Going postal

So, it may not yet be May, but due to the wonders of the electoral system, I've already put my Xs in the boxes and posted my vote. So Boris: you can stop trying to persuade me to endorse you, because it ain't going to happen.

What was slightly distressing was this morning, my expat boss called me into his office and asked if I understood voting. Pink, yellow and peach forms for him and his wife were spread out over his desk. 'I don't care who gets in,' he drawled, 'as long as Livingstone goes and there is no more Congestion charge. So I must vote for Boris, right?' Panic hit me like an anvil as it became clear that, in the next few seconds, I might be forced to assist not one, but two people to vote for Boris Johnson. Vomit rose in my throat. Blushing, I tried to explain to my boss that he was putting me in a position I found more uncomfortable than Downward Facing Dog, without using a lameass yoga analogy. It was an internal battle between political loyalty versus the need to assist one's boss personally, when one's job title is Personal Assistant and one's mortgage and mediocre existence depends on one's boss thinking one is doing a good job...

Like Robocop, I scanned my internal data to find a mutually satisfactory solution. And I am ashamed to say that political loyalty did not emerge as the unequivocal winner of the day. But I am very fond of my flat... And it wasn't all bad. Of course, the result of our exchange is confidential but I can say that through the virtues of the new two-choice system and by exercising some diplomatic brilliance of my own, I somehow managed to glean another couple of votes for someone other than the anti-Christ and leave my boss feeling that he was doing the Right Thing for the gas-guzzling drivers of London. With negotiating skills like these, maybe it should be me running for mayor.

Good news day

I don't know what it is, but news seems to go in waves - not so much between good and bad, but between fascinating and dull. The past week or so has been remarkably low on interesting news, in my humble opinion, with only Zimbabwe scraping my patented Gripometer above zero. Today, however, it's been a different story and I can't seem to get enough of the stuff. The Guardian website, which has been annoying me almost non stop of late, has this morning featured several pieces that have driven me to post comments - and several more upon which I would have commented, had I not felt too stupid to do so.

Topics of note include:

- Lap dancing clubs and the lax licensing laws surrounding them. Should they be legalised further or should the controls surrounding them be even more strict? I doubt there will ever be a day when some men don't like watching naked women writhing around, so, disgusting and moronic as I think it is, better that it's legal than it's forbidden. However, it'd be good if as much effort went into raising women's self esteem to a point where they'd rather be broke or do a crappy admin job than shake their booty in public, where Jordan and Belle du Jour aren't idolised, where Nuts and Zoo magazines don't encourage women to act like whores and where middle class girls don't go on pole dancing classes at their friends' hen dos and think it's hilarious.

- Prawns. The market for prawns is so great that huge swathes of Bangladesh land are being turned into immense prawn factories. Farmers who won't sell their land to the prawn farmers have their fields poisoned. I've got about five bags of the critters in my freezer. Feeling a bit less excited about eating them now.

- Hillary. So, she won in Pennsylvania - but her argument now seems to be 'OK, I won't win the highest number of delegates, but you should still choose me as the Democratic candidate because ultimately I'm more likely to win the election.' Which is about as fair as George W. Bush's presidency. Americans would lose faith in their electoral system and in the Democrats, McCain would have a field day saying that she wasn't democratically selected and, in short, it's a terrible idea. Much as I don't think Obama will make an impressive president, I think HRC has to stand down.

- British charitable giving is absurd. More money is given to a donkey sanctuary in Southern England than to the top three women's charities combined. The top 200 women's charities together receive less in donations than either the RSPCA, the Lifeboats or the Royal Opera House. This is outrageous and should be rectified.

and...

- Croc shoes in health warning. These rubber clogs aren't my bag. I'll admit that I was briefly tempted by a pink pair but when seen in size 10 on the end of my pasty white legs, it wasn't quite the kooky, girly look I'd imagined in my head. And a good thing too, as the incidence of accidents caused by this man-made footwear is startling - hundreds reported on escalators worldwide, including one girl who had her big toe ripped off after her foot became caught on a moving staircase. Clearly there are some terrible jokes to be had about crocodiles being dangerous but I'm far too busy and important to sit around constructing them...

