Stretch, 29. Damian Lanigan

and it’s all writ large on their business cards. Oh dear. 2s and 3s all round.

      Another example. You may think that Bill Clinton has a pretty good job, and most people would agree with you. I don’t. I mean it’s just one thing after another if you’re the Leader of the Free World, isn’t it? West Bank settlers one minute, a Republican majority in Congress the next, some woman broadcasting to the nation about distinguishing marks on your penis the next. Bill’s welcome to it if you ask me. My (ex) flatmate Henry’s girlfriend is called Lottie and she knits sweaters for a living, except that she doesn’t get paid for it. I don’t really want to do that either, but at least I’d sleep at night.

      When I left university I had a question to answer. What becomes of a dissolute, immature ex-Maoist (the girls are prettier in the Communist Society), now patrician-Tory, broadly-not-deeply-read pseudo-intellectual when he has to get a job?

      I initially took the conventional Oxbridge approach. I applied for jobs in American, Swiss and Japanese investment banks. I considered law, but in banks the girls are prettier. In fact, they’re the Maoist girls, but now in £80 undies and mock-Chanel body armour. Needless to say I failed. I then applied to go on a journalism course in Harlow and succeeded.

      A year later, the girls in the pricey underwear were just graduating into their first 3 Series when I took up an eight-and-a-half-grand glamour job on the Streatham Post. While they dealt in issues of world importance, like the exchange-rate fluctuations between the schilling and the escudo, I was scrabbling around with the trivia: births, marriages, deaths – that sort of thing.

      I operated in a different world order from my peers. My world ended at Balham, Wandsworth, Chelsea Bridge. Nothing in which I was interested ramified outside this area: Chamber of Commerce Outrage at Red Route Plan, Lady Mayoress Opens New Texas Homecare, Woman Found By Son ‘Had Been Dead Three Weeks’.

      On the other hand, the people I knew were obsessing about the fate of the dollar from their striplit hangars at Salomon or Stanley. They were part of that process whereby some bureaucrat in DC says the word ‘nervous’ at a dinner party and six hours later little children are crying in the streets of Nairobi.

      Anyway, I didn’t last long. Journalism’s all about getting your face around, cold calling, beer drinking, loud laughing, cock sucking. I just didn’t have the necessary. Most of all it’s about wanting it badly, and I’ve never wanted anything badly, nothing that wasn’t human and female at any rate. So I sacked it. In fact, if truth be known, they sacked me. I’d captioned a picture of the local MP at a garden fête as follows: ‘ANGELA HOWEY, MP, HOLDS ALOFT A LARGE PARSNIP BEFORE INSERTING IT INTO HER ANUS’.

      Everyone at the paper missed it, and they got scores of furious letters, not least from Ms Howey herself, but I was long gone. It was, I can see, a puerile gesture, but momentarily enjoyable, and mentally I was way out of there anyway. I wasn’t happy in my work, you see. At least I got out alive, if somewhat disillusioned with journalism for the time being. And now I wait tables.

      So I would ask myself the question: Frank, are you happy in your work in a bad restaurant in Battersea? The answer? No, not really. Score? 3.

      FIVE: HOUSE

One of the easiest of the lot, particularly if you’re an owner-occupier. The property market has a strange and mysterious beauty to it, in as much as you always get exactly what you pay for. It’s practically impossible for people to artificially inflate or deflate their scores here. Let the market decide, it has great wisdom in these matters. Again, a ready reckoner may help to elucidate:

      * of London, obviously.

      ** Likely to be a barn (unconverted).

       In all cases subtract I point if you’re renting.

       For owners of second homes, combine scores up to a maximum of 10.

       For Islington, read Fulham, for Neasden read Tooting and so on. Zone 1 tends to beat Zone 2 which tends to beat Zone 3.

       You may think that I have marked Notting Hill a tad unfairly, especially if you’ve just bought a plasterboard cubbyhole there for two hundred grand. I just say that if you live in Notting Hill you deserve all the unfairness you get.

       If anybody else feels hard done by, and thinks this table undervalues their own property, I am afraid to say I don’t yet operate an ombudsman system to mediate disputes.

      I rented a room in Henry’s cosy three-bed flat in Clapham, which was above a CTN and overlooked the public khazi. A roof-terraced, stripped-floored, ficus-benjamina-by-the-tellyed 4.

      SIX: WHEELS

Cars, basically. With motorcycles, HGVs, tractors etc each case is treated strictly on merit, but basically I’m talking cars. Cars are complex in a way that houses aren’t. Whilst in the case of new cars the market principle is broadly operable – a £13,000 Vectra always scoring more points than a £9,000 Punto – the second-hand market wreaks havoc. For instance, Marie, my ex-girlfriend, scores a solid 4 with her nearly-new Nissan Micra, whereas Henry, with his ancient Triumph Stag, scores a 5, despite the fact he paid about two grand less for it. More high marks might be scored by: a gubernatorial stretch Zil; a gold Roller droptop on white-walls; a cigarillo of crimson fibreglass with head-high tyre tread and 400 horses slavering at the nape of your neck; any Aston; anything American.

      The acid test is whether or not your car evokes the comment ‘Nice motor’ (or ‘’smoter’) from a black eighteen-year-old male. If so then you’re 5 or above, if not, you’re 4 or below. I drive a 1977 Vauxhall Cavalier. Oh! My Chevalier! ‘’Smoter’? No. Laughing stock? Yes. Score? 2. Better than a Daewoo, purely for the kitsch value.

      SEVEN: PHYSICAL

You could never accuse me of being superficial here, as I always take care to look beneath the skin, as well as upon it. There are two dimensions on which to score; 5 for aesthetic beauty and 5 for physical health. Kind of, ‘Yeah, not bad, but how long’s it going to last?’ Some examples: a Premier League footballer with a horse’s face (getting rarer – most of them look like Zulu chiefs or boy band members nowadays): a 6. A supermodel with an aerobics video out is brushing 10. A supermodel with a syringe of smack lolling out of her eyelid as she goes hypoglycaemic in a nightclub toilet (i.e. most of them), more like a 6 again.

      Despite the peascod gilet of Trex that I sport, I get two beauty points for tapering, sensitive fingers and a winning, lop-sided grin, and one fitness point for being able to go to the shops without the aid of a motorised wheelchair. I smoke Luckies, because hardly anyone else does, and binge drink whenever I get the chance, which I’m sure doesn’t do me any favours, but I never go to the doctor’s (on the same basis that I never open mail from the bank) so maybe I’m just fine. Thus, being in paranoid ignorance of my real state of health, I gave myself a rather unprepossessing

score of 3.

      EIGHT: POPULAR

Do people spend their time at parties scanning the space over your left shoulder looking for someone they’d rather be talking to? How many invitations do you have on the mantelpiece? How many times this week did you spend your break time circling the programmes you’re going to watch on telly tonight? How often do you sit there in the early evenings desperately flipping through your mental address book, wondering why no-one ever calls? My answers to these questions go like this: yes, 0,5, very often. It’s a painful area, and you may well be reluctant to be truthful to yourself. I could even forgive you for overstating your score a little bit. I did. My score? 3. Work friends score half.

      NINE: INTERESTING