Rubbernecking at Car Crashes

I am not what you would call trendy. I choose comfort over style any time. If I had my way, I'd go to work in jeans and trainers. If it's cold, I layer up starting with my M&S thermal underwear. Nor do I watch soaps, reality tv or anything vaguely 'now'. My conversation in an office is limited. I refuse point blank to spend my hard earned cash on fashion, celebrity or even women's magazines.

Am I interested in what Katie Price did next? No, not really. Do I care which X-Factor star is trying to cop off with Simon Powell? If I say I couldn't give a flying fuck, it would indicate too much emotion on my part.

And yet...

I can't wait to get to the doctor/dentist/orthodontist's waiting rooms. I always arrive early. Not because I'm a punctual person (I'm not. I operate on Pagan time, which means I'm always late), but because I love to read the magazines I publicly revile. Hello and OK draw me like a slice of double chocolate cake, seduces an anorexic.

The older these magazines, the better. I've found myself happily reading about Peter and Katie's fairy tale romance in a waiting room this year, the grumbling when I was called in for my consultation, was audible and expletive-ridden. I don't know why Angelina being reviled for seducing Brad pulls me in.

I pour over pictures of minor celebrities, major A-Listers and members of the upper echelons of British society, decked out in their best formal-wear as they 'lounge' around their humble weekend pad that is the size of my house X 4. I tut over Camilla's choice of dress to an opening event. Openly mock the stylist who convinced the Queen that the apricot suit and matching hat really worked for her. The recovering alcoholic rock-star in his mid-forties with his new soulmate, who has 2 years on his oldest child from his previous soulmate, is not above my bitchiness.

The article in Cosmo on the top 10 tips to have the best orgasms with him, her or them, gets read from beginning to end. As does the 'How to have a perfect Christmas' in the 2003 edition of Woman and Home. I've shaken my head at the 75 year old woman who has been having an affair with the same married man for the last 35 years. I've been suitably horrified for poor 19 year old Chardonnay whose 17 year old rat-bag husband ran off with her mum (aged 30) in Take-A-Break. The best 10 minute exercise to get my body ready for the summer. The latest fad diet: no carb, no proteins, food combining, starvation and upchucking as the best ways to loose weight for the LBD for the Christmas party. Serious debates about plastic surgery, size 0, curvy women, skinny women, real women choose botox. I can't get enough of it.

I realise that I can do this because of one fundemental fact: this is environmentally friendly trash. It's all recycled. It doesn't matter if I don't buy the newest copy of Elle, because the content will be pretty much the same in 5 years time. It'll still be filled with cosmetic ads, the latest anti-aging product from Olay, and articles on how to attract the right bloke, keep the right bloke, get over the wrong bloke and carry on without a bloke.

It doesn't stop me getting to the waiting room early and reaching for the copy though.