Et tu Brute?

Disgruntled. A good word. Ever since last night I've been wanting to register a complaint. To someone. Anyone. Since then, the day has meandered on, and here I am freshly scrubbed, reeking of ginger and lemon grass (and that's just the body wash...), after a feverish onslaught in the kitchen (onion, ginger and garlic that time), in an attempt to feel more gruntled. Shock, horror! I do. In fact, I'm almost 100% gruntled, notwithstanding the fact that I signed away my first borns inheritance for airfare to Chile in December. I must admit that I did lose my gruntled aura for a moment (perhaps two, or seventeen) when the bastard airlines wouldn't let you book 3 together and then merrily ratcheted up the rates by another 200 quid. Fraudulent, cheating, lying scumbag corporates who deserve to wind up with the court receiver......

While weekend domestic goddess manifestation is always worrisome, if not a thing of feverish beauty, it wasn't the sight of a gleaming toilet bowl that brought the disgrunt on. No. It was the smarmy voice over, annoying as only a voice over can be, exhorting me to contact my 'aesthetic practitioner'. Excuse me? My whoosit??? Is this why my bonus was withheld? Because I missing an AP in my wardrobe of wiles, ergo I am unfit not just for womankind but a deep disappointment to the male domination of real estate in the UK? I have no choice but to wait for the next commercial break, and sure enough, smarmy's back. Juvederm ultra injections for natural beauty without surgery... he coos.....and they don't allow porn on BBC2?! A glimmer of suspicion paints a picture of what must be the sagging jowls of the moral watchdogs whose remit it is to protect the weak and foolish... that must be me.

I feel exceptionally foolish as I continue to watch the advertisements with a burgeoning sense of disbelief, smoothly accompanied by a 'what does that mean? I don't get it...' in the background. Smarmy the second announces that millions of men around the world use Gillette....impressive. And that's why they've learnt a thing or two about the science of shaving.... what the fuck?? Isn't it the 'science of shaving' (as opposed to my dick is bigger than yours) that has spawned the 5 blade razor (or is it now 7??) for the kind of shave that makes a woman strip to her bare necessities as she artistically drapes herself around a man, smiling winsomely as they both leer into the mirror watching him fondly strokes his baby's butt smooth cheeks?

Needless to say, I am now doubly determined to write to the TV licensing folks demanding a refund for pain and suffering inflicted. Mutilating onions to the soothing warbling of classical voices calms me, and the heady scent of a first flush Darjeeling mingling with the vibrant notes of the sarod calms offers greater perspective on my life as I step back from the mundane within to the mundane without.... before I spend several seconds pretending to be one of those irritatingly dense birds that jerk their heads around in a vain attempt to make sense of their surroundings, as I try and figure out how All India Radio is so blatantly broadcasting into my living room. Even as my brain insists I'm NOT listening to the radio nor have I been all evening, a rich, plummy voice booms around the room trying to sell me a Voltas washing machine....before bowing away to the familiar twang of the sarod. Et tu Brute?!