That's it for now - a random summary of left wing news from London. It's not particularly funny but it gave me pause for thought.

And, just to console any of my Faithful who were worried that I might be veering off into bad reportage and away from my safer ground of self-ridicule and mindless ranting, hear this: today, at approximately 07:58, I opened my wardrobe to extract the black and white striped wool dress that I planned to wear today. At its shoulder, I noticed a white thread. 'Don't pull it,' I warned myself. 'That would be idiotic, you'll make a hole.' Simultaneously, I pulled it. It became longer. I started to panic and pulled harder. Eventually, three to four inches of thread in my fist, I broke it off. I pulled back to admire my handiwork. There was a three to four inch hole in the seam of the dress. It was irrepairable. I took the dress off the hanger and placed it, with love and apologies, into the bin. To add insult to injury, I am now wearing a pair of trousers that should, if there was a god, be far too big for me. But they fit juuuuust fiiiine. Sigh.

Safe to cross

I knew there was something I'd been meaning to write about for a couple of weeks. Predictably, now that I've remembered what it was, the urgency with which I was trying to recall it seems a little OTT. It's about varicose veins. Yes. Disappointing.

Anyway, a few weeks ago, Paul introduced me to a lady who is a massively successful, well-respected, authoritative and scary vascular surgeon who told me that the aforementioned urban myth is founded on absolutely nothing, and that I can cross my legs with gay abandon in future. I tried hard to ignore the degree of disbelief in her voice that anyone aged thirty with a fairly comprehensive education had managed to be sucked in by such unfounded claptrap, but despite my best efforts, I was left feeling a tad idiotic. But let's concentrate on the positives: although I'm still convinced that I'll go varicose in future, I'm relieved that the comforts of leg crossing won't play a part in the ordeal and consequently - is't possible? - I now enjoy sitting down even more than I used to.

How's that for a dangling preposition?

Freudian car crash

If, like me, you are in the early stages of a new relationship, try not to have a conversation like the following:

[Scene: Soho pub, PAUL seated at bar, JANE standing next to him. CROWDS around them]

JANE: [Looking down at a business card] So what's the difference between a Copyright symbol and a Registered Trademark symbol?
PAUL: Well, a trademark is registering just the mark itself, the logo - whereas if something has a copyright symbol you are protecting something more complex, a design.
JANE: So my tattoo [points to her tiny tattoo, a copyright symbol] is correct – I shouldn’t be a registered trademark?
PAUL: No, your tattoo is correct. But hey, what are you going to do when you have children?
JANE: What about it?
PAUL: Well, if you’re copyright, then when you have kids they’ll be in breach of copyright. They’ll be an unauthorised derivative of you.
JANE: But they won’t really be a copy of me.
PAUL: Why not?
JANE: Well, because they’ll be half me and half you.

[Room goes silent, lights go out, cue ball suddenly stops on snooker table, thunder rumbles outside followed by a crack of lightning]

Yes dear readers, the horror is genuine, the cringe is justified. After less than three months with Paul, I casually began our Saturday night with the relaxing suggestion that ‘when’ I have children, they’ll be his.

Immediately, my whole body stiffened and, despite the absence of mirrors, I am fairly confident that my face looked like someone had recently left me in the Greek sun for eight hours, returning only to baste me occasionally with Lurpak and paprika. My left index finger inexplicably tensed and hooked over my rigid lower teeth as I turned and walked away, giggling uncontrollably and unable to look Paul in the eye. I mean, seriously. If there’s one thing we’re taught in How To Be A Girl classes, it’s ‘For the sake of all women, never, EVER mention babies. Just don’t do it.’ And yet, there I was, 7.30pm, not even drunk and merrily planning our offspring.

