Men!

Today is hot. There is a lovely breeze wafting in my open window every now and again, sweeping over my hot brow - tickling at the heels of my ridiculously hot feet.

I don't know if it's just a case of me getting older, and less tolerant in my 37th year, or someone has unwittingly unleashed a new breed of ignorant bastard in the world.

Irresponsible buffoons. They're getting as bad as the indian miner-bird.

The gangly bloke with the wannabe tatts and all-black get up with bits of metal stuck to it in the bookshop who spoke to me my while my back was turned and served with a transparent air wafting about him that I should be so lucky to be served at all. (Fine with me, next time I'll just serve myself - and asking me if that's the lot is completely redundant. If there are still books on the shelves in your shop then, no it's isn't the lot and I don't see why you're bothering to ask) the two blokes who pushed in front of me this afternoon to use a narrow staircase while I had my arms full of folders and a 15kg laptop hanging off my shoulder and a heavy handbag slung from the other.

The man with no idea of etiquette or concept of anyone else needing peace of mind barracking in to his iphone in a shop yesterday. Mind you, he kept pausing to admire himself in the mirror. Prat!

The young Arrogant who stepped out of a shop doorway without looking this afternoon who very nearly gave me a black eye with his skateboard.

The lovely bloke who rang me up to ask me out and insisted on talking about himself for two hours. If you believe the press borne of his own creativity, he is a walking comedian, a dead-ringer for Antonio Banderas, and the guy that women run to in moments of distress. (Who is on the wrong side of forty to admit to sleeping with a teddybear).

The friend-of-a-friend who pushed and pushed to get me to have a drink with him and when I finally agreed to have one drink with him first told me that he had a lot to teach me about life, followed very soon after by wanting to know about the state of our relationship. (The rubber I dropped on the pavement during my hasty exit remains there to this day).

The other bloke who emailed me this week to see I'd be interested in a few games of bedtime billards, after he'd knocked me back six months ago for someone 'better'. I asked him how far down his list I was, and he chose not to answer the question. I poked a bit of fun at him which apparently affected the state of his VERY fragile ego as I haven't heard from him again. No loss - of course. But one does wonder if the notion of doing unto others as you would unto your self might be extinct.

Of course, I'm unshakeable and my feelings weren't at all hurt when he decided he'd had a better offer.

Broad with the Bullet Proof Chest they call me.

The friend of mine who asks me how I am and when I say - aye, not the best but I'm managing - then decides to plant himself on my doorstep and whilst partaking of some gentle hospitality opens the floor with a sermon on how crap I am at navigating my own life and need to be told that Life. Is. Hard.

He then went on to tell me that if only we women could wise up we wouldn't need friends nor expect to develop a support network as this is what frustrates men the most about us.

This is the same fellow who told me that the only reason women are paid less than men for the same or similar work is that we're too emotional and don't know how to negotiate. So we've only ourselves to blame.

I think I've gone off the lot of you. No, I'm not jumping the fence.. I'm just fed up with men and their flying machines, fragile ego's and the inability to comprehend that while a woman may not be Elle Macpherson she still actually exists, and probably can add as well as subtract, and knows the alphabet.

You used to be such lovely creatures. Sweet, sentimental, enthusiastic, bumbling in your attempts to be the Suavest Sex God since Sliced Bread (yes, I know - I do have a metaphoric issue or two)... Oh hang on... I think I've gotten you mixed up with Adam Hill. Or was it Kerry O'Brien? Robert de Niro? Oh. Macguyver? No? Roger Federer? Jon? Nicolas? So while I may not be Elle Macpherson, Rachel Hunter (or her sister or her second cousins' best friends sister), Raquel Welch, Debbie Harry, Sophia Loren, Audrey Hepburn or even Grace Kelly, I'd be sure to treat you with the same manners I treat everybody else with. Unless you piss me off. Then it's no manners for you.