Farewell 2007

Blimey. The last few days have been a rollercoaster and suddenly it's the end of the year. Saturday night was fantastic - way, way too much alcohol in Camden with Luke and Colin, followed by a Roy Ayers gig at the Jazz Cafe - apparently he is some legend and the crowd took it all extremely seriously. Of course it's massively immature but somehow I found it difficult to take seriously the portly sixty-something black man playing the xylophone while singing Everybody Loves The Sunshine. Still, several Coronas on top of the red and white wine consumed pre-gig helped the evening along swimmingly and by the time I arrived home I could barely see.

Yesterday was hungover but I massively enjoyed hair of the dog beer in Hammersmith with Lucy and then hair of the dog wine in Earl's Court with Sarah, Joanna and Mungo. Today I arose earlier than I have for some days (8.30am) and went to the flat with my dad to measure up for my new kitchen. This seemed to go surprisingly well until I got home and realised we'd forgotten to mark the location of the boiler, an oversight which, in retrospect, seems extraordinarily unlikely. Mum and I are going to Ikea in Croydon this Friday night after work to purchase the new units - oh, the glamour.

Back to now and I'm minutes away from leaving for my New Year's Eve party. Destination: the Adelaide pub in Chalk Farm for a retro space age party. I am ridiculously smug with my outfit but will clearly break my heel on the way there or suffer some other karmic punishment and have to spend the night blushing in a corner.

It feels like the perfect time to be saying goodbye to 2007. This has been a transitional year for me, a vital twelve months that have seen some major alterations in my external and internal states. This time in 2006 I was tutoring and unsure about job options - the future was daunting in the extreme. After an annus that, at times, was pretty horribilis, I'm on my own, having single-handedly purchased a two bedroom flat, started a new career and changed direction onto a happier path of less pressure and more fun. Now it's onwards and upwards, more commuting, more interior design, more jogging, more work, more writing, more singing, more TV viewing on the new Bravia and, of course, mort gage. No new resolutions for me - still the same one I've had for the past three years, but somehow I don't think I'll be able to justify the expense of a parachute jump in the next 365 days either. So, until next time, this is Lost Looking For Fish, wishing you all an extremely happy, healthy, productive, nutritious, romantic, interesting, pleasantly scented and beneficial New Year. Over and out.

I got the key, I got the secret...

Ignoring the obvious syntactical errors in my title, the sentiment should ring out loud and clear: I have now collected the keys to my new flat/life from the over-styled estate agent who was working as part of a skeleton staff this morning and I am now, officially, a property owner. This is momentous.

Like all other massive life experiences that I have been through thus far, with the possible exception of Disneyworld, it has been nothing like I expected. For a start, the first thing I did when I got inside my new front door was burst into tears. Then I sat down and methodically wrote 'Not Known At This Address - Return To Sender' on an assortment of approximately eighty letters to an unexpected variety of recipients. Feeling a bit calmer, I made myself stand up and kiss every major wall; a workmate recommended this practice and actually, having not kissed anything much since approximately July, I did feel a close bond beginning to form. Then my parents arrived and we drank champagne.

Now it's much later. I'm back home, the rain is pounding on the Velux like gravel and the prospect of moving is dangling appealingly in my future. Sadly I don't think it will be for several weeks/months but the prospect is there, all the same, and I feel extremely fortunate.

All this in spite of the fact that, late last night, I found out thanks to Facebook that my ex is now seeing someone else and has been spending Christmas in the Cayman Islands. Such a combination of news items is not recommended at the best of times, but after several glasses of Cava the feeling of my lungs being hoovered out of body through my solar plexus was perhaps more pronounced. Sure, I don't know the full story, but to be honest, the headlines were enough. I was lucky enough to have Sara to look after me, ply me with Rescue Remedy, put me to sleep in her daughter's bed and set me on my way with Weetabix this morning.

Thus it was that entering my first flat for the first time had the slightly unexpected flavour of steely determination rather than unbridled joy - but ultimately, I'm awesome and lucky in so many ways and that's all that matters.

