Don’t be a wanker: an honest guide to living better.

 We’re approaching the day where after a month of rampant, random consumerism, and with the humility that only a major hangover brings, people make their New Year’s resolutions. Bad idea.
 All you end up with is nicotine withdrawal for a few days, a gym membership you have to pay $5000 to get out of, and a fridge full of rotting “super foods”. So what I propose for this year is a more modest approach to becoming a better person: rather than worrying about reaching for a whole lot of unattainable virtues, let’s all just try not being such arseholes.
 In fact, this approach is much more likely to make our community a nicer place: virtuous people are actually really annoying; we just need less arseholes. We live in a world where bad behaviour has largely been categorised. If you’re a self-centred dickhead you’ve got “narcissistic personality disorder”. And if you don’t have something wrong with your brain chemistry then maybe you’ve been abused, suffer from some horrible physical impediment, or you belong to a marginalised minority group who have been oppressed by society.
 And to a large extent, being able to understand that people’s behaviour is shaped by circumstances beyond their control has been valuable in us becoming more compassionate towards others less fortunate than ourselves. At the very least, blaming your parents for your miserable, unfulfilled life can make you feel like less of a loser.
 But what this picture of the world fails to capture is the fact that there is a small percentage of people who, regardless of their brain chemistry, their social history, or their cultural category, are just plain arseholes. As arseholes tend to have blind spots when it comes to themselves, I thought it would be helpful to draw up a list of behaviours that qualifies you as one. Feel free to post it on the office fridge.

1. People who park in disabled car spots.
2. People with 4WDs in the posh suburbs of Sydney and Melbourne who support the Greens.
3. People who sponsor a third world child and buy expensive bottled water.
4. People who play their iPods on public transport loud enough for others to hear.
5. People who talk about property prices as if it’s a reasonable topic of conversation.
6. People who complain that digital media is ruining the youth of today.
7. People who think they’re martyrs for having children.
8. People who move into the inner city from the suburbs and then complain about getting robbed.
9. Junkies who rob people who can’t afford it.
10. People who are rude to taxi drivers, waitresses, check-out chicks and all other poorly paid customer service staff.
11. People who describe filmmakers or actors as “brave”.
12. People who spend a year in a foreign country “finding” themselves and write a book about it.
13. People who don’t eat carbs.
14. People who think they’re superior for not owning a television.
15. Anyone younger, smarter, prettier, and more talented than me.

 This is of course an incomplete and partial list. I encourage you to add to it.
Don’t get caught up in the Oprah “be a better version of yourself” nonsense that’s bandied about by magazines at this time of the year. Just concentrate on not being too much of an arsehole. I’m going to. Together we can make the world a better place.

The next step.

 I love the modern world. The modern world is fantastic because everything just keeps getting better. I was thinking that the other day as I settled into my comfortable train seat on my long trip home from the city scrolling through all the downloaded movies I had on offer on my laptop. Cars have got better, too. I’m deeply grateful for that device that goes ping! ping! ping! at you whenever you try to get out of the car with the headlights still on. What are those things you call “jump leads”?

 TVs are way better. They’re flat. You can put them on the wall and they no longer need nasty stands. I remember TVs before remote controls came along. Remotes were a massive bonus to mankind. And what about phones! Phones and their kin are ridiculously brilliant now. We’ve got iPads and sat nav and Kindles and so many wondrous new gadgets that they keep improving to the point where I don’t just love the modern world, I’m in love with it.

 But while so many of the things we use every day just keep getting better, there is one major exception: shoes. Despite all the mind-blowing developments in technology and engineering, shoes are pretty much the same as they were 20 years ago. It’s still really hard to find a pair that are comfortable to walk in, keep your feet dry and look all right with a skirt.

 Of course, there have been some innovations. Crocs, ha ha ha. Then there are those ones that are supposed to give you a Kylie derriere just by walking to the corner shop to buy biscuits. Which is a lovely idea, but they’re plug ugly shoes, aren’t they? The trainer is the one area of the footwear market where technology is a key part of the marketing spruik, yet apart from actual sports use (jogging to the shop to get biscuits), most people I know have reverted to the Converse All Star as their default sandshoe. And they’ve been pretty much the same since 1917.

