The Best a Man Can Get

Quotes from "The Best a Man Can Get"

We’ve all done it.  We’ve all kept little secrets from our partners.  We’ve all avoided telling them an awkward detail or subtly skirted over something we’d rather they didn’t know.  We’ve all rented a secret room on the other side of the city where we could hide half the week to get away from all that boring, exhausting baby stuff.  Oh, that last oine is just me apparently.

Alarm clocks are for people who have something more important to do than sleeping, and this is a concept that I struggled to grasp.

“Dear Deirdre, I am an attractive blonde and people say I have a good figure,  The other night, when my husband was away, his brother came round and one thing led to another and we ended up in bed…”  He broke off from reading out the letter.  “They always say that: one thing led to another.  How exactly does one thing lead to another, because that must be the bit that I’m getting wrong.  I understand the brother coming round, and I understand that they were in bed together.  But how did they get from the first stage to the last?”

“It’s easy, Simon,” said Jim.  “…one thing leads to another.”

“What are the kids doing?”

“Millie’s watching the Postman Pat video; the one in which he goes oin a shooting spree through Greendale.  And Alfie is strapped in his chair watching Millie.”

“Oh well, as long as the telly’s on.  We wouldn’t want to leave them unsupervised.”

I found these photos simultaneously revolting and compelling.  Like car crashes and anchovies, you knew they were horrible but you couldn’t help double-checking to make sure they were as sickening as they’d seemed the first time.

She told me I should stick up for myself and, not having the courage to argue with her, I meekly agreed that I would in future.

There had been a time when I had hated him for leaving Mum, but now I no longer based my view of people entirely on what my mother had thought.  I didn’t still think that Liberace had just never found the right girl.

                                                      John O’Farrell