Festive love

Happy Christmas, one and all, from your beloved Lost Looking For Fish. I must admit that I feel particularly lost today but, in fairness, the vast majority of the day has been extremely positive. In the gift department I did especially well, receiving many practical items including a mattress topper, an iron and charity ironing board cover, a Habitat lamp and some new mascara. I have eaten exceptionally, drunk even better, laughed heartily, played some seasonal family games and am now lying in my armchair watching Casino Royale on Sky. Perfect. I do not require tomorrow for boxing of any kind so assume I will be able to write in more depth at some point in the next 24 hours.

Happy holidays

This weekend has passed by in a bit of a blur, and I am inordinately glad that I do not have to return to work this side of 2008. I have managed to eat and drink a fair amount in the past few days and I now feel confident that my stomach will be fully limbered up by Tuesday, allowing for maximum gluttony while it is considered socially legitimate to eat until one is unable to do much except massage one's own intestine in the hope of facilitating digestion. Personally, I find that sitting at a slight left or right incline can inexplicably expedite this process, though I am sure that medical professionals would scoff at such pseudo-quackery.

Today was both enjoyable and efficient, one of the best day combinations currently on offer. I met up with Katherine in Hammersmith where we performed possibly the most adroit last minute Christmas shopping ever attempted, making it through Primark, Habitat, M&S and WH Smith's in just under two hours, followed by a delicious lunch and our reward of Pinot Grigio. My only minor hiccup had occurred in Smith's. I had selected my desired item in under a minute and then sped-walked to the queue, only to find it snaking through the magazine racks into the middle distance somewhere north of Lancaster. The till-workers seemed insufficient in number and, with the awaiting Katherine adding to my impatience, I made the decision to search out an alternative queue. I found the DVD tills at the same time as three other customers and although I made it clear I wanted us to unite in a 'first come, first served' fashion, a lady in a red coat decided to plump for the 'two tills, two queues' method - one which I detest. I detested it even more when the man in front of me revealed his haul with what I believe was a touch of vindictive glee - he was purchasing at least 37 DVDs, each of which required the well-meaning staff member to burrow into the filing cabinet behind him, find the correct disk and place it in the case before scanning it. I am not normally a queue-mover, on the whole preferring to stick these things out, but immediately I knew there was no competition and I reluctantly took my place behind the redcoat who was oozing sympathy like pus. She then realised that she had forgotten High School Musical 2 and rushed off to find it, bleating apologies with all the sincerity of a hairdresser with ADHD. Sadly the till-man wouldn't serve me in the interim so I sat there thinking about The Power of Now and hoping that steam wasn't actually coming out of my nostrils. Props go to Katherine for only phoning me once to ask politely how I was doing. I could easily have learned Cantonese while she'd been waiting for me, so her calm demeanour was impressive.

This evening I have been feeling very festive in new Primark lounge trousers (£4) and sheepskin slippers. Having derided our requests to play games, my father was unable to resist the clatter of the Boggle cubes and the three of us spent an animated 45 minutes playing a new version of the game, with added old age. This involved my mother reading out the list of words she'd found, around half of which were actually on the board. Of those that were valid, she would generally have written about three of them down more than once. When she realised her score was low, she would then pretend to be searching her piece of paper for more words, while frantically scanning the letters on the board to find last minute options. Dad, meanwhile, attempted to pass 'moppet' and 'doper' off as genuine words. And I won. Tomorrow I will wrap presents, go for a walk and peel many root vegetables. La vita é bella.

Irritation, Satisfaction and Happiness

What annoyed me today was the eight year old on the bus who was determined to impress his father by swinging on the handles that dangled from the ceiling. Sadly the miniature attention-seeker could barely reach the loops and simultaneously touch the floor with his feet, which meant that every time the bus jolted, he lost all control and swung helplessly into the indescribably patient woman sitting nearby. His father was as effective as the rhythm method, repeatedly calling his son to heel in a lacklustre fashion that merely served to underline his pathetic failure as a role model and create crystal-clear images of his future, sitting alone in a moth-eaten old people's home while his selfish, boundary-less offspring tries to wow the ladies by hanging from handrails on the tube.

What satisfied me today was our office Christmas lunch at the Coq D'Argent. It began as a civilised gathering and ended riotously with discussions of sex on stairlifts and a rowdy game of the enduringly popular 'Shag, Marry or Cliff'. Unexpected and thorougly enjoyable.