 The most useful innovation I can think of is Velcro fasteners on kids’ shoes. There was an attempt to market shoes with two heel heights – you screwed one off and put the other on – but they never got beyond the stage of the novelty invention. Folding and roll-up flats to keep in your bag for the moment you can’t endure your heels for another minute have their place, but they’re not proper shoes. More of an emergency service.

 What I’m looking for is a shoe revolution at the level of the exponential shift from your grandma’s hall-table telephone to an iPhone. I want a heel that lowers itself automatically on uneven surfaces and a waterproof sole as slender as leather, which thickens into a platform in rain. Insoles that give you pressure-point massages to relieve bunion pain while you’re walking. Shoe shops that take X-rays of your feet and create the style you want tailored exactly for your foot, on the spot. I want size ten and three-quarters. I want innovation so new I can’t even imagine it. Surely the collective human brain power that brought us such advances as the touch screen is up to this. Mr Jobs, Mr Blahnik, are you listening?

Ouch, my boobs hurt.

 Guys...you know when you’re watching Funniest Home Videos and you see some dude fall on his manhood in an accident involving a bike on a trampoline and possibly ending in a pool, and as it happens you can’t help but clutch your babymakers in sympathy…
 Well this clip makes me clutch my ta ta’s too. Dubbed Germany’s Boob breaker, at first I felt sorry for her, how hard would buying a bra be? What is she, like a Double Z cup? I cry when I can’t find an E cup in a design I like, this girl must be hysterical in the change rooms. Plus I just wanted to reach through the computer screen and rub her neck, the head and back aches she must suffer because of those monstrous mammaries....
But she is turning lemons into lemonade with her lady lumps...ahem…I mean LADY LUMPS!!!!..

Glamour isn’t glamorous in any way.

 The concept of glamour is a minefield of contradiction. We’ve all marvelled at the flawless beauties on the red carpet, but please allow me to debunk the theory that glamour is in any way glamorous.
 It’s not something we’re aware of as little girls. I’ll never forget the look of distress on my mum’s face when, aged 12, I came home from school and announced I wanted to shave my legs. It wasn’t the fact that my legs boasted less hair than Peter Garrett’s head that concerned her. No, she merely wanted to protect me from the slippery slope into the world of never-ending female maintenance. If only I’d known the life sentence I was committing myself to.

 Let’s consider the inconvenient, sometimes barbaric rituals women regularly endure. I’ll start with the most obvious, and challenge any woman to deny she hasn’t lain on a beautician’s table, pre-wax, wondering if our great-grandchildren will shake their heads in horror at what we put ourselves through, just as we do when we consider corseting and foot binding. (At this point, I could easily veer off into the modern mystery of why it’s OK for men to have hair and not for women but, instead, I’ll move on to tanning.)

 Bronzed skin is a must on any red carpet, but it doesn’t come without a price – and I don’t mean the $80 you hand over to the lady with the spray gun. I’m talking about tandoori-stained bed sheets, the 10 hours of sticky isolation while not being able to touch anything for fear of smudging or streaking, and the lingering chemical smell that not even the strongest perfume can mask.

 Then there are the hours spent at the salon having hair yanked, burnt, twisted and ruffled to look as if you’ve just rolled out of bed. Wouldn’t it be easier to put $50 under the pillow and thank it for its services?

 And it doesn’t stop there, because what sort of sadistic villain invented the instruments of torture we willingly strap to our feet before going out? You’d think the inevitable blisters, corns, and bunions would deter us. But no, we grimace and stuff our bags so full of bandaids; we put the St John Ambulance to shame.

 Naturally, even though I acknowledge the hypocrisy of what I’m saying, I fully intend to carry on being a sheep in the herd of conformity. On the inside, I’m still that little girl who dressed up in her mum’s heels, who never wants to admit that once she grew up, it was nothing like she dreamt. I’m simply not prepared to be the Joan of Arc of beauty and sacrifice myself by rejecting all these painful rituals. Must I remind anyone of Julia Roberts’ hairy armpit incident at the 1999 Notting Hill premiere? She’s still living that one down.