Luckily, Paul seemed to take things quite well and laughingly dragged me back towards him. I did notice, however, that he drained the rest of his pint in a matter of seconds after The Incident and I don’t know that I’ll be so lucky next time.

Something for the weekend...

After yesterday's rant, followed by a trip to the National theatre to see the really quite good Never So Good, followed by an ill-advised late night viewing of the V+ recording of Wednesday's Apprentice (verdict: Sir Alan would get more efficient assistance from a dog biscuit than by hiring any of the fun-to-wince-at, hell-to-work-with maniacs selected by this team's halfwitted researchers), I am now exhausted. And as of about midnight last night, I have developed irritating cold symptoms and am consequently feeling very needy and grumpy and self-pitying. The thought of returning home to my sofa in under three hours and spending the evening watching Desperate Housewives and American Idol under a blanket while wearing velour lounge trousers, faux-fur-lined slippers and an old T-shirt featuring cartoon drawings of cows from around the world is so appealing that it makes me want to weep gently at my desk. I won't mumble on - minor, phlegm-based illnesses repel me, even my own.

But seriously...

Yesterday, after a wonderfully relaxing impromptu day off spent sleeping until 1pm and then attempting to iron a shirt for the first time in my life and completely failing (although I did brilliantly with the napkins and tablecloth - and only adequately with the pillowcases that have double-thickness edges which I couldn't seem to negotiate) in front of the overhyped movie, Once, I then took the tube into Soho and met up with Paul and a friend of his, Laurie, who has just moved to London to start a new life in fashion.

She's spent two days at her job and said that she couldn't wait to get back there in the morning for Day Three. This small, innocuous claim sent me into a frenzy of jealousy. Way back in 1999, I got my first full time job as Staff Writer on a popular pop music mag and skyrocketed into orbit. My start date was meant to be Monday, 1 November but on the Thursday before, my editor phoned me and asked if I'd like to fly to LA the next day and interview S Club 7. You know when Gwyneth Paltrow found out she was first nominated for an Oscar? I was about a billion times more excited than her.

But after a couple of years in swanning around in showbiz circles, going to swanky parties, flying all over the world and chatting to anyone who was anyone in the most superficial, one-sided fashion (in that I would slip into the erroneous belief that we were having fun banter as friends but the moment I made the heinous mistake of talking about anything other than them, their eyes would glaze over with acute teenage cataracts and the conversation would grind to a halt), I had an epiphany. It was when I found out I had to do a phone interview with Britney Spears and the only time she was free to do it was at 1pm and I was really annoyed because it meant missing a fun lunch with my workmates - at that point I knew that the honeymoon was over. In years gone by, I would have eaten a tramp's vomit to have the chance to chat to Britters on the blower, but now I'd rather have a cheap lunch in a bad local eaterie than listen to her wafty pronouncements on nothing. Gradually throughout the next few months, the celeb world became less and less interesting to me and when I went freelance I found myself dreading the work over which I had once salivated.

Fast forward a couple of years and I began my Master's degree in English Literature, something I wanted to do to supplement a newfound desire to teach English full time in secondary schools - but over the course of that year, my eyes were opened in an unexpected way - thankfully nothing like that scene in a Clockwork Orange. But rather than developing a love of life and a hunger for knowledge, my cynicism, previously reserved for vacuous popstars, expanded like the plant in the Little Shop of Horrors, growing new tentacles of disdain overnight and baying for blood with terrifying volume. I learned about different political movements, wrote my dissertation on the way that culture can be (and is) manipulated by the state for its own gain, and suddenly lost faith in the purity or joy of almost everything in the modern world.

After my degree, it was almost impossible to feel optimistic about any area of life: charities were being run like businesses, supporting the evil capitalist superstructure. The national educational syllabus was determined by civil servants and simply reinforced existing stereotypes. Culture was just a tool to manipulate the masses - where government or corporate funding is key in art, how can any off-message works reach the majority? Where sales are all-important, how can subversive literature be published and distributed successfully? In fact - can subversive art that really challenges the status quo actually exist since, by definition, capitalism co-opts everything for its own gain (cf. modern art in the foyers of big banks or the adoption of punk culture by the mainstream)?

