In pursuit of hygiene

While I am tempted to hold The First Stone entirely responsible for rewriting feminism to the point where it became about as unifying and useful to the girl-in-the-street as a wonder bra, I''m not quite that small-minded and brittle. There are lots of other folks to blame as well. Somebody said once, and doubtless after watching ''Australia''s Funniest Home Videos'', that happiness is slavery. I can''t for the life of me remember if this was The Nine Inch Nails or some nihilistic bod like Albert Camus. This is a heavy problem I have, confusing my latex-encased rock and roll demons with French modernist free thinkers. This is not, by any means, due to a pluralistic and eager embrace of all media. I simply never pay enough attention. Perhaps it was Nietzsche. Or maybe Ray Martin. I don''t know.Helen''s Never Fail Ten-Point Checklist for Outrunning Extreme Sexual DisappointmenT1. If he has ''Satan Is My Black Lord and Master'' tattooed on his scrotum, it''s a fair bet that you will be sacrificed before your third climax.2. If you''re a female with a taste for a same-sex encounter, check her cd collection first. If you find Tracy Chapman, Judy Small or Joan Baez, please do not expect anything more spectacular than incense and a shy squeeze of the bosom.3. Always try for a Away Match, and do try to remember the whereabouts of the front door. In larger cities, deadlocks are common, so take his trousers/her handbag with you as you flee.4. If you''re a male with a taste for a same-sex encounter, check his wallet for gym membership. If he has received an elephant stamp for hours spent on the stairmaster, please do not expect anything more spectacular than a compare and contrast of your sphincter muscles and a rippling strip show performesd to early Bronski Beat as he looks consistently in the mirror.5. Girls with lots of candles in their bedrooms, sarongs thrown over milkcrates and a picture of Virginia Woolf in profile generally have eating disorders. While this may not always mean that they can''t root for shit, they may only have limited energy and they will certainly have bad breath. Further, you will find it almost impossible to come between their cries of ''I''m so fat and ugly!''6. With few exceptions, boys who play guitar are a sexual joke. Bass players are worse. Drummers are appalling. A keyboard player has no penis and the sound guy is a virtual cro-magnon. If you do a roadie than I have no sympathy, and shouldn''t have been so naive. 7. men who say ''Relax, baby'' should be killed at birth.8. Ditto for ''You Rock My World''.9. Anyone who needs a bach flower remedy, an aspro or a bucket bong before a shag is a fool and a bad horizontal mosher.10. Check for hidden cameras.Helen Razer and Mikey Robins are still slaying the ratings in their guise as the TripleJ Breakfast Show, with over 2 million listeners as last count. If anything, Helen has increased her profile since the release of the bestselling Three Beers and a Chinese Meal (thanks, guys - 20,000 copies and please keep stocking it; they get new listeners all the time), writing a number of full-page feature articles for the Sydney Morning Herald, and a regular column for Cleo, as well as being categorised as IN by the arbiter of all things tasteful, Mode magazine. She has also appeared in a number of high profile televised debates.IN PURSUIT OF HYGIENE is a collection of writing showing Helen at her most hilarious and incisive. No one else can write with the same sense of scorn and vitriol - no prisoners are taken and all sacred cows are skewered through the heart. (Read the attached section entitled ''Women and Men I Really Don''t Like Much'' to get an idea of how good Helen is at stomping on people''s toes.With chapter titles including ''The Truth That Hell, Very Often, Is Other People'', ''Bad Shagging'', ''The Anger That Preceeds Thorough Listlessness'', ''Torpor and Tantrums'', ''Ten Good Reason to Turn Thirty'', ''Things That Really Get Up Me'' and ''Women and Men I Really