Presenting D

Name: D

Age: At 29, I am the youngest of The Girls, a fact I shall cherish milking for the next 6 months, until I turn 30.

Height: 5”2. I stopped growing at the age of 12.

Hair Colour: Meant to be auburn, but has faded to chestnut, probably as result of mad experimentation while at university (eg, blue streaks, fuscia highlights. Once went blonde for about a week, but hated it). Have recently discovered alarming increase of white hairs, testimony to the fact that it’s all downhill from here, looks-wise.

Living situation: Shacked up with male model who was still at primary school when I started university. He does not know where the vacuum cleaner is stored, uses the ironing board as a shelf, thinks the oven and fridge are self-cleaning, and recently placed the just-used net from the aquarium on the washing-up rack. Last November, it took 2 industrial cleaners SEVENTEEN hours to clean the flat – without even touching my bedroom. He is, however, devastatingly handsome, and with one gaze into his deep blue eyes, can be forgiven for all of these things. Having separate bathrooms helps.

City: London – North of the River only, darling. It remains one of my ultimate ambitions to move “north-west, but further in”, and I am slowly working my way further up the Northern Line. This may remain an unfulfilled dream, due to increasingly outrageous house prices in London.

Life: On paper, life is fabulous. I have a great job, which takes me travelling all over the world, and have spent the last 5 years fighting the male corporate monster and other fiercely competitive, ambitious women for my place on the career ladder. On New Year’s Day 2004, while voraciously eating off a monster hangover at a café in Islington with F, I announced that I was suffering a quarter-life crisis (a self-indulgent term, nonetheless recognised as an actual syndrome), and decided to retrain as a lawyer. Two years (and several thousand £s later), I exist on 5 hours sleep a night, my social life is a shadow of its former glory (I see more of my colonic hydrotherapist than I do most of my friends) and – most shockingly - my shopaholism has been reduced to the purchase of just ONE item of clothing since last September. I am very committed to my exercise routine, which even I am now prepared to admit, has long been an outlet for my innate obsessiveness. It also explains the early morning starts.

Most unappealing habit: Compulsively plucking the hairs on the lower half of my face. I sit at my desk at work with a pair of tweezers in my hands.

Top 3 things I’m most likely to rant about: Oh god, where to start? The Daily Mail (practically a euphemism for everything that’s wrong with this country); London Underground; North American self-help books.