My Life of Crime

Mistakes, I’ve made a few, but then again, too few compared to Lindsay Lohan.


I am a whole year older than Lilo, so I speak from a place of worldly experience. I totally get where she’s coming from. We all make bad choices, we all get caught, and, most of the time, we all wear underwear. If I had a dime for every time some schmuck spilt a drink on me I could probably afford to go to an MTV after party as well. And I once accidentally stole a friend’s passport and left her stranded in Bangkok (true story), replace my friend with a rednut wash-out and Bangkok with Cannes and you have one very good reason to miss a parole appointment.

My life of crime began at the tender age of 7 when I stole a sachet of tomato sauce from a fish & chip shop. Then and there it was evident my prospects for a career in thievery weren’t great – I was discovered sauced-handed by my mother a mere half an hour later. She made me accompany her back to the shop the next day to personally confess and hand over the 20 cents I owed the establishment.

At boarding school I was once honoured by an invitation to join the cool kids as they smoked on the roof of the boarding house. 3 steps out into the brisk evening air (filled with the scent of rebellion and the fragrance of teen angst) I tripped, went skidding down the tiles and found myself clinging for dear life to the guttering. My feet dangled above the broken shards of a bowl which had been thrown out of a window to avoid cleaning it just that morning. My co-conspirators hauled me back up to safety and, it goes without saying, I was never invited back out on to that treacherous rooftop of trendy sin ever again.

A few years later, when wandering out of the school grounds with a fellow boarder a little before midnight we took one step out of the gate and ran smack bang into our House Mistress. Somehow we managed to convince her that I had a headache and we were looking for an aspirin.

So, with no future as a shoplifter, cat burglar or prison break specialist to look forward to, where could I turn? True I once made off with a decade’s worth of UKTV stationery (my parents are still writing shopping lists on it to this day), but I suspect no one missed it. Sure, I have a mug in my kitchen labeled ‘Nilfisk’… but I don’t know what that is, let alone how I got it. I can admit I still have a t-shirt I liberated from a someone’s washing in high school and my copy of the first Coldplay album has the name Peter written across it, but clearly those 2 items have found a better home (and who the hell is Peter? I think I have lived an entire life with a Peter… my sister’s former boyfriend Pete Repeat doesn’t count).

I was forced to give up on the notion of being a smooth criminal. The only path left to me was sarcasm. You see sarcasm isn’t the lowest form of wit, it’s the last outlet of failed criminals (hence all the pithy, smug retorts in Law & Order). Between the sarcasm and the endless glasses of wine, going all Robin Hood on the law’s arse seems like way to much of an effort.

I’m not saying wine is Lindsay’s answer… with the DUI and the rehab, that’d be like trying to cure rabies with a fresh dog bite. The answer for Lindsay is take a hint and stop tempting fate in general. Unless George Clooney is running your crew, Clive Owen’s your inside man and Robert De Niro is riding shotgun you will not stay 2 steps ahead of the law. Especially as you insist on keeping us updated with Twitter.

I would suggest Lilo try something novel, push the boundaries of our expectation and attempt to act in a few movies. I'm sure she'll find inspiration for a Mean Girls sequel at some point over the next few months.


Painefull Out