Unacceptable positivity

OK, so I really shouldn't be writing as it's late and I've got to get up at 06:50 tomorrow morning and do yoga (unprecedented) which would normally be hideous enough in itself, but also I was awake until after 03:30 this morning because my downstairs neighbours were playing hardcore ragga and MCing over the top like it wasn't just your average Wednesday night, and also I've had a long day and have another few long days ahead, but I just had to write because today, Thursday 30 April 2009, has been one of the happiest days of my life, and I felt it would be wrong not to record that fact.

It started off well because Nicole had invited me back to stay with her, in spite of previous blog reports, which was flattering and then extremely smug because booking this far in advance means my return to Swindon is £15. Then I had a good morning at work and giggled a fair bit. Then I had a half day in honour of my wonderful mother's birthday, and I raced over to Waterloo to meet my parents and take the Thames Clipper to Canary Wharf. Then we walked to The Narrow and ate superb food and drank nice wine and giggled a lot. Then we took the Clipper on to the Millennium Dome, and then it turned around, with us on board, and we all went back to Waterloo. I was happy as a clam. This city is just so... Apologies, I'm sorry, I'm drunkenly gushing. I left my parents at Embankment and trotted up to Trafalgar Square, where I arrived just in time to see the commercial monstrosity that was the next T-Mobile ad being filmed - thousands of people singing bad karaoke and hoping to get their mugs on TV. So much wrong with it all - but the sun was shining and for a moment everyone seemed happy and I joined in merrily with the singalong. Then I hotfooted it up to Leicester Square tube, jumped on the Piccadilly Line to Russell