Shopping for essentials

I've been sooooo good for soooo long that I think I deserve a treat....



During the past three months I've not splurged on any and I've worn down some of my older pairs, so buying one teensy little pair is a necessity not a luxury, isn't it?

While I am at it maybe I should get a sensible pair too....

How to shop for a Man?

How do you do it? I have no idea. Help needed!!!

The Man has a birthday coming up. It is not for some time, which gives me time to buy him a great "kick-arse, throw it right out of the park, best ever, so much better than my ex-girlfriend's gift, wow what a great idea, how did you know I always wanted this" gift. For a variety of reasons, the main one being he is just lovely, I want this year's birthday gift to be spectacular.

Problem is that The Man has very specific and quite limited tastes:

• Clothes are out. He has some. He quite likes them. That will do him for now.


• He has plenty of books (including some from me) and doesn't have time to read them all as it is. If he really wants a book he would buy it.


• He likes art but thinks that good art is expensive and that it is hard to buy art for someone else.


• He likes a clutter free home where items serve a function. Anything he deems extraneous gets thrown out.


• He likes travel, but it would be hard to surprise him with anything as he has a busy diary, and he is an international travel sort of guy, not a "let's get away for a dirty weekend in Sydney" type.


• He has a car. He really likes it. He would tell me it really doesn't need anything except petrol.


• He has all the tech things he could want - camera, iPod, funky retro-styled radio, computers, computer games, state of the art PDA-phone thingie.


• He has had the same watch for nearly two decades. It tells the time and hence fits his criteria of a great watch. He bristles at the idea of replacing it.

Other things he likes: me, great food, vodka, cars, cheese, red wine, history, chess, Jessica Alba, trance music, the stockmarket, laughing, the colour blue, France, architecture, taking care of his parents, science fiction, brunettes, action movies, arguing with me about the correct pronunciation of words, being right about the latter, foreign language films and most frustratingly .... telling me not to spend too much money on his birthday as "anything will do".

I am in need of guidance. I've been chewing over this for weeks and have nothing to show for it. There must be a knack to this buying for blokes thing. It can't be that hard, can it? Your thoughts welcome....

Stickler alert - Why "devine"?

I have been hoping that I will not turn into one of those grumpy types who wanders around with a texta in order to correct spelling and grammar in public signage, and who hassles shop assistants about matters outside their control. To my shame, I think I might be.

Yesterday I happened to be in the Bourke Street mall and I wandered past the lovely windows at David Jones with all the nice new autumn/winter clothes. Normally I love DJ's. The staff are usually helpful, the refit of their ground floor beauty area is lovely and you can hide away their in an air conditioned and artificially lit cocoon and mentally spend away your entire year's pay on products that you would probably never apply.

Featured in the shop in large posters was the beautiful "god I would love to hate her but really I just want to look like her" Megan Gale as part of DJ's makeup/beauty booklet . Leaving aside that the booklet appears to be inspired by and directly rip off the Mecca Cosmetica catalogue, it is full of tempting ideas and Megan looks stunning. I would upload a photo of the front cover but Blogger is conspiring against me. You can check it out here.

Spot anything? Part of it reads "Devine Goddess Flawless Face Luminous Glow". "Devine Goddess" is the name used as a brand of cosmetics by Napoleon Perdis, this man:

Now, Napoleon here might be a OK sort of guy if you want your makeup applied by George Michael. Personally, I think he is likely to be a complete tosser. According to his website "The Napoleon Perdis philosophy is not dictated by fashion - it's about celebrating and empowering your natural beauty with products that have built-in educators and pro-tips." I'm not sure what the built-in educators are, but I'm pretty sure his eye shadows do not come equipped with a set of Encyclopedia Britannica.And they sure as hell don't come equipped with a dictionary. What is "devine" anyway? I googled this and apart from one entry that suggested "devine" meant "a beautiful woman" (methinks Napoleon wrote that), it ain't a word. It sure as hell isn't a word according to the OED.

What is wrong with the traditional spelling? What did the first "i" in "devine" do to offend Napoleon? Maybe Napoleon's clientele (those who attend the Perdis Academy and those who spend their life on the Vogue Australia forums) can't spell "divine"?

It might be alright for Napoleon and his built-in educated women to misspell words, but I expect more from DJ's. This made me quite irrationally grumpy. Luckily for DJ's I didn't deface their posters.

In my grumpy mood I wandered over to Jurlique when I was met by a snobby bitch attendant who peered down her nose at me as I was something that crawled out from underneath an Australis counter. "Ha!" I thought, "I can have some fun".Pulling myself to my full height I glanced over to her with my best "I want to spend money" face. She half smiled and asked me if she could answer any questions about Jurlique. "Ha!" I thought as I prepared to ask her about Jurlique's $3.4 million dollar fine for resale price maintenance. Then it occurred to me that it would be a bit like hitting a pigeon, she would blink wildly but no expression would register and she might flap away.

So I felt cruel and, as such, slunk back out into the daylight where my aversion to pretentious makeup retailers, wankers called Napoleon and spelling errors could be washed away by the daylight.

Ms Batville - slowly resuming normal transmission

Yah - my mojo seems to be returning. Not to the point where I actually accomplished much today but at least I seem to be able to contemplate achieving something tomorrow. The little black rain cloud has moved on. We're not quite in full sun yet, more like overcast with moments of sunniness.

So, in that vein a list of things that made Ms Batville happy today:

1. A postcard from a friend in Boston of a very elegant photo of Jackie circa 1962 - apparently he saw it and thought it resembled me - Wow.
2. Larry Mullen Jnr's treatment of autograph scalpers courtesy of Scatter - God I love U2.
3. Pulling up next to a wanker in a sportscar at lights a mere 200 metres after he tried to run me off the road doing some ridiculous speed. Even better - when the light changed, my little rust box took off and he ... stalled. Hah!
4. Buying some Green Tea perfume at Elizabeth Arden and getting quite a good GWP (Gift with Purchase)
5. Margaret Whitlam's comments about Janette Howard. Good old Margaret - bless her. My respect for Gough grows ever time I think about his choice of wife.
6. Knowing that tomorrow is end of the month at work, and despite my lethargy, my group will still have met our targets.
7. Having AFL Grand Final tickets. OK so I don't follow either team (but I am an AFL member so am justified in having a ticket) but I do love a good GF and I simply love love love the bit where the RAAF Roulettes swoop down over the 'G and scare the bejusus out of everyone. I also adore the way that the singing of our national anthem degenerates in the last four seconds amongst a very bloky chorus of "Go Swans/Go Weagles/Go Wirra/ Go Goodey etc".
8. Seeing that a few new people checked out my poor little neglected blog and stayed for more than 10 seconds - WOOHOO. So to them I say - come back - and - have a great weekend. May your team win the footy.