Agent Provocateur

No wonder the thinking woman's fruity pants shop stocks spanking paddles – when a pair of knickers cost £125, it makes sense that you’ll need a little something for the inevitable guilt-ridden self-flagellation later.

Bedroom Posedown

Just out of the shower. Quick check in the old mirror. Yep. Still got it. Maybe suck in the gut a bit. Yeah. She’s lucky to have you. Twist your arm around a bit as you flex and bingo! Muscles! If you worked out you’d look like bloody Superman. No chance of that, though. Still. The gym’s loss is the pub’s gain.

Cherie Blair

Those consistently awful clothes, her Michael Jackson haircut, that letterbox smile that looks like she could swallow a VHS tape – where did it all go right for Cherie Blair? We think the turning point was probably the reports that surfaced of her once having modelled for a nude portrait. Once you realise that those shapeless tunics are removable, it puts a peculiar, but strangely fascinating new spin on things.

Debt

We’re not great at maths, but we think we’ve got this whole credit card thing sorted by now. It’s free money, isn’t it? Basically, we put the new shoes on the card, and then we can pay them off at the end of the month, or not if we don’t want to? And then we can go and buy another pair of shoes next month? Brilliant! And if we keep doing this, we get to join that exclusive club, credit card max. And then we do have to pay a bit back, otherwise they won’t let us buy any more shoes. Hang on, unless we got another credit card…

Empty Calories

All the best stuff is made of empty calories. Beer. Wine. Sweets. Fizzy drinks. Butter. Hamburgers. Hot Dogs. KFC. Pizza. Crisps. Chips. Even Lard! Ask yourself this – would life be worth living without these mysterious non-foods? (If you don’t get an answer straight away, here’s a clue: it’s no.)

French Toast

Yes, yes, yes, it bloats you up something terrible, but bread’s great, isn’t it? It’s hard to imagine how it could be any better, but it can: soaked in egg and then liberally anointed with million-calorie-an-ounce maple syrup and you transform the humble loaf into cuisine. You can always offset the thigh-thickening properties of this ultimate continental breakfast by doing what the French do and just having a delicious and nutritious glass of wine for supper.

Green & Black

If Bono had ever experienced a moment of self-doubt, he’d binge on Green & Black. It isn’t gluttony if it’s fair trade: it’s affirmative action.

Holiday Beard

Because you’re not just on holiday from work, you’re on holiday from all the things that make life hell – like washing up and shaving. Besides, if we remembered to pack our razors there would be a massive spike in the birth rate every May. Once we’ve removed the usual deterrents like crippling tiredness and a laundry-strewn bedroom, looking like Popeye’s nemesis is the only thing that keeps the Mrs off.

Internet Questionnaires

Whether you’re of the My Guy and Jackie generation, and ticked boxes to find out what your mum should embroider on your snood so you could catch Nik Kershaw’s eye when he blew through town, or the More and Minx set who are less about needlework and more about determining the right intimate piercing for that dream date, you know that a god questionnaire is an almost irresistible temptation. And, like marijuana or chlamydia, a temptation is all the better for being shared. Once you’ve ticked all the boxes in ‘Which type of stockbroker is right for you?’ in Tatler, it’s impossible to let anyone else have a go in case they think your answers make you look a bit dense. Hence the beauty of the infinitely editable tabula rasa of the Internet, where your answers can always be edited after the fact and if you have ticked Mostly C’s, meaning you will definitely sign a Pre-Nup by mistake, you can always explain that you’re too mature for this kind of thing nowadays so it must be an entirely different danielradcliffefan69.

Jonathan Ross

At the end of the working week there’s nothing finer than a relaxing evening on the sofa with a nice glass of wine. Or six. Even those of us with the renal fortitude of Shane MacGowan might find themselves drifting off for a well-earned sleep around nine-ish during some ill-conceived Dawn French vehicle about vicars or nurses or some such. Waking up with a start to see Jonathan Ross kissing Russell Brand or tickling Matt Lucas is very much part of the tipsy Friday night experience. The only way you can be sure if it’s a dream or not is waiting to see if your mum turns up naked to bring them a tray of cherryade. Either way it’s the only way to round off the week.

Keeping Things in the Loft

In most houses, the loft is a repository for things that you don’t need, you don’t want to look at, but for some reason you can’t take to the council tip. For houses where the loft has been converted into a little bed-sit for your husband’s interfering mother, that goes double.

Lists

1. They're a great way of ordering things. 2. As long as by 'things' we're talking top ten records or greatest films of all time. 3. Of course, it's all a bit Nick Hornby, which is exactly why we don't shout about enjoying it. 4. Though secretly we know that Nick is right. 5. OK Computer by Radiohead. Well, it's compulsory that it's got to feature somewhere.

Michael Winner

Well, yes, obviously he’s an oleaginous old cheeseball, and he hasn’t made a good film since…. Well, candidly, he’s never made a good film. But one look at him tells you he know how to order a good dessert. We’d go out with him just for a bite of his profiteroles.

