Views from the arse end

So, there’s no getting away from it. You’ve decided you have a big butt. It’s so large, it’s a barge. It is so huge, there’s a construction crew building a hotel down there. It’s so enormous, you can see it with the naked eye from the moon.

So, what do you do? Do decide to give up Clinkers, jelly slice and chicken and camembert party pies? Do you vow to spend every free waking moment at the gym?

Not likely.

What you probably do is try to cheat your way to a smaller arse. (Go on, tell me I’m wrong.)

You wear clothes to minimise your gluteus maximus. You avoid lycra at all costs. You try not to bend over when there’s an audience. And when anyone suggests swimming, you claim an allergy to water.

Newsflash: here are seven butt-minimising tricks that SOOO do not work. So, give them up, okay?

1. Wearing long cardigans
Yes, when you look in the mirror in the morning, your cardigan forms a nice loose curtain over your tush. But as soon as you move, the friction causes your cardigan to cling to your cheeks, thus accentuating your posterior, rather than hiding it.

2. Tying your jumper round your waist
This just murders any waist definition you may have and the fabric adds an inch to your butt.

3. Wearing light colours
Black clothing camouflages shadows and this makes you look thinner. Okay, your butt’s silhouette will be visible but from the back, your rear will look smaller if you do the black thing. (See also, point 3.)

4. Wearing patterns
Some muppet came up with a theory that checks, florals and paisleys are so busy they disguise your derriere. Yeah, right. Patterns actually add kilos. And horizontal stripes add tonnes The only pattern your should remotely consider is vertical stripes.

5. Wearing high heels
They might make your legs look longer and shapelier but even low heels will make you stand up straighter and push your butt out, making it seem more prominent. It’s ballet flats all the way.

6. Distracting with bling
Glitter tirmmed pockets, sprawling script and anything at all with sequins do not belong anywhere in the vicinity of a less than miniscule derriere.

And the big one...

7. Wearing jeans
I'll give you the tip: anything other than dark, perfectly fitting low rise bootlegs or flares makes your butt look even bigger than it is. I know you would probably rather chew glass than try jeans on, but it must be done. Too tight or too loose and your jeans will not contribute to the small bum cause. High waisted jeans just make butts look longer and wider than they are (but don't buy them so low that you flash your bum crack every time you drop your pen). And if you really have to wear skinny jeans, make sure you wear chunky boots to balance out your shape. Forget stonewash or other light coloured jeans – besides the fact that they are totally last century, they make your bum cheeks look like a couple of hot air balloons.


If you’re dead set hell bent on butt minimisation, for goodness’ sake, do it properly.

But do you know what? Your butt probably isn’t that big anyway. Ask any man, he’ll tell you.

Image: Francesco Marino

12 things you'll never read in a Mills & Boon

Mills & Boon was founded by Gerald Rusgrove Mills and Charles Boon in 1908 as a general fiction publisher. They started focusing on romances in the 1930s.

The company has been criticised for repeating plots, the inevitability of their happy endings and a simple writing style, but fans say predictability is a drawcard.

Here’s how a typical M&B goes: a rich, gorgeous, aristocratic and initially unattainable guy (probably Greek) takes advantage of a stunning but poor ingénue. Upon discovering her practically inevitable pregnancy, she runs away from his cold domination to have the baby in secret. He finds out about the child, whisks her (and the child) off to a palatial prison against her will, keeping her locked up until she sees the error of her ways and admits her undying love for him. Pretty realistic, huh?

In any case, here are some things you will never find in a Mills & Boon:

1. 'Oh, Bruiser,' she sighed, 'I just adore a guy with love handles, a beer gut and man boobs.'

2. JD sat in the truck listening to heavy metal, smoking and picking his nose so intently, he nearly set his eyebrows on fire.

3. 'For heaven’s sake, Roxxy, can’t we just do it the normal way in a normal bed? Why does it always have to be on the deck of an opulent yacht, beside a sparkling waterfall or in a magical forest glade?'

4. As she lay, paralytic, on his bathroom floor, he weighed up the bottle of Stones she’d knocked off against the tarty skirt she wore and the condoms he'd found when he riffled through her purse. 'Hey babe, how about it?' he asked and decided her grunt was close enough to consent.

5. 'Sorry, Bubba,' she said, tears glistening in her eyes, 'I can’t give you the precious gift of my virginity tonight. I'm on my rags.'

6. He dropped to one knee and opened the tiny velvet box. He took great satisfaction in her gasp of surprise and delight. Peggy Sue was butt ugly but she owned the adjoining ranch and he wanted the property.