What thrilled me today was that, at approximately 2pm this afternoon, I exchanged on my flat purchase, 46 days after I saw it on the first and only afternoon that I went house-hunting. I complete on the 27th December and, once I have removed every morsel of decoration that currently exists therein and replaced it with something different, tasteful and massively reduced in price, I will move in. Poverty beckons. And Kim: you may now get excited.

Back from near-death

Once again, many apologies for my protracted absence this week – I have been feeling fairly off colour and not up to my usual riotous banter. To be honest, I am still not quite on colour, whatever that might involve, but duty calls and my fans are impatient. Plus, I have so much to tell, the backlog is becoming unmanageable.

It all started on Monday, when I left work early and came home in the freezing afternoon to prepare for Eva’s wedding. With a slightly tragic level of excitement about a mid-afternoon bath, I turned on the taps and then scampered upstairs to perform some minor follicular operations. Sadly, my faithful laptop beckoned me so persuasively that I became sucked into the internet, fully aware that the hot:cold ratio downstairs would almost certainly be negatively affected as a result of my dilly-dallying. Eventually, I tore myself away and galloped down the stairs as delicately as possible. Tentatively, I inserted my hand beneath the Badedas bubbles, dreading the catastrophic lukewarm sensation that would tell me that I had over-run the hot water and it had now run out. But lukewarm it was. Cursing, I told myself to remain calm. Surely in a few moments, the hot would be back and I could bathe in heat. Patiently, I waited for at least five minutes, and sure enough, the hot tap was hot once more. For around nine seconds. I repeated this process, conscious that the clock was ticking and that I needed to leave home in around forty minutes – and that a small towel would not be quite enough in the way of garments. But when the next hot blast also failed all-too-soon, I knew I had no alternative but to enter the tepidness. Already cold, physically and psychologically, the sensation was akin to stepping into the North Sea in January. My goosebumps were painful. I sat down, determined to stay positive, but sadly, this maturity didn’t last long and only seconds later I was frantically running the still-cold hot tap, determined that the boiler would kick into action eventually and knowing that every second I let it run cold was merely making my liquid surroundings even less pleasant. The gargantuan waste of water added moral quandaries to my predicament: could I get out or should I stay in and suffer? Feeling sure that I’d learned my lesson, I scrambled out as quickly as I could and prepared for the wedding at lightning speed.

The marriage was beautiful, fairy-lit and musically stunning. Eva was gorgeous in royal blue, Pete’s speech was hilarious in all the right ways and none of the wrong ones. I sat next to two lovely boys at dinner, both married, both fathers – but entertaining none the less. Celebrity count was excellent – although this started a row when I jokingly accused one of my friends of filming the ‘supergroup’ on stage in order to upload it to YouTube. He took this as a serious and massively offensive slur on the nature of his friendship with the bride and groom and this quickly spiralled into an argument fuelled by far too much delicious wine on my part. Something about being at a party with school friends from two years above me while having a row with a boy I used to fancy when I was in my teens – it all took me back a decade or so. I suddenly felt like I was back at the Feathers ball in the Hammersmith Palais – although thankfully my fashion sense has progressed beyond a £10 black lycra minidress and black lace-up Palladium shoes. Wince. In my drunken excitement, I also managed to set my mum’s coral red pashmina on fire with a tea-light during the canapés section of the evening. I was devastated but I was sitting next to one of the judges from Britain’s Next Top Model and became strangely embarrassed that I hadn’t even managed to make it to dinner without falling into the ‘major liability’ category, so I wafted away the smell and hid the irreparable shawl down the back of my chair. And mum: I’m so sorry. I’ll replace it. Seriously.

On Tuesday, disaster struck when what I had thought was a hangover became a life-threateningly serious virus (read: cold). I went to work as normal but found myself shivering pathetically, sweating profusely and all sorts of other very attractive things. I went to bed early that night, slept all day on Wednesday and most of last night and woke up feeling slightly more human this morning. The highlight of the illness has to be the hallucino-esque dreams I had last night, one of which must have involved an old man. I woke up in the middle of it, in my pitch-black bedroom, and thought that the old man was lying in bed next to me. This didn’t strike me as particularly unexpected – but then I realised that his face didn’t look quite right. ‘Hang on,’ I thought to myself. ‘That’s not the old man – that’s a mask! Someone is trying to make it look like the old man is in my bed! They’ve put a Spitting Image style floppy rubber mask of his face here!’ I picked it up to toss it away – and suddenly I realised with a flush of embarrassment that it was, in fact, my cushion. The corner had bent to create the effect of a long, beaked nose – and my hyper-active, cold-fuelled imagination had done the rest.

