5 September - Live & Learn or Learn & Live?

The book I’ve yet to finish writing is no Booker prize contender but believe me you need it. It’s called A Hundred Lessons You Really Should Have Learnt By Now. It will contain no doubt some profound philosophical deliberations on how to achieve constant happiness (no, no drugs allowed) and be written in a colloquial, not too highbrow Alain de Botton style I think. But it will also hand out some essential tips for practical living, like ‘Don’t present girlfriends with any ring containing looking little boxes if what’s inside is…. A bracelet and then you wonder why she stops speaking to you and similarly never ask a girl in marriage by prefacing the request with ‘I supposed I ought to ask you (to get married)’ and so on. You get the drift.

I had reason to re-learn one of my not yet learnt by now lessons the other night. It’s the one about always reading what it says on the label or on the tin. You may remember I thought long and hard (about an hour one Saturday afternoon) about purchasing a soft leather handbag in a cappuccino froth colour. I don’t’ wear jeans very often and for this reason they are still rich in denim dye and wouldn’t you know it, the dye rubs off a treat on light coloured leather. A few days into his new life as my summer handbag, it was looking like Kate Moss had dragged it around PD’s flat several nights in a row. Not clean, not new, not the bag I wanted. And thank god I hadn’t plumped for the one that cost three times as much or I’d have been so bummed. So I set off to purchase some Cif bathroom cleaner as it cleans leather very well. Yes, it is a bit scary to do so with a bathroom cleaner and a rough sponge but this tip was passed down to me by a D&G and Versace sales assistant many years ago and so I knew it worked. Though you get very scared when because of the water, your leather turns dark grey and wet. But it springs back to life when it dries, promise. As I was at the BF’s abode, I then searched for a tin of what I had seen in one my clear outs, neutral coloured shoe polish which was in fact a tin of saddle soap. Same thing I thought. This was yellowish and I applied it liberally and left it overnight for polishing off and buffing in the morning. I like a job well done. In the morning my bag was covered in yellow goo (footnote 1, don’t do important jobs in semi darkness whilst watching TV). And when I went to clean it off it didnt’ budge. Yiykes, bag ruined? After all that effort! Only then did I read what it says on the tin ie. to uses the saddle SOAP (not polish) much as I had used the Cif ie sponge wet and rinse off. Darn. But before I chucked my most recent bag in the bin I thought of doing exactly that because I’m an eternal optimist, and miraculously the yellow soap frothed and then was easily taken off. Bag as new, and awaiting leather feeding cream to be applied… soon. What you think? Is there a market for my book?