7. 'Oh, Bambi, you look so beautiful tonight – and so does your friend. How about a ménage à trois?'

8. Oh my god, she thought, I'm about to kiss my boss. Then she figured if he didn't come through with a large, glittering rock, she could always sue him for sexual harrassment.

9. She felt hot, sexy and ready to get down and dirty as she posed provocatively before him in nothing but her stretched and faded Kmart undies.

10. Gently, Lucille shook Ronald awake and whispered to him that she thought there was someone in the house. 'An intruder is here?' he said, 'I’m a bit scared. Let’s call the police.'

11. Gloria finger-combed her armpit hair, twirled her tongue piercing and yanked on her mumblers. Tonight, she was gonna find her a man.

12. Duane licked his lips and met the sexy smoldering gaze head on and said, 'Give it to me, cowboy.'

If you don’t sleep, you die

Dragging my butt out of bed this morning was a challenge on the scale of rescuing those Chilean miners. Singlehandedly. With nothing but a piece of string and a butter knife. I’m just not getting enough sleep.

Should I just shrug?

I decided to find out.

It turns out that sleep deprivation causes more than just crankiness around the breakfast table and a dire need for caffeine.

Apart from the usual suspects like balancing your hormones, managing your stress, improving your memory and keeping your weight under control, here are the top seven reasons you need shut-eye:

1. Studies show women need an hour more sleep each night than men - and not getting it may be one reason women are much more susceptible than men are to depression. If you're a chick, you need enough sleep, so that when a man leaves the milk on the bench or the totthpaste uncapped, you don’t put a chainsaw through his head and end up in prison for the rest of your life.

2. A duck can keep one half of its brain awake while the other slips into sleep mode. Most people are not that talented (though, some of my colleagues make me wonder if they have perhaps inherited a stray duck gene). The NRMA estimates fatigue is a factor in one in six fatal car crashes. Indeed, the extra-hour of sleep we receive when clocks are put back for daylight savings coincides with a drop in crashes. I don’t know about you, but I don’t think I’d make the fashion pages wearing a windscreen.

3. A snail can sleep for three years. You probably don’t need to sleep for that long but after being awake for 17 hours straight, your performance decreases to a level equal to a blood alcohol-level of 0.05%. If you're seeking stupefaction, drink a nice Jansz. It’s quicker and it tastes good.

4. After five nights of partial sleep deprivation, three drinks will have the same effect on your body as six would when you've slept enough. Sure, you’ll save money at the bottleshop but by the time the party gets started, you'll be snoring and drooling on the couch.

5. Missing even half an hour of sleep every night adds up to an impressive sleep debt of 182.5 hours per year. Next time you tell yourself you can get by, stop and consider just how big your sleep debt is. Note: red bull and power naps are not short-cuts to paying this debt.

6. Ants don't sleep but you need to. You would die from total lack of sleep sooner than from starvation. You can manage about 10 days without sleep, while starvation takes a few weeks. Hunger strikes are a bit passé, so maybe people could trial sleep strikes to make their political points – at least they wouldn’t have to give up toasted sangers or oreo McFlurries during their protests.

7. The 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill off Alaska, the Challenger space shuttle disaster and the Chernobyl nuclear accident have all been attributed to human errors in which sleep deprivation played a role. I know everyone wants their 15 minutes of fame but there are probably better ways to get it – like chucking out your spouse's winning lotto ticket, shooting yourself by mistake or having octupulets.

Image: Ioana Grecu

Just the way you are

Call me a crusty old cynic but the Bruno Mars song, Just the way you are, is a complete crock.

In case you haven’t heard it, Bruno thinks his girlfriend’s got a bit of a self-esteem issue, so when she wants to know if she looks all right, he launches in to an effusive litany of saccharine praise to boost her fragile sense of self-worth.

HIonestly, if he did this in real life, she’d think he was being sarcastic, wonder if he crashed the car on his way home from the pub last night and was working up to telling her, or this would happen:

Girl – Do I look okay?

Bruno –When I see your face, there's not a thing that I would change, ‘cause you're amazing just the way you are. And when you smile, the whole world stops and stares for a while, ‘cause, girl, you're amazing just the way you are.

Girl – Tosser.

Guys, while on the one hand telling your lady her bum does indeed look fat in that outfit falls in to the category of assisted suicide, blurting out a whole catalogue of her strong points makes you look a) facetious, b) guilty or c) lame.

Go for the middle ground. Tell her she looks great the three times she asks (Is this okay? Really? Are you sure?) and move on.

Image: graur codrin

The Monstress Shonky Awards 2010

Choice is once again naming and shaming shonky companies.