And now it’s Thursday – I’ve stumbled through work, still feeling fairly sorry for myself – and yet there is good progress with the flat, which is finally picking up pace after a terrifying 48 hours where no one could get hold of the vendor and I thought he had evaporated or been arrested for paedophilia. Fingers crossed for some concrete positive developments tomorrow. Until then…

Apologies

Lost Looking for Fish is off sick today. As a substitute, why not hop over to 200 Word Reviews? Alternatively, check back tomorrow when hopefully I'll be feeling less pathetic and more able to construct sentences. Muchos gracias.

The geese are getting fat

In keeping with seasonal expectations, it's been pretty busy in my vicinity of late. Thursday night was my office Christmas party, and I must say how refreshing it was that my first experience of this type of event managed to live up to every single generalisation and stereotype that I had ever imagined. There were drunk people making a fool of themselves by tripping up the stairs (incl. me at approx 10pm); a fair few people wandering around the large venue having lost their friends (me at approx 11pm) and inebriated people trapping innocent victims in feisty embraces and trying to persuade them that a quick kiss would not turn into office gossip (me in the role of 'victim', shortly before my departure at around 1am). The food was disappointing, the music was mediocre and the skiing game with which I became obsessed after an early victory left one with polystyrene bean-bag balls in many private areas which were difficult to extract while retaining feminine mystique. It was fun.

On Friday I was feeling somewhat the worse for wear and was substantially slower as a result. I ate enough carbohydrates to fuel a marathon runner but did less cardio than a fat man in a coma - and when I left the office building my hangover meant that I became extremely irritable very quickly when my card wouldn't let me through the security barriers. I swiped it repeatedly to no avail and then felt suitably idiotic when I looked down at my hand and realised that my card had fallen out of its holster and I was rubbing an empty plastic case over the reader.

The highlight of Saturday was bowling and karaoke with my choir friends, particularly the latter. Karaoke is fun anyway, but when it's done truly unashamedly with eight part harmonies and comedy voices, it's seriously fantastic. I did manage to get a little carried away at a few points but thankfully I wasn't the only one who threw themselves into the part with gusto. This festive shenanigan was followed by delicious food and then the X Factor final - probably not many people's Saturday of choice but it hit the spot for me.

Today I have been efficient and happy - I have been for a run for the past two mornings which has sent my smugometer off the scale and ensured that I could lay into the roast chicken and bread sauce with a touch less guilt. My irritation levels did veer towards the russet/crimson zone earlier this afternoon, however, when my father showed me an article in the Sunday Telegraph which reported that a scientific advisor to the Labour government has said that women should stop fancying men with fast cars if they want to help the environment. Allow me to clarify: the purchase of a fast car by a man is the fault of women and nothing to do with the man at all. Consequently, any contribution to global warming made by male-purchased sports cars is not the responsibility of their owners. Rather, a man's innate (and thus uncontrollable) desire to impress us girls is the defining factor in 100% of car purchases, testosterone dragging them helplessly towards higher fuel consumption. OK. On behalf of all women, I'll accept the blame for the global warming arising from men's car purchases if men will concede that, by fancying us when we dress nicely, they are thus entirely responsible for child labour by 'making' us purchase clothes which could be from unethical sources. Scoff. I don't remember such a pathetic denial of the consequences of one's own actions since fat people started suing McDonald's, and anyone who agrees with the report's writer should be forced to do something really unpleasant that would enlighten them to the true stupidity of their perspective. Perhaps they might have to make some efforts to educate themselves to a minimal standard - something akin to the level of liberal sensitivity of the average Swedish eight-year-old should do the trick. And of course, they should never be allowed to view the Telegraph as a news source again.

