Like most citizens of popular and international urban centres, I don't take advantage of the cultural opportunities. Perhaps this comes from growing up in suburbia. Home is where you eat, sleep, read, watch television and ignore your parents. It is not where you go to the ballet and then attend a heated panel discussion about it afterwards.

Unless you are a professional, you will find the tart to be a high-maintenance, unforgiving whistle-blower of a pastry.

I use Ole Henriksen eye gel when I think of it, and go for facials when spa gift certificates appear as a professional thank-you or in a gift bag. Once ensconced in a facialist's chair, I let myself be coaxed into all sorts of treatments, because I'm there already, so why not?

I was diagnosed with a severe temporal spatial deficit, a learning disability that means I have zero spatial relations skills. It was official: I was a genius trapped in an idiot's body.