Among the bodgiest rip-off merchants and scam artists is Nurofen. It sells separate pain killers specifically labelled and promoted for back pain, migraine, period pain and a whole raft of other ailments. However, except for the packaging, all of these products are identical.

Coles also blips the Choice dodgyometer for its promotion that claims four people can be fed for less than $10. The catch is, you already need to have some of the ingredients for the dish in your kitchen. The items that Coles assumes you just happen to have on hand aren't included in the price. One ingredient you're likely to keep handy, according to Coles, is three quarters of a bottle of wine. If you add this to the $7.76 Coq au vin, it would actually cost more like thirty bucks.

The Monstress Shonky Awards 2010

I reckon [a HUGE phone retailer] ought to get a placing in the awards. This company told me if I ever wanted to add a phone to my plan, under the terms of the arrangement, they would contribute to the cost of the phone. The company promptly discontinued the plan without telling me. When I went to their store to purchase a phone, they said that because the plan no longer existed, I had to pay full price for it. The cost to me was up something like 57% and I received not so much as an ‘Oops, sorry’. Charming.

Another contender would be [an optometrist] who told me he had no problem with completing the forms so my employer would reimburse a (significant) percentage of the cost of my glasses. The forms indicated that the glasses were largely for work-related purposes. But after I ordered, paid for and collected the top-of-the-range specs, the optometrist changed his mind and would not sign the forms, after all. This is top of mind because he recently had the audacity to send me a reminder that my next eye test is due. Some people have no shame.

A third contender is [one of the better known jeans retailers]. Their self-branded jeans fit perfectly in the shop but transform forever in to sloppy, shapeless sacks after a single wash. What's worse is that this store's pricing structure encourages you to buy two pairs of the wretched things, so you get double the eternally flaccid leg bags. Not cool.

Is there anyone you want to nominate for The Monstress Shonky Awards?

(Check out the Choice Shonky Awards at http://www.choice.com.au/)

*GUEST POST* The conundrum that is ‘fine’

When the Big White Steed begged to be allowed a chance to post on The Monstress, I said, 'fine' and this alleged insight in to woman-speak is what he came up with for his post. Sometimes being a muse is overrated.

When a man hears a woman say the word ‘fine’, he should exhibit extreme caution (leaving the room/house/country is a definite option).

The meanings of ‘fine’ exist on a continuum. They range from ‘I’m in the middle of an orgasm and if you stop doing what you’re doing, I’ll rip your throat out’ to ‘You’re breathing, I'll rip your throat out’.

Between these two extremes are numerous finely nuanced gradations.

Very rarely, a man is caught completely by surprise when a woman says that something is ‘fine’ and actually means it is fine. In these moments, a man can actually understand a woman – assuming he recognises the ‘fine’ as the genuine article and isn’t distracted by his imminent sprint for the hills.

If he does notice the real, true and authentic ‘fine’, he should treasure the moment of its utterance for its exquisite rarity – and try not to be too afraid.

Image: Dariusz Urbanczyk (and messed with by The Monstress)

The Amazing Spandex Room

How stupid do real estate agents think we are?

Once upon a time, all we had to contend with was predictable, ridiculous but fairly transparent real estate speak:

• renovator’s delight – do you know a good arsonist? This placed needs to be gutted and rebuilt
• original features – think gold suede wallpaper, this place hasn’t been updated since 1973
• cosy – so small that if you walk too fast, you’ll bump in to yourself
• spectacular view – if you stand on the coffee table and crane your neck around the high rise next door
• efficiency kitchen – I hope you like takeaway.

But with the advent of the internet, there’s a new wave of real estate traps to look out for. My pet peeve is the trick I’ll call the Amazing Spandex Room.

A fifth grader can stretch a photo of a room to make it look more spacious (and they could probably do a more convincing job than many real estate agents).

Do real estate agents believe viewers don’t notice if standard doorways look so wide they could accommodate a trio of sumo wrestlers, side by side? Do they think their audience doesn’t know that your average bath can not comfortably contain a full grown crocodile, tail and all? Do they figure we don’t observe that in real life, paperbacks lying on a shelf are not the length of roadtrains?

And if an internet researcher somehow overlooks the flagrant inaccuracies portrayed in the outrageously doctored photographs, do these agents not suspect that a potential buyer might be somewhat surprised and disappointed by the actual proportions of the room upon real life inspection (or, if interstate or overseas, by the dimensions on the plans)?

Disappointed is probably not the ultimate state of mind for your prospect to be in when you are trying to encourage them to part with half a million dollars...

...Unless you’re about to launch in to bait and switch tactics, which I wouldn’t put past some of these dirt merchants, and which is a whole other blog post.