Stir Crazy

This morning on the tube, I was seated opposite a large man wearing a thick, grey overcoat. He had arrived on board carrying a recently purchased coffee which he held in one hand as he unzipped the front pocket of his rucksack. Inside, in an inbuilt pen holder, was a long-handled, shallow spoon, which appeared to be made of mottled plastic or wood. He extracted it gently, prised off the lid of his coffee, stirred the hot contents and replaced the top. I was strangely impressed: a man whose spoon preferences are so specific that he brings his own each day for this stage in his morning's ritual. He licked the foam off it and I waited to see where he would discard it. But, unexpectedly, no discard took place. Instead, he casually wiped the spoon off with a small napkin and replaced it in the pen holder. I can barely bear to think about it. This was not a throwaway cutlery item for my fellow passenger but a cherished favourite which would be reused time after time. Merely imagining the build-up of festering milk froth and saliva particles combining with the internal rucksack dust makes me feel queasy now, several hours later. But this is just another in a long list of odd characters one meets on the London Underground and I, for one, wouldn't change that for all the chauffeur-driven cars in the world.

Dress for Success

My mother does many things that grate upon my over-sensitive self, such as having regular and violent sneezing fits that last for over ten minutes while I'm trying to eat breakfast, but thankfully she has never been one of those mothers who has put pressure on me to be in a relationship. One hears these horror stories of pressurising parents who berate their offspring for their lack of long-term love, moaning about dying before the birth of their first grandchild - and continually reciting that hideous pearl of received wisdom: that one should always look one's best, 'just in case'/'because you never know who you might meet'.

I do try and look OK, but I'm certainly on the middle of the scale when it comes to making an effort with my appearance. I do my make-up on the tube every morning, starting at Euston Square and ending between Farringdon and Barbican. If I'm not going out in the evening after work, I will wear boring clothes to the office because they're warm or because they're the right colour to complete a pending darks/whites/wools wash. Don't get me wrong, I absolutely love getting dressed up and looking good - but I'm afraid that the people at work aren't enough motivation.

Yesterday, I did have a post-work engagement: another carol concert, this time for the fabulous Breast Cancer Haven charity. But after three choir concerts in four days, I was pretty certain that I wasn't trying to impress anyone in the choir and, after a good scout round at last year's concert, fairly confident that there would be no frissons with any audience members. Consequently, I left my nice choir outfits on the floor where I'd taken them off on Saturday and Sunday, and instead chose to wear my black work trousers, a passable black jumper and my grandmother's jet beads which added a festive twinkle to an otherwise bland outfit. I looked... fine.

So then we walked on stage and who should be in the front row, directly in my line of sight beyond our conductor, but Rod Stewart; his wife, the model, Penny Lancaster; Chris Tarrant; and almost most upsetting of all, Sarah Beeny. Not that I was hoping to entice any of the above, you understand - but it would have been nice to be feeling slightly more attractive than 'fine'. Fortunately, we sang beautifully: Rod even gave us a spontaneous burst of applause at more than one point and conducted the descant of Hark! The Herald Angels Sing by flapping his black scarf. Hilarious. Maybe those pushy mums have a point when it comes to looking one's best; but judging by my dull as ditchwater office attire today, which could reasonably be sported by a middle-aged American soccer mom, I haven't yet taken the lesson fully on board. The new Jane starts here: from now on, it's handbags and gladrags. I'm still doing my make-up on the tube though.

Sign of the times

Since 10 Downing Street started allowing online petitions to give the public the (clearly idiotic) sensation that they have a voice, I have only signed one - about motorcycle parking in London. I didn't follow the results too closely as my Vespa was 'incapacitated' shortly afterwards and my interest in the subject plummeted accordingly. But a few minutes ago, I signed my second, which is headed 'We, the undersigned, petition the Prime Minister to create a new public holiday, the National Remembrance Holiday, to commemorate The Fallen and our Nation, with the holiday falling on the second Monday in November each year, the day after Remembrance Sunday.' Now, I think Remembrance Sunday is a very important day but I'll admit that I would have endorsed any petition campaigning for a new public holiday, regardless of the premise. A day off work to think about astrophysics or Postman Pat, I'm not fussed, show me where to sign.