Suddenly, throwing myself into anything became an act of naivete, since spending my 9-5 in the pursuit of any one ideal seemed, well, idealistic and thus stupid. Journalism, newspapers, book writing - all lost their appeal since the newspapers, publishers and TV companies all looked like horrible corporate apparatuses full of lemmings that I wanted to avoid at all costs. Charities seemed to be adopting an "if you can't beat 'em, join 'em" attitude, courting celebrities and wealthy capitalist 'philanthropists' (see this from today's Guardian). Sure, they're doing good - but the world is fundamentally out of kilter, the rich/poor divide is growing apace and the charities aren't able to do much about it. Politics could be the place where huge changes could be made - but it's a two horse race between old nags that should be driven to the knackers' yard, where the finalists haven't been selected democratically and no one cares who wins. So I floundered, unable to find an area about which I'd felt that passion and excitement so many years ago. It's a tragedy that my thrill levels have gone downhill since I met S Club 7.

Now I work in the City, an area with which I feel no connection whatsoever. Being a child of the capitalist situation myself, I took the job to enable myself to buy a flat, and I make no apologies for that although there is a part of me that thinks I should set up a commune. And there's no doubt that if I am still working in finance in a few years, it will make me sad. Naive or not, I just feel like there must be something out there in which I can believe, a cause untainted by modern bullshit - but then, if it exists within the modern world, by definition it must have been sucked into the system itself. Maybe the only option is to operate knowingly and resignedly within the structure, either following Laurie's lead and revelling in an industry, like fashion, that never claims to be anything other than completely vacuous - or doing one's best to change things from the inside. But where? And who can you trust? For fascinating conspiracy theories, you don't have to look far... And I'm still reeling from the Prince Harry media blackout.

Anyway, this is all FAR too stern for my liking. I'm sure we'd all be far more comfortable if I started venting about the fact that I carefully put my theatre tickets for tonight into my book and then sensibly left my book on my bed - so now I must sprint home after work, grab the book (which really is hopefully on my bed but definitely might not be) and then rush to the theatre for the pre-show discussion. It will all be really sweaty and stressful and I'm livid about the whole thing. But what does it matter? It's all capitalist bollocks anyway.

Alan Sugar I ain't

Honest guv'nor, I didn't mean to have a bit too much to drink at Fi's gorgeous dinner extravaganza last night, but there was champagne and white wine and then red wine, and it kind of just happened without me realising, like getting wrinkles or finishing the entire pot of Skippy peanut butter while watching American Idol, and then suddenly it was nearly midnight and there were eight of us sitting around her dining room table singing Christmas carols and Russian folk songs in harmony, so when I woke up this morning and remembered I had to interview a candidate for a job here, I wasn't sure I was in the optimum state to perform well.

As I had admitted to the nice lady in Human Resources yesterday, my only prior experience of hosting job interviews was in the comforting surroundings of a public house, so the thought of our corporate meeting rooms, complete with leatherbound notepads, matching pencils and expensive artwork, was a little daunting. The lovely HR person gave me a few questions to ask and reminded me to make sure that the candidate was the one doing all the talking - but when it came down to it this morning, it turned out that she didn't need to warn me about that. The reality was, after five seconds in the interview room, I knew that she was The One. Immediately, I descended into a pit of nerves and silence. Dry-mouthed and fidgety, I struggled to think of anything to ask her because I had no doubt she'd be fantastic - and then when she did talk, I forgot to listen to what she'd said. I'd been told to keep my cards close to my chest but I failed miserably. It was like being on a date and having to play it cool but really, deep down, wanting to lead them to the rooftops and shout "I LOVE YOU! We are perfect for each other and if you can't feel it too then you're an insensitive idiot who needs to be sectioned! Never kiss anyone else except me again for the rest of your life! Have my babies! I'll clean your bathroom floor for eternity! I promise never to wear bad loungewear! I'll shave my legs hourly! I'll charm your friends! I'll prepare gourmet food every night but I'll never eat any of it so that I never turn to fat! I'll iron your underwear! I'll admire your beer belly! I'll laugh at your terrible jokes! I'll listen in awe to your mother! I'll never ask you to spend any time with my friends and I'll coo with delight when you change my light bulbs!" etc. etc.

