Nailed

One of the many things I don’t understand about women is how they treat their fingernails and toenails. The thought of applying paint to my nails is as abhorrent to me as is the thought of plucking out all of the hairs in my eyebrows and then painting them back in.

It’s utter craziness.

Granted, as painful as plucking or waxing eyebrows is, applying a bright colourful load of goo to your nails seems painless by comparison.

Yet women still feel the need to do it.

So why am I talking about painting nails? Allow me to tell you.

Yesterday we made the short trip to the city of Chester to watch horse racing and gamble responsibly along with around 20,000 other people. This particular event was slightly different because it was Ladies Day. What that means I don’t know really, other than perhaps an attempt to entice members of the fairer sex to lose their money alongside their male chumps.

What I do know is that every single woman there made an extra special attempt to beautify themselves, spending more money on that than the entrance fee and amount they would lose on the horses combined.

There were eight of us, four men and four women. The men all wore jackets and ties and that was it. My preparation for the event was to dust off one of my two suits (the non-penguin one) and iron my white shirt. It took all of ten minutes in total and most of that was ironing the damned shirt.

Mrs PM on the other hand spent weeks preparing for this event. After two failed trips to buy a new dress, she finally managed to choose a superb, if not expensive one that made her look lovely. She also agonised over matching shoes and a new bag and eventually bought those as well. Last week she went looking for a fascinator. I didn’t even know what a fascinator was and I had to ask my good friend, Mr Google to assist.

Here’s an example of a fascinator:

Why they are called fascinators is beyond me.

While shopping for this, she spotted another dress that she preferred and bought that instead, returning the original dress a couple of days later. Worse, she couldn’t find a suitable fascinator and had to order one online. Worse still, she had to also return the bag and shoes she bought because they didn’t go with the new dress. And of course she had to hunt for replacements.

Had I been involved in all of this trauma, I think I might have torn all of my hair out in frustration but I made it quite clear from the offset that this was her problem and her problem alone and I would rather extract each hair on my body with a blowtorch than make numerous trips to women’s clothing shops waiting outside the changing rooms like a total muppet as I watched my will to live erode.

Thankfully, Mrs PM (and indeed all women as far as I can tell) are used to this crazy way of preparing for events and having spent most of her life in changing rooms trying on clothes that either don’t fit or she doesn’t like and her stamina is unbreakable.

The final touches for this event were painting her nails. Naively, I thought this meant buying a bottle of goo and painting it on her fingernails.

When she explained what was going to happen, I gaped like a lunatic.

“Two hours? TWO PHARKING HOURS to get your nails done?”  I said incredulously.

“Yes,” she declared. “They have to look perfect.”

Basically, she was going to pay money to a beautician to apply multiple layers of goo to her nails that would take two hours to complete and cost 55 English pounds.

“55 quid?” I gaped, amazed at how much more shocking that was. “Why don’t you set fire to the notes? It will be quicker and less of a waste of money.”

I was slapped for that one.

This traumatic experience is not as easy as it sounds. I’ve looked this up.

First you have to have your nails prepared which means cutting them, filing them and deciding what shape to have them. Surely the answer to that is “nail shaped”!

Next you have to remove your cuticles. I misread this at first and winced before I realised that women don’t have what I thought had to be removed. Apparently cuticles are dead skin at the base of your nails and you use a funny shaped stick to do the revolting deed.

At this point you can start painting. But this is not just a simple job; you have to apply a base layer and wait for it to dry for longer than it says on the tin. And then you have to apply two more thin layers, drying each of them under a UV lamp for two to three minutes – a pharking UV lamp!!

And that’s not all because after that, you have to apply yet another layer and zap that under a UV lamp for the same length of time.

Finally, this fiasco is completed by removing imperfections and applying a weird cuticle oil.



Mrs PM had this done to twenty nails – ten fingernails and ten toenails.

I never knew any of this and I am totally flabbergasted.

Of course, the worst thing is that this amazing artwork is only guaranteed to last two weeks when, presumably, keen women will want to return to the beautician to throw away another £55 and waste two more hours of their lives.

Mrs PM’s nails were and are wonderful (I have to say this, lest I have my cuticles removed with a rusty saw) and so did her three friends. In their case, the nails were decorated with patterns that must of (a) cost even more money and (b) taken much longer.

Of course, their nails were and are wonderful  too (I have to say this, lest I have the remaining parts of my anatomy removed with the same rusty saw).

In conclusion, I can only say two things.

First, I am no closer to understanding women.

Finally, I am so, so, so glad that I am a man.

Confessions of a Shopaphobe

I am a shopaphobe, if such a word exists. If it doesn’t then it ought to - and I want it to be added to the Oxford English Dictionary immediately, with the following definition:

A person for whom shopping is a complete nightmare.

Whenever I hear or read about people wanting to improve their mood through retail therapy, I want to scream in anguish on their behalf.

There is no such thing as retail therapy; there is only retail trauma!

