I'm thinking of hiring myself out as a service to distressed parents everywhere.

Yes.

I can't believe no careers advisor ever suggested it. Stupid people all telling my I'd be lucky to get a secretarial post and that would be all I was capable of.

It's perfect.

I realised this the other day. I was entering my building, and before I'd even opened the door I could see the legs of a small child dangling through the bannisters as I looked through the window in the door... and from out in the street I could hear the sounds of this child being ridiculously obnoxious.

The door swings open, and in comes The Lady With The Wheelchair who's just moved into the ground floor flat. It was like the child had a mute button and someone suddenly pressed it. His mouth fell open and he just stared as I entered my flat. As soon as I was out of his line of vision, before I'd even actually closed my flat door, the din of an obnoxious small child started up again. And the staircase has quite a hefty echo going on. It's like some spooky cave (and it smells like one too).

This was when I hit on the idea that muting small children could be my life's calling.

After all, it wasn't the first time this has happened. Half a term ago, some friends and I had a remarkably cultured afternoon. We had afternoon tea at Shakespeare's Globe, followed by a wander around the Tate Modern. As I was with an English teacher, a literary obsessive and a borderline genius, spending time in The Globe could've been very intimidating for someone as thick and uncultured as me. Fortunately we just ate, sang a bunch of songs from the Buffy musical (so, there's 4 lesbians sitting in Shakespeare's Globe singing "His penis got diseases from a Chumash Tribe!") and left.

The Tate Modern was a more eye-opening experience. Especially as we headed straight for the exhibit about nakedness. Where else could we start out?

It was while we were wondering around here, trying to decide if one statue was actually meant to be representing a naked disabled female body, or if they arm had just fallen off it, that I encountered another noisy, obnoxious small... thing.

We were in the Tate Modern, a building full of visual stimuli. And what is it that the child gets so engrossed in staring at that she forgets to make a din for a few moments? Me. I'm more gawp-worthy than art. They should plaster me on the side of buses. Well, not the actual me... that would be cold and no doubt painful, I mean an image of me.

The list of encounters just goes on. I was once shopping in The Chimes (when I lived in Uxbridge. It's not worthy of an excursion, trust me), and from around the corner I could hear the sounds of a brat, fully engrossed in proper tantrum of temper. I rounded aforementioned corner, and said brat opened her eyes between full blown screams just long enough to catch sight of moi. Silence suddenly spread across the shopping centre (well, almost, there was still dreadful muzak) until I'd left her line of vision, and then she suddenly remembered she was pissed about something.

See. I have skills. Anyone wanna give me some part-time work?

I hate moving house.

That is all.

Do you ever realise that you have a talent, and then think "Actually, I'd have been more than happy going through my whole life without knowing I could do that."?

My most recently discovered skill: Covering over with bin bags gaping holes in the passenger sides of cars where a large piece of glass should be.

Yes long term blog readers, I am once again the victim of crime. For those of you that haven't been reading since the very beginning, just after I started keeping my blog a friend had her bag stolen from under a table in a pub in Soho (while she was drunkenly demanding hugs from Someone Off The Telly), and it happened to have my cashcard in it. And victim support wrote to me and offered me counselling for the trauma.

"Why would anyone want to break into Lisy's car?" I hear you cry. I mean, even if there was anything valuable in it, you wouldn't be able to spot it because of the huge piles of litter.

The villains spotted something shiny on my dashboard. Had I left twinkly, valuable looking earrings? No. That shiny thing was a laminated piece of paper. That was all they took.

I mean, for fucks sake! Be a self-respecting criminal, have some self-esteem! Take the radio, the CD's out of the glove box. Hell, even steal the £95 Specsavers sunglasses (though, of course, the prescription may not match yours, but you've already demonstrated your glass smashing skills). Stealing something that cost Camden Council about 50p to knock up seems pretty fucking pointless, you no-brained nutsack.

You could even be a nice criminal and steal some of the empty Diet Pepsi cans and Ginsters Pasty wrappers that clog up my passenger footwell.

But, your pointless theivery means that I now have to pay £100 excess (or is it £50 now I've turned 25? I can't remember) to replace a piece of glass, just so you could get your mitts on something that you could've made at home if only you'd paid studious enough attention to Blue Peter. Pathetic little wanksock.

OK, so that piece of laminated paper means you get a better parking space. But, surely, with the energy you exerted in breaking into my car, surely you could just walk from one row further in the car park. I'm amazed you could be bothered to patrol the streets of Islington looking for crip-owned cars. But maybe you already know that the police are even more apathetic than you, and they "don't bother checking for fingerprints on just a car."

There's even a website whose ad on Google promises:

Want a Blue Badge?
www.UK-Driving-Secrets.com Get one even if you're not disabled New guide reveals secrets. £17.95!

Though, I'm sure the guide probably suggests "scout round Islington looking for cars displaying Blue Badges. Smash, grab."

And I have the joy of knowing that not only do I have to pay the excess, but also, first thing tomorrow morning, I'm going to get a parking ticket for parking right outside my own house without having my blue badge on display. Hurrah.

All for 50p's worth of laminated paper. Doesn't that make you feel so great about the world we live in.

Though, I am slightly comforted by the knowledge of the torture that the thief is going to face. Yup, the blue badge has a photo of my face on the back. And I pity anyone that has to look at that.