherine Fulvio, TV Chef, food writer and cookery tutor. Catherine Fulvio, runs Ballyknocken Cookery School and Ballyknocken House.

Avocado Panna Cotta 

 “The modification panna cotta! It’s quite an American thing to do but I think how they play around with panna cotta and make it savoury rather than dessert, I find it very unpalatable. In America you can get a buttermilk squash, panna cotta, avocado panna cotta and the likes – panna cotta is a delicious dessert, let’s just keep it that way!”

Everyone has their favourite Christmas songs.  There are a few that always get me in the festive mood every yuletide.
So I’m going to start this busy December day by taking five minutes out to recognise my guilty top three…

1. Chris Rea -Driving home for Christmas – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=czhZbqpyBm8&ob=av2n

Because it represents what Christmas is about – spending time with the people you love, and getting home no matter what!

2. East 17 – Stay Another Day – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-BXR5dgRmO0

This is a really embarrassing one to like, but I was a kid in the 90s!

3. Frankie Goes to Hollywood – The Power of love http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ShN8UIk5-mw

I don’t know why I like this one – probably because its not to sickly and sweet!

Hope everyone has a great Christmas this year!

P.S I may also like to add Seal – Kiss from a Rose as my fourth because it reminds me of being 10 years old and hearing it on a wintery, snowy Christmas afternoon! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AMD2TwRvuoU

This is the first tiny part of my as of yet, unpublished book! All I can reveal for now, without revealing my plot to potential lurking online plot thiefs is that it is a mystery/thriller about a woman whose child has just died, which will keep you guessing all the way until the end!

I first remember being visited by one of the strangers in the Irish Life centre on Talbot Lane– I don’t remember the date but I clearly remember it was autumn because of the brown and orange leaves which flickered like dead butterflies everywhere; settling like cardboard mulch all over the slippy marble tiles.
Your memory had already left the bed cold at 6.30am, without reaching over to touch my lips with yours. The door slammed behind you and I awoke with a start after three hours of fitful sleep, soaked in sweat once again, to an empty bedsit full of lavish belongings – glowering clowns, stoic teddy bears, a bashful rabbit and a dolls house with tiny, formica figurines inside. A mummy, a daddy and  baby  with their cheeks in forced, pulled out beaver smiles, like one of those mouth openers at the dentist had been stuck between their painted lips. They were sat at a dinner table, in front of fake food and in front of a tiny two inch Picasso painting, pinned inside with a thumb tack. It was a time warp, where it said forever 6 o clock.
Before, I used to always wonder what type of dingbats read those patronising self-help articles about why you should get out of bed at 6am, or eat less junk food, or take up aqua aerobics. Why did everyone always want to be slimmer, prettier and happier? Why couldn’t they be happy just to be?
Outside the high-viz workmen drilled into the ground. A bell chimed from the local church. I briefly mused over why people said the sorts of cliched things like “a day you’d be happy to be alive”.
Since Robin had gone not one hour had passed where I had been happy to be alive. All around the world people fell ten pin skittles and here I was greedily drawing breath like it was as endless as the grains of sand in a dessert. Waiting for something to happen to make life more palatable, but nothing ever came. 

Although I have spent hundreds and hundreds of hours working on this book, and still have hundreds leIt as I am only half to three quarters of the way through (I obviously have the whole thing written in my head already it just needs transfering to paper!) I haven’t let anyone read it as I think its bad luck… Plus there is the actual terror that everyone will hate it when its done!

Really hope I can get it published when it is done soon!!!