Basic B*tch

I wanted to be Filofax person

I desperately wanted a Filofax .Or — I wanted to be a person who used a Filofax. I wanted to be A Filofax Person. And by person, I do, of course, mean woman; as in the 1990s at whose inception I was spawned, a Filofax was the very essence of femininity.

Electronic organisers would be adopted by the stockbrokers who had lived by the Filofax in the 1980s, leaving that soft, yielding leather, that satisfying popper button, those strong but sensitive binder rings for the demographic who could appreciate them: ladies.

Today, little girls dream of being climate activists, or athletes, or artists, or presidents, or shark scientists. I wanted to be Baby Boom, I wanted to

be Big Business, I wanted to be Working Girl: I wanted a Filofax.

A Filofax meant business, it meant busyness; it meant you had things to do and places to be and people to call. It meant you needed your sales projections and pitch ideas and credit cards and the addresses of several CEOs at all times.

Taking Care of Business: James Belushi finds a Filofax and steals the owner’s identity. That an entire identity could exist, distilled, between the tidy covers of a branded binder — it’s an idea that never stopped appealing.

A frenemy at school had one, aged 15. I hated the affectation, the presumptuousness (she hadn’t earnt it yet!) I hated the sophistication and how impressed I was.

I tried last year — I realised I couldn’t keep waiting for the time when I would be torn, 1980s-movie style, between a high-powered corporate career and motherhood. I spent hours researching, discerning, selecting, my Filofax. I prepared for the year with colour-coded reverence.

It wasn’t for me. I loathe having places to go and people to see. I don’t know what sales projections look like. The popper button annoyed me. The pleather depressed me. The squared paper made me insecure, and the address inserts judged me for not doing more post. I had nothing to put in the pockets.

I’m not a Filofax person.