Bimbo 1: Do You Believe in Magic? (The Bimbo Series)

Vegetarians, vegans and self-sustainers belong here. As do protestors, activists, backpackers and dreadlock wearers. In this box you will also find the non-profit sector, every member of the green party and the entire Gaeltacht population.

Osito Bimbo Takes Flight on the Rise & Shine Tour

If you belong in this box then it's safe to assume that you do all in your power to challenge societal norms, fight against established traditions and ridicule those in the bimbo box. You wear your unique blend of superiority and condescension on your sleeve for the world to see.

The older I get the more infuriated I feel each time I'm thrown into one of the above boxes. In the interest of context I will tell you that I am heavily involved with two non-profit organisations on a voluntary basis, and have been for a number of years. Each time I travel abroad for an event with these organisations I can sense immediately that because I am wearing items of clothing made from fabrics other than hemp I am immediately placed in the bimbo box.

Similarly I have many a time been in the company of my own loving family when I foolishly blurt out a reference to my work with the non-profits. More often than not I am met with expressions of ridicule, patronisation and occasionally an outright burst of laughter - silly Sarah and her notions of world peace.

• ARVO 2010 Abstracts - Glaucoma.
• People: An ethical bimbo's struggle with boxes.
• Twelve Seconds: The Lift Your Business Needs.
• !

Into the ethical box I go. But hang on just a second. If I turn up to a campaign meeting rocking my favourite coral MAC lippy and a to-the-shade matching tote, am I somehow less of an activist? If I'm drinking strawberry daiquiris with my friends over tapas and I ask them their thoughts on the latest strikes against Gaza do I suddenly stop being a 'fun' person?

I imagine this is something akin to how Regina George felt when the Mean Girls dropped the infamous 'you can't sit with us' bomb.

I am not so self-important to suggest that I'm unique in my lifelong struggle with boxes, or that my frustration at being boxed is not shared. In fact, it is my assertion that there exists a new generation of twenty-somethings just like me, who are creating their own box.

Some of us eat meat, some of us grow our own vegetables, some of us do both. We work hard to achieve the perfect streak free fake tan, yet we also work hard to understand the world around us. We want tickets to Electric Picnic every year and we want the Irish Government to get off their backsides and honour their CO2 emissions targets. Some of us have dreadlocks, some of us shop exclusively in River Island… some of us work in KPMG and some of us in Oxfam even more of us are dole bums.

Anyone who has braved the last-minute dash around the shops on Christmas Eve will know that the term 'festive madness' wasn't coined out of thin air. June Rodgers has been a popular figure on the Irish comedy circuit for almost 30 years, starting with her success in the John August 18 2: These were two books from her Noddy series about Noddy the wooden toy sort of reminds one of Pinnochchio, doesn't it?

These stories about walking and talking toys fascinated me and I used to spend hours fantasizing about talking toys of my own and what I would do with them and the fun I could have if I had a toy that was able to talk to me. From there onwards, there was no stopping me - I went through the Enid Blyton books at my local library in record time and began looking around for other sources of books but alas, there was none. The bookstores in my town didn't have many English books and even the ones which were there were unfortunately, not Enid Blyton's.

Then, I had to change schools and joined Royal College in Colombo and suddenly, a new avenue of books was opened up to me. I found that most of my new classmates had huge collections of books and that most of them had at least a couple of Enid Blytons. I felt as if I was in heaven and my only problem was in deciding what to borrow and what to read. I begged and coaxed my friends and lent them the few books that I had which most of them had read or didn't want to borrow as they considered them too "childish" in order to get them to lend me the books they had.

The move to Colombo was a real good opportunity for me in another way too - Colombo's bookshops had a lot of children's books and Enid Blyton was everywhere.

In addition, I found that there were second-hand bookshops from which you could buy books cheaper and I began saving up all the money I got from relatives and my parents in order to buy books. I went through a lot of Enid Blyton books in this time period and met a lot of new friends through her books.

She had the habit of writing a series of books about a character or a set of characters and so, if I liked one book, there probably were a few more detailing the further adventures of the same character or characters. This for me was an added incentive to read Enid Blyton. America finds a hero.

Well, you can't deny that for someone so young, vital and successful to be afflicted with a deadly virus, he took it with uncommon courage, grace and dignity. But does that make him a hero? I thought to be a hero you had to do something brave and not selfish and something that would help other people. He was out there hopping in the sack with one bimbo after another. That's how he picked up the virus, right?

Back when I was in the service, the chaplain and the medics used to make us sit through those meetings and warn us about not getting a dose.

Osito Bimbo Takes Flight on the Rise & Shine Tour - AW

They'd have a picture show with what your whoozits would look like if you wasn't careful. Then they'd come down with something and they'd have to go to the infirmary. Then they'd have to check in with the first sergeant. And I feel sorry for him.

Editors Choice

I don't like seeing nobody get clobbered. Like a friend of mine. His wife comes down with cancer when she's about Johnson's age.