"Conrad, just get over the small man syndrome!"

Alison was the only person I had ever met who would stay with someone after they had kicked a bar stool from under her colleague, Diane. Diane had got into an argument with him after he had made several comments about "never letting women work in my kitchen." Diane had made the assumption that he was a chef. This was not Diane's first mistake, he was only a sous-chef that probably did not have hiring-firing authority, but a chef nonetheless.

Diane was a card-carrying social worker with a sunny disposition that almost perfectly matched her pant-suit, which no card could authorise. Had she been born 120 years ago, she would be considered by historians today as a 'New Woman' - hair cropped short, smoking a cigarette, astride a clumsy early 20th century push bike. Diane would have swum at the beach during daylight hours.

Conrad was his name, ZOO Magazine was his style guide. He liked to think of himself overall as a new-age kind of guy with a bit of an old-school edge - while he wore white leather loafers, he matched them with a thick white belt holding up his black trousers. In reality, the only thing new-age about Conrad was his bluetooth headset, the only thing he retained from past generations was an Imperial attitude to women and being short.