To my eternal credit, I managed to stop myself offering her the job on the spot and threatening to cry if she didn't take it - but I don't think I remotely hid my pleasure/relief to have found someone so capable. If she's got a grain of sense, she'll bargain hard for an immediate pay rise.

Dressing down

I know it's lame to fill my blog with links but this article is hilarious. The idea of scooping up birds and driving them somewhere to mate was so pun-filled that I couldn't resist drawing attention to it. Isn't it absolutely amazing what people spend their day jobs doing? Mind you, there's little doubt that I'd rather drive around Italy scooping up lost, bald, winged creatures than sit in front of a PC booking taxis and printing Word documents.

The noteworthiest moment of my day occurred at around seventeen minutes after noon. I was seated at my desk and had flipped open the top of my delicious Pret a Manger houmous and superfoods salad. My mouth was watering with anticipation and my hand may have trembled slightly as I poured the dressing over the leaves, seeds and other delights - but I was sure and firm as I pressed lid back onto the emptied dressing pot with a satisfying click. Not so satisfying was the immediate accompanying sound of oil spattering on to medium grey cotton. I looked down and, as expected, discovered a trail of dark globules ranging in size from 'tittle' to 'baked bean' soaking in to my work top.

I finished my salad and was advised by Laura to go and wash off the offending marks with hot water in the WCs, drying the top under the hand-dryers. I obediently headed off to the facilities and scalded myself with the clearly marked hot tap. Immediately, the grey fabric was turned to darkest charcoal and it became impossible to see where the oil had been. Still, I persevered and was standing at the sink in a black vest, scrubbing away, when Laura came in to see how I was getting on. 'You'll be fine,' she soothed. 'Now, where are the hand dryers?' We looked around. Strangely, having used this bathroom hundreds, maybe thousands of times, neither of us had ever noticed its complete lack of warm air. Still wearing only a skimpy black vest, I tried to sneak down to the gym changing rooms in the basement but ended up crammed in the service elevator with approximately thirty strangers. And Laura's hairdrying scheme really wasn't too successful - ten minutes later and my top was cold, very damp and still bore visible oil residue.

I called her and asked her to meet me by the lift with an alternative garment that I had brought in to wear tomorrow. Now I'll have to go to New Look this evening and buy something cheap to sport instead. I'm desperately trying to use this as an excuse for not going to the gym but, despite two runs in the past week, my trousers are still fitting rather more snugly than I'd like. If the situation worsens, I'll look like I've forgotten my skirt and am travelling to work in just my tights. Not good for the ego.

What I've learned in the past 24 hours

- Neither New Look, Next nor M&S currently stock ankle-length black leggings
- The singer, Beck, is reputedly a Scientologist
- This website is amazing

Other than that, I haven't much to report. I now have an internet connection at home, however, so perhaps I'll be motivated to post over the weekend. There's a philosophical blog entry brewing about my recent reticence to blog and/or update my Facebook status every six seconds versus my increased inner contentment and correspondingly reduced need to receive constant recognition for my existence. But it's still gestating.

Crunch time

Far be it from me to be smug, but I must admit that the credit crunch has, thus far, been nothing but a delight for me. To start with, I managed to buy my flat at a time when, sure, prices were high - but I was able to get 5.5 times my salary as a mortgage loan. Had I left it a couple of months, I'd have been lucky to get 3.5 times my salary with a 10% downpayment and I would have been looking at studio flats with a splendid view of the A1. So, as far as timing is concerned, given that I couldn't have bought ten years ago when my flat was probably worth the same as a bottle of Panda Cola, I think I was pretty fortunate.