If I were feeling low and depressed, the last thing I would do is head off to Manchester city centre or the Trafford Centre in order to combat my dark mood. Such a trip would almost certainly push me over the edge and you would find me sitting cross-legged in the car park rocking backwards and forwards while chanting something incoherent about shopping malls from Hell.

I hate shopping.

I have always hated shopping.

I think I always will hate shopping.

If you are a shopaholic, you may be reading this and shaking your head in disbelief, asking yourself how retail therapy can be rebadged as retail trauma by an idiotic old fool in Manchester.

Allow me to explain:

Shops are generally overcrowded.

Whenever I head towards the city centre or the Trafford Centre, our local piece of Hell, I suddenly become aware that I am becoming increasingly agitated. I am reminded of a Star Trek episode from the original series called The Mark of Gideon, in which Captain Kirk finds himself on a planet that is so overcrowded that there is absolutely no privacy and nowhere free of huge throngs of people, eternally crushed against each other.

Captain Kirk's view of the Trafford Centre

You have to queue for changing rooms, queue to pay, even queue to browse for books and CDs. The staff are run off their feet and seem to be in a constant state of flux, darting around with three pairs of shoes for three separate customers to try on, or struggling to answer questions from around six people about the latest smart TV’s.

I am not claustrophobic at all, but in places like the Trafford Centre on a Saturday afternoon, I find myself fighting to escape. The shops are full but so is the shopping mall itself. There is no escape – except to fight your way out of the place and breathe in precious oxygen in the inevitable rainstorm outside.

I can be indecisive.

Such is my hatred of shopping that I have to decide exactly what I want to buy before I embark upon my trip to the shopping mall from Hell. I have a plan etched into my mind; I know exactly what I want, in which colour and from which shop.

The problem is that when I get there, I find myself changing my mind, particularly if I see something similar that may be slightly more appealing or even better. I am then torn and end up wandering around looking for other alternatives, possibly at a cheaper price. Basically my plan crumbles quicker than badly built skyscraper in a massive earthquake and I either spend hours searching for something else or arrive home disappointed with nothing to show for my trauma.

Mrs PM is indecisive.

Mrs PM claims not to be indecisive - but she is.

I learnt a long time ago not to go shopping for clothes with Mrs PM. Sadly, sometimes, she insists and I have to spend hours in a woman’s clothes shop while she tries of dress after dress after dress, shoe after shoe after shoe, coat after coat after coat, skirt after skirt after skirt – you get the picture.

Even worse, this is not just limited to clothes. If we need something for the house – an item of furniture, a carpet, paint etc. it is even worse. The amount of money we have to spend is potentially larger for such items – so she has to get it right. Consequently I feel that I may as well take a tent and supplies to such shops so that I can bed down for the night while she decides exactly what will fit in our house, what the exactly colour scheme match will be and whether the cats will be comfortable sitting on whatever we buy.

Women’s clothes shops are not designed for men.

You may have seen the episode of Father Ted where a bunch of priests are trapped in the lingerie section of a department store.

I feel the same way as Father Ted but at least I have an excuse because I am with Mrs PM.

The problem is that she is so indecisive (see previous point) that she goes to the changing room with around two hundred  items to try on, leaving me standing outside the changing room like a spare part for the best part of two hours.

Worse, every single ladies' clothes shop has the changing room right next to or within the lingerie section.

What sadistic psychopath dreamt up THAT layout?

I am left standing outside trying my best not to appear to be staring at women’s knickers, bras or the mannequins modelling them.

No matter how obvious it is that I am waiting for my lovely lady, I can’t help thinking that every single woman who sees me considers me to be some kind of colossal pervert who likes to hang around in the lingerie section.

Ikea is a Maze 

The worst shop in the world is Ikea.

Don’t get me wrong, I love the wares for sale in Ikea.

What I hate is the shop itself and the layout of the place. I have a theory that there are people who like to explore dark and inhospitable places who will draw the line at exploring their local Ikea simply because it is like a huge labyrinth that is impossible to escape from.

I am convinced there are people who visited for a set of glasses two weeks ago who are still trying to escape from there.

Even if you know how to negotiate your way out of the place, you still end up buying ten times the amount of furniture or household equipment that you planned to buy when you walked through the doors. The worst thing about the store is that you walk around, lifting box after box of build-it-yourself furniture onto you shopping trolley and then have to find a way to somehow cram it into the car for the fifteen mile journey home.

And Finally

There are many more reasons why shopping is a pastime conceived by a particularly devious and sadistic demon from Beelzebub’s legion of pain and I will no doubt elaborate on those in a future post.

In the meantime, I am sure that there are people out there who are shopaholics and absolutely love to traipse around shops for hours and hours on end.

Over to you, dear reader. 

Are you a Shopaphobe or a Shopaholic?

If you are a Shopaholic, why do you think shopping is therapeutic?

More importantly, have you any tips to help me overcome my fear and hatred of places like the Trafford Centre.

My own way is to avoid these places and shop online.

I wonder whether I can get a doctor’s note excusing me from shopping because of “shopaphobia”?

It’s worth a try. All I have to do is video myself after a trip to Ikea.

That would convince even the most sceptical doctor.