Having put my name on the list, I then was tempted to look at the other issues that are attracting the Great British Public's attention at present. Our new Bank Holiday request was second on the list of most popular petitions, with 91,097 signatures. But way in the lead, with a surprising 241,784 names, is the group who are petitioning the Prime Minister to 'allow the Red Arrows to fly at the 2012 Olympics'. Seriously? A possible aerobatics display which won't take place for five years is the most pressing issue for Brits today? And getting more time off work is the second most urgent topic? Not the decaying NHS, the environment, George Bush or phonics?

Also in the top 10 were petitions about student loan repayments, police pay, engineers, the EU constitution, congestion charging and an inevitable whacky request to make Jeremy Clarkson Prime Minister. Out of 8721 petitions, bottom of the list with only one signature was one to give Alan Rickman a knighthood, with a campaign to 'create slow and fast lanes on pavements in city centres during busy periods of the year' next up. As a window into the concerns of modern Britain, it has to be fairly conclusive. And if this is modern Britain, I'm emigrating.

Contents too unrelated for satisfactory title

Many apologies for my four day absence from the blogosphere. I have been both busy and creatively uninspired, a combination that does not entice one towards the computer to muse wittily. If I'm totally honest, I'm not 100% sure that I am now sufficiently fired up to write the kind of post that the Faithful deserve after such an unusually long hiatus, but I am of the mind that something is better than nothing.

So here goes something.

The last few days have been carol-tastic: I had a three hour rehearsal on Saturday afternoon, followed by a concert to a packed Mayfair church on Saturday evening and another concert on Sunday night. The latter was at Cliveden - a huge stately home that was the site of the Profumo/Christine Keeler affair and is now a swanky hotel full of rich Americans. I didn't see much of the place - just the reception area and a few ground floor rooms - but the spare loo rolls were tied up with Cliveden-branded navy-blue ribbon which was vastly OTT but strangely pleasing. It did occur to me that, if you're caught short, starting a new loo roll is traumatic enough without having to undo branded bows but then again, Cliveden guests probably don't get caught short in the first place - frightfully common habit.

Now I'm back at work with a busy week ahead. I am woefully out of touch with current affairs - other than a quick skim through the online Guardian this afternoon I seem to have been either dousing myself in self-help books or revising The Twelve Days Of Christmas for the past fortnight. No time for news. One story that did catch my eye during my twenty second foray through the internet was that, since the launch of the appalling free papers in London over the past year or so, recycled rubbish has tripled on three of the major tube lines, from 3 to 9.5 tonnes per day. The three lines who reported the increase have now been fined by the tube overlords, penalised for failing to attain targets in the 'ambience' category after a recent passenger survey. The tube lines blame the increase of newspaper rubbish that, they say, is impossible to manage. So thanks to the morons who enjoy these freesheets and then leave them lying around, we'll be seeing a decrease in standards on three of London's busiest underground lines. Obviously in our capitalist world, such a commercially successful venture won't go away any time soon - but it would be nice if it wasn't going to affect those of us who are desperately trying to prevent our brains from dissolving and slipping out through our noses in the near future. Yet another reason to hate the Metro - as if we needed one.

Too tired to title today

Today got off to a bad start when I had to shower directly beneath a spider. It was one of those whispery ones that has a body like a grain of wild rice and unfeasibly long legs like strands of hair. If it had been a human it would have looked like a 20 foot high Kate Moss. And potentially, that would have been a scarier sight above my shower this morning. But as it was, I felt threatened. I probably could have inhaled it and not noticed; however, I saw him/her chilling on its spindly web above my head and, in my defenceless nakedness, I was scared.

The steam and droplets of ricocheting moisture from the shower combined with the suction from the extractor fan to create some fairly adverse weather conditions for my new friend, who scuttled about frantically for the duration of my washing experience, searching for some security. I would have pitied the poor creature if I hadn't been phobic/pathetic. In the end, I burst out of the shower with a whimper several minutes earlier than normal, having washed on fast forward. Thankfully I was outwardly unscathed but I think the emotional scars may take longer to heal.