And now, today, I discover that those clever bank people have cut interest rates for the second time this year, meaning the monthly repayments on my not-remotely-fixed-rate mortgage (another stroke of serendipity) have been reduced by over 10% since I took it out. Not too shabby.

Of course, while the credit crisis has definitely made my life easier in one respect, I can't claim to be remotely relaxed about the situation - I think it's safe to say that now is not the ideal time to be employed in the City and there's a large part of me (approximately the size of my lower half) that worries that I will be made redundant in a matter of days, forced to sell my flatlet and forcibly removed into a hostel for other crunch victims. We'll huddle round the gas fire wearing fingerless gloves and deerstalker hats, tell stories about our shameful descent down the property ladder, reminisce about the good old days when we shopped in Ikea and B&Q, and try not to feel too humiliated by the 'Victim of Negative Equity' tattoos that have appeared overnight on our faces and financial records.

Still, who knows what's going to happen? For now, the flat's great, I'm loving almost all of it and I'll just cross my fingers that I get to stay for a little while longer. The plusses, FYI, are my carpet, my bathroom lights, my TV on demand, my commute and my Venetian blinds. The minuses are the unpleasantly scented drains that need fixing, the extent of the woodwork that I am yet to repaint, the cost of my Tesco's habit and my lack of chest of drawers, given that I have already filled both the fitted cupboards in my room and half filled the one in the spare room with my possessions. As discussed yesterday, a flatmate seems likely but it appears that I'll need to find one with no clothes. An ad for a nudist might attract the wrong kind of person though... I'll need to think this one through.

The calm after the storm

And just like that, I'm back.

I can't explain the reason behind this recent protracted absence. All I know is that one day, I was happily writing away at work, going to the gym and living a fairly standard existence. Then suddenly, I moved house, fell crazy in love, stopped exercising, started to overflow my waistbands, started falling asleep at my desk, started spending my lunchbreaks shopping for broom handles, electrical screws and light bulbs and simultaneously lost the ability to do anything in the evenings except potter about in my new abode sporting loungewear and slippers, rearranging small objects around on my shelves and smearing my kitchen counters with Danish wood oil.

The last few weeks have been a bit of a blur, but this morning I went for a run in the beautiful, crisp sunshine, past St Paul's Cathedral, over the Millennium Bridge and back through the City and I felt springy as a gambolling lamb on crack. The pterodactyl wings need work and the combination of housewarming dinners and evenings out with a new boyf haven't been fantastic for my thigh girth, but I am filled with a sense that the dust is settling after a vigorous shake up and that, gradually, routine and normalcy might slink back in through the side door. Which, as a committed organiser / control freak, is something of a blessed relief.

The only slight blight on my otherwise calm horizon is my Amex bill, which looms ominously overhead like a meteor the size of the former USSR. It would all have been OK if I hadn't been absolutely, unarguably extravagant on Monday when I bought a heinously expensive bookshelf. Still, I think it may be the coolest thing I've ever seen and as soon as it arrives and I've erected it, I'll post a picture for your collective verdict. I'm not quite sure how I will pay off the debt but hey, it's not due for another six weeks and who knows what happy accident of financial joy may have occurred in the meantime? Admittedly, winning the lottery is unlikely given my distinct lack of lottery tickets but I am hoping for a council tax rebate and will be selling a few things on eBay in desperation so those combined incidents may between them raise several pence. From there I'll only need to generate another several hundred pounds or so... I feel an advertisement for a flatmate coming on...

Since I last wrote...

Friday - leave work at 4pm, race home, finish packing, await Paul's arrival with hire car, drive across London to Hackney to pick up his sister, drive from Hackney to Liverpool, arrive just before midnight, meet the parents, eat cheese, drink wine, chat until shortly before 2am, go to bed.

