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would be fun to see how long it would take you to eat a bowl of popcorn with boxing gloves on. And last week you thought you liked putting the takeaway container on your head and pretending you were a spaceman (but the next morning you changed your mind about that because your hair smelt of korma). You turn forlornly back to the CV and type ‘HOBBIES: Swimming, reading and travelling’: the holy trinity of boringly acceptable things everyone likes. Or no one would admit to not liking, at any rate (‘Travelling? No, hate it. I’m an enormous fan of staying put, actually. I’m happiest within a three-foot radius of my toaster and my pillow. I don’t want my horizons broadened, thank you’).
    You arrive at the job interview, your CV in hand. Everything’s going surprisingly well. You’ve got through the strengths and weaknesses section (although I’m not sure ‘height’ does technically count as a strength). You’ve dealt with work experience and now you are at ‘. . . and finally – hobbies’: you’re practically out of the door, until the interviewer’s eye falls on ‘Swimming’. It turns out he swims at county level and is very eager to quiz you on your sporting habits.
    This is where things can all go very, very wrong, as they once did for me.
    ‘So, what’s your stroke?’ the interviewer enquired.
    Lovely, safe swimming. Now not so safe.
    Of course, I panicked. Because basically I only really swim when on holiday. And even then it’s mostly just splashing about in a rubber ring, and actually I get a bit frightened when the water goes on my face. Stalling, I tried a thoughtful ‘Umm . . .’, rolling back my wheelie-chair reflectively. I was going for smooth, measured and authoritative. And I said, ‘Uh – butterfly . . . Butterfly is . . . my stroke.’
    I could have left it there. I
should
have left it there: silently suggesting that butterfly is so important to me that I couldn’t possibly address my passion for it in the brief time we had left. I could have been enigmatic.
    I wasn’t.
    I was nervous. And nerves lend themselves to the babble. I babbled, ‘Well, it’s not MY stroke, ha ha – I didn’t invent it, and if I did let me tell you this, I’d have called it “The Miranda”. What would The Miranda look like, do you think? Probably something like this –’ At which point I gave a very weird, ferocious demonstration involving flapping chicken arms and thrashing legs.
    The panel of interviewers looked a bit confused. I began to worry that this wasn’t going terribly well for me. Bravely, I decide to remedy the situation by offering – unsolicited – my views on body-hair removal for streamlining purposes: ‘You’d probably need to shave your legs, though, to get a good head of steam going with The Miranda. I mean, I’m blessed with very little hair; I’m not hairy, no, no, siree, I’m smooth as a billiard ball. But someone like you’ – pointing aggressively at the slightly boggle-eyed county-level swimmer – ‘might need to . . . Sorry, not that you’re hairy – I mean, most men have hairy backs. Do you have a hairy back? None of my business, obviously, but if you do, then –’
    Luckily, at that point, the main interviewer concluded the interview. ‘Phew,’ I thought, ‘I’m out of here.’ Not an unmitigated triumph, but it could have been worse.
    I stood up and things did, indeed, get considerably worse. It turned out my long skirt had got trapped under the wheels of the wheelie-chair, and so as I rose, said skirt shot down, revealing my pants and legs.
    Now, this is one of those situations – isn’t it, MDRC? – when you think, ‘Right, where is the pamphlet on what to do next? Why is there no rulebook?’

    I think a lot of people would have quickly gathered their skirt about them and dashed out. Instead, I thought the following would be appropriate: ‘Oh, good. I’m glad that’s happened, actually. I meant to show you my lovely smooth