And now I am ill. This is livid-making as I have to sing in approximately eighty-three carol concerts over the next week or two and I need my voice. I have stuffed myself with salad, water, vitamin smoothies and fruit. And in a few minutes I will go to the gym to boost my immunity, even though I would rather be dipped in sick than exercise. What's really annoying about this new malady is that just this morning, after the arachnoshower, my mother suggested I may have been burning the candle at both ends over the past few days. Due to her continual oscillation between saying I am too busy and not busy enough, this latest update sent me into a frenzy of sarcasm - and even my father backed me up, saying I was fit enough to handle it. But now, only a few hours later, I am weak and feeble and my mother is vindicated. Which is a worse sensation than the illness and the spider combined.

Oh the times, they are a-changing

Using the title as a prompt, I'd say 20-30% of readers might think that this will be a post about Bob Dylan. Those readers will be proved incorrect. The remaining portion might have guessed that I will be talking about how things have changed in this hectic maelstrom of modernity in which we find ourselves. Those readers will be proved right. Anyone who looked at the title and thought I would be writing about something other than Bob Dylan or things changing in some respect: you need some mental assistance.

I was in a cafe (pah, can't find the e acute with enough ease to justify the effort:result ratio) on Monday with Fi. When we'd finished our drinks, accompanied by the incredible salted caramels that Fi had smuggled in from her favourite swanky chocolatier in Shepherd's Market, I lifted my right arm in the air, made a writing motion and thus signalled that we wished to have our bill. This is weird anyway because I am left-handed but always air-sign with my right hand. But what I realised with more than a hint of sadness was that this action, which is currently recognised internationally in restaurants and the like, will soon become obsolete, perhaps to be replaced by an elaborate modern mime of punching our PIN into a handheld credit card machine. If we slip up in years to come and draw our signature in the air, our children will wonder what the heck we're doing.

Gah, I'm turning into an anachronism. I feel like Stevens in The Remains of the Day. Or my dad. I need to get with the times, and fast. I'm going to make sure I listen to some Arctic Monkeys and watch at least an hour of MTV over the weekend to catch up with whatever it is that the cool kids are into these days. Additionally, if any readers have some enlightening tips, feel free to share with the group - I'm sure I'm not the only one who needs help to be hip.

Note to self (and others)

Do not, under any circumstances, go to the gym after work and then let Laura persuade you that going to O'Neill's is a good idea. Going to O'Neill's, in my experience, is rarely a phenomenal idea as the visit almost always culminates in some degree of personal humiliation for participants, but the crucial lesson here is to make sure that one's visit to said drinkerie does not follow hot on the heels of physical exercise. After over an hour in the gym last night, we settled downstairs in the pub and had a large glass of Sauvignon and a bag of McCoy's. This was unarguably silly. What was sillier still was allowing a nice young man from the building to buy us both a second glass and no further McCoy's. This amount of alcohol would normally have made me fairly tipsy - but with the adrenaline pumping round my system post-workout, I was pretty much legless. The journey home involved more Puzzle Bobble and aural nostalgia, playing old compilations on the iPod. Once back at the ranch, I went on my computer, watched Gordon Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares, tried on and rejected my new skinny jeans, ate some German Christmas biscuits, moisturised and passed out. This morning I could barely remember anything and had to piece it together like a struggling amnesiac. Now it's not even 10am and I've already had to eat a Twix. Something tells me today will be difficult.

Crisis in the Quiet Zone

They say people don't change. My mum, in particular, says it frequently - all too often when I'm in tears about a boy. But I have started to disagree with the assertion because I have first hand evidence that she is not strictly come telling the truth. What is this evidence? Readers: it is me. I have changed.

'Impossible!' you cry. But no. Over the past few years, my tastebuds have significantly readjusted: I now like olives, anchovies, sundried tomatoes and assorted nuts. And if my tastebuds can readjust, why not my brain patterns?

I really do think I've changed in the vicinity of the old grey matter, too. Sure, I'll admit that it probably has a tiny bit to do with the medication... but still, I do believe that, even with willpower alone, people can permanently alter their thinking patterns. I am currently reading The Power of Now which encourages us to relinquish the concept of time and instead choose to live in the present. It's a bit weird but it's also interesting and persuasive - and even after only a few pages, I found it was having an effect.