Saturday - wake up, have breakfast with in-laws, go into very windy and wet Liverpool via romantic viewpoint where Paul apparently took young impressionable Wirral lasses back in the day, sightsee around Liverpool including unnavigable Museum of Slavery, listen to graphic diary accounts by slave-owners about horrific treatment of runaway slaves, drive to meet Paul's old piano teacher, have tea with her and her husband and listen to assembled trio bitch/reminisce about local classical music scene. Eat more mini chocolate eggs than is perhaps polite. Drive back to in-laws' via Catholic Cathedral, get ready for evening out, go to dinner at delicious restaurant with fifteen intimate family and friends including grandmother and godmother, reapply make-up too late, return to family home, have more wine and stay up talking until 4am.

Sunday - wake up, have incredible home-cooked breakfast with local sausages and yet more family, drive with sister to Manchester to meet (wait for it) godmother's friend's nieces who are also part of extended posse, have tea with them, go to pub with them, drive back to Hackney, drop off sister, drive back home, collapse.

Monday - wake up before 7am on scheduled day off with early phonecall from moronic Tesco's delivery people who claim that once again I have entered my card details incorrectly when I DIDN'T. Give them correct details (again) and am assured that groceries are en route. Despite reassurance, I am surprised by arrival of groceries while Paul is returning hire car - approximately nine metric tons of produce spread across eighty five plastic crates containing enough frozen goods to fill a deep freeze and a box of washing powder that looked really big in the picture but will, in fact, probably only last me a week. Tesco delivery man refuses my offer of help carrying them upstairs and, over the course of several trips, becomes increasingly breathless to the point where I begin to worry that I may have to add 'paramedics' to list of people who are visiting this morning. Man from Virgin arrives to fit my TV and broadband supply although he leaves without giving me a cable for the TV or a password for the broadband and customer services are later so unhelpful that Paul starts swearing like an extra in a Tarantino movie. While Virgin man is doing his stuff and I am frantically unpacking groceries, Paul decides that his breakfast is now an urgent priority and begins to make porridge which involves asking me for various sized bowls and ingredients, oven gloves and measuring jugs while I, still unbreakfasted and weak, struggle to get past him as he continually stirs and adjusts his oats in the microwave. Just as Virgin man is leaving, washing machine arrives from Tesco Direct. Paul, replete after porridge, and I, still flimsy with hunger, manage to get it through the door of my 'utility room' (as opposed to the one I inherited with the flat which resoloutely refused to take its place inside the area I had designed for it at some expense). Despite fitting into its designated place, washing machine, however, cannot be connected as idiot builder has crucially not positioned the pipes in a way that means they can be used. Growl. Laundromat beckons. Perhaps I didn't need big box of washing powder after all. After a hurried lunch of peanut butter and jelly sandwich, created as bread must be eaten since it won't fit in freezer, Paul and I take train to Barnes, put on load of washing, play with cats, collect my mother's car, drive it back to my flat (round trip: approx 1 hour), fill the car with rejected Ikea items which may or may not be eligible for a refund, drive to Croydon in disgusting traffic, manage to obtain a £361 refund (high five!) and then spend £250 on non-essentials in the store including sun loungers, hanging plant pots and a Lazy Susan that won't fit in my kitchen cupboard. Pah. Drive back to the flat, unload new purchases, drive to Barnes, drop off car, pick up wet washing, get train and bus back to flat, arrive at 8pm, cook dinner of chicken kiev, spaghetti hoops and frozen peas, watch bad TV, drink Oyster Bay, feel like death, sleep.

Tuesday - I am now officially the world's most exhausted person but since individually each element of my marathon three days was either very fun or very useful, I am not - for the record - actually complaining. I do slightly think I deserve a medal though. And for joining me yesterday and being unflinchingly perky throughout, Paul deserves a gen-u-ine Certificate of Insanity and a big virtual kiss.