Presenting F

Name: F

Enviable Character Feature: Sickeningly well-balanced

Age: V. touchy subject. Has irrational paranoia about age, in manner that threatens said well-balancedness. Is in reality a mere fraction older than the rest of us, and ironically, is the only one of us to still spend every weekend partying (read "drinking") as though she was still 18

Education: Practically more degrees than limbs

Special Skills: Incredible ability to form well-reasoned, well-informed, articulate argument at the drop of a hat; even more incredible ability to consume entire contents of a well-stocked bar - and live to tell the tale the following day.

Amusing Relatives: The Essex Communists (yes, apparently there is such a thing, and I have met Uncle Jim personally. George Orwell would be smirking in his grave)

Celebrity Fans: David Trimble. Well sort of. F was once in the audience of Question time, giving one of her well-reasoned rants, and David Trimble voiced his hearty approval for "the comment made by that lady over there"

Unfortunate Accidents Involving Major Limbs: Was arriving on holiday last year in Perpignon, and had barely stepped into hotel when she slipped, fell and smashed knee into a million pieces. As ever in France, the pompiers came to her rescue (the pompiers seem to be the most overworked public service in France, attending every major and minor incident). And so began an entire summer of watching non-stop old episodes of Sex and the City, as she convalesced chez her parents in Devon (see below)

Sources Words of Wisdom From: Sex and the City and Bridget Jones ("the book, not the travesty film"). I kid you not. The girl has a PhD, and is one of my last remaining links with intellectual life, and these are the only things she quotes at me. Encyclopaediac knowledge, though.

Has "issues" with: Taunton (vile sounding town somewhere near Devon) which according to F, "represents everything that is awful about the world". It is apparently a "mediocre place", with "crap shops". Really though, Taunton represents suburban domestic coupledom for F. Other "issues" include women's magazines and biological clocks