Nigella Lawson

The guilt comes from how transparently obvious it all is. Posh bird. Bit of a shape on her. Dresses like she knows it. Can cook. Does things with a well-buttered spear of asparagus that Dita Von Teese couldn’t even imagine. It’s every council type’s dream isn’t it? For those fleeting moments between John Diamond’s sad demise and her hooking up with Archie Saatchi or whatever his name is every man in Britain stood ankle-deep in his own saliva.

Ogling

Any fashion student will tell you that the focus of male attention shifts every ten years or so: 50s, sweater girls, breasts; 60s, mini skirts, legs; 70s, dolly birds, melons again; 80s, bloody rah rah skirts, of all things, legs (albeit with legwarmers). And so on and so on. You can trace it back as far as Edwardian Gibson Girls or forward as far as the Urban Nudists you can see on every modern street. Honestly we don’t care. We’ll look at anything. It’s in our genes or something. We can’t help it. We can’t walk past New Look if they’re changing the clothes on the dummies. So our message is this: Girls, don’t try too hard. You had us at hello.

Pet Blogs

Honestly, they blog themselves. With their little paws. So desperate are they to share news of their day and their deepest most existential angst, they can fire up an iBook just with a flick of a furry tail. ‘Woke up. Used the litter tray. Had a wash. Ate some Whiskas. Went back to sleep. For ten hours.’ Ooh look, Tabitha the Tabby from next door just posted a comment: ‘Just off for a nap. Had a nasty incident with a furball earlier, lol.’ ARE YOU MAD? We know you love your pet, but blogging on his behalf is a step too far. It must stop now.

Quote Unquote

Who said 'that Radio 4 quotations-based quiz hosted by the pedantic Uncle Nigel Rees is so twee, so boring and so excruciatingly old-fashioned that it is essential listening - if only to remind oneself that there are worse programmes than MoneyBox Live?' Um - let's see was it Oscar Wilde, Graham Norton or Shakespeare? No actually it was us.

Rotherham Shower

When pressed for time, a handy bottle of Jo Malone reaches the parts a shower just logistically can’t.

Size Zero

This business is simply the best thing that ever happened. As long as the ideal dress size for young women was something realistic we felt vaguely obliged to make a bit of an effort, and every January we’d stink out our flats with cabbage soup every day. Now that the fashion elite has dictated that we should all look like concentration camp victims that eleven o’clock doughnut with our latte isn’t an indulgence, it’s a sisterly act of defiance.

Tracey Emin

She’s a stranger to soap, she likes a laugh, she’s always got some fags and she doesn’t care whether you make the bed or not. Every man’s dream woman.

Ultimate Force

Series one contained moderate Professionals-style hokum. Series two was more of the same, with a slightly tubbier Grant Mitchell in it. Series three saw the departure of Chris Ryan as technical adviser, the advent of the first female SAS office in fact or fiction and the transformation of the show into a weekly Steven Seagal movie with slow-motion shoot outs and ever-more implausible plotlines. The strange thing is, the better it got, the lower the ratings dipped until UF was eventually dropped after series four. If you like guns, macho posturing, and fat squaddies then Ultimate Force is the show for you.

Vogue

In a world where magazines are getting thinner, and less glossy, and printed on such flimsy paper that you can read the numbers of the chatlines on the back cover while you’re looking at the contents page, it’s nice to pick up something as substantial, meaty, and unapologetically expensive as a copy of Vogue. Pricier than many books, or DVDs even, and with a perfume sample insert that just smells like the same really upmarket glue every month, Vogue is an unchanging touchstone of quality that we can cling to when everyone else in the waiting room is reading Hot Stars.

Winning the Father's Race on Sports Day

This isn't about sport. It's about proving a point and finally wiping the smile off that total arse-wipe of a father of that bullying little brat in your son’s class. This is payback time and, as far as tactics are concerned - anything goes. And if as a bonus your son is able to say 'my dad's faster than yours' and a few yummy mummies take a little more notice of you at the school gates, then every little bit helps.

Xenophobia

Yes, of course our great nation is enriched and strengthened by those cultures it absorbs – but who hasn’t felt a brief shallow frisson of dark joy at a headline proclaiming that we’ll all be speaking Polish by next Lammas day?

Yorkshire pudding (from a packet)

Who’s got time for a great British tradition when Sainsbury’s do a pre-mix for 99p and X-Factor’s on in half an hour?

Zoo / Nuts / FHM (Interviews as Excuses for Pictures of Young Actresses in)

Yeah, we’re really interested in Lindsay Lohan’s opinions on the situation in Darfur. We’re slightly more interested in what she finds attractive in a man. Given that she’s unlikely to join the UN Security Council or pop into our local for a Breezer, we’d rather dispense with the fig-leaf of an interview to justify those fruity pictures. In fact, we’d prefer it if she’d dispense with that fig-leaf too.

Shopping While Drunk: Confessions from Modern Life by Amanda Astill, Tom Bronley, Michael Moran and Simon Trewin, published by John Murray

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