On Friday night, a tad tipsy after Katherine's birthday party, I was on the train, homeward bound. As usual, I had walked to the front carriage to facilitate a speedy exit at my destination station and, also as usual, this carriage had been designated a 'Quiet Zone' where talking to people, either in the flesh or over the phone, is forbidden. I had no one with whom I required an urgent conversation so I sat quietly like a good girl, pretending to read my book but really thinking about mundane issues. After a few minutes of peaceful travel, a kerfuffle erupted at the other end of the car.
'No!' said an irate voice. 'I will NOT keep my voice down. I'm SICK of it, I really am.'
This outburst was greeted with a few shouted questions from other passengers: the situation was not in any sense diffused. Over the next few moments it became clear that the man was upset because some young people sitting opposite him on the train were putting their feet on the seats and, crucially, making phonecalls.
'I walked all the way to the front of this train to get some peace and quiet on my way home,' he continued, his voice increasingly emotional and fraught, 'and you thugs just think you can behave any way you want. Do you do that at home?! I bet you don't!' I think the 'thugs' must have disagreed because at their response, the red-faced man stood up and started being physically threatening.

In previous lifetimes, I would have been prickling with desperation to get involved. As in almost any situation one might care to invent, I was in possession of some very strong opinions concerning the issue and would normally have been dying to share them. But I weighed up the justification for lumbering in with my tuppence-worth, and the scales fell on the side of 'sit still and shut up'. I realised the futility of such behaviour and instead remained in my seat like an average, passive bystander: so much easier and less stressful than the 'contributer' I have been in days of yore.

It's not that I'll never share my opinion again - but sometimes I have to accept that my input, valid and unique and special and gifted and intelligent though it clearly is, will not always be crucial to facilitate a speedy, smooth and friendly communication. I don't have to prove skills as a negotiator or defender of the weak 100% of the time. Thus I am gradually learning to enjoy a new life where I find it easier to drift along and stay out of things and, I must say, it's quite a relief.

Despite all that, I'm aware that the rest of you may be curious to hear what happened on my train. To conclude the tale, the aggressor was calmed down by the train guard, the youths were encouraged to take their phonecalls elsewhere and I achieved my second highest ever score on Puzzle Bobble.

The moral of the story? Old habits die hard, but you can kill them if you try hard enough. And if good ol' fashioned hard work won't do it, pop a few Citaloprim.

Does my bum look big in this?

On Friday night I went to Katherine's extremely fun birthday party - it was the first time I've gone along to a party where I knew only the host and it was brilliantly easy to chat to her delightful friends, lots of whom live near what will hopefully become my new flat. Lovely. The only small downside occurred at approximately 10pm when I was standing near the bar and a gentleman knocked into my shoulder. He was not the first person to have pushed past me and, a few glasses of Pinot Grigio the wiser, I was lairy enough to spin around and jokingly say, 'Would everyone please stop bumping into me?!' His response was unexpected. It was: 'Well, if you didn't have such a massive arse, I wouldn't have banged into it.' I must have guppied for a bit too long because he continued, 'Don't get me wrong, it's a lovely arse, but it's huge, and you should accept that.' I then found the power of speech and said something along the lines of: 'Normally I wouldn't sink to the level of retaliation, but on this occasion I'll make an exception. Your hairline is receding and it's very unattractive. Plus you are far, far too drunk for this early stage in the evening.' He mumbled something about having passed an Ofsted schools inspection and lurched off, not before throwing his parting shot, 'Besides, your hairline's receding too, and you're a girl.'

Well. He got the last bit right: I am, indeed, a girl. But I have to admit, it wasn't that particular accusation that upset me. Let's all think about my arse, shall we? Even after a couple of months' fairly steady weightloss, there is absolutely no denying that it is in no sense a small one. Pert, petite, firm, delicate, peachy: none of these adjectives are spot-on. But it is a comfortable UK size 14, which is the average clothes size for women in this country, so surely a more accurate description would be 'medium', rather than, as my new friend so delicately put it, 'massive'? Massive arses require more than one seat on an aeroplane. Massive arses demand special sizes in jeans shops and rule out the wearing of shift dresses. My arse, I am confident, is not massive.

Since this incident, both the male bystander who witnessed the incident and a male friend I asked about it last night immediately explained that the man definitely fancied me and was trying, albeit utterly ineptly, to flirt. How hilarious. Boys are even more ridiculous than I thought - and I'm more relieved than ever not to be affiliated to one at present. If you need me, I'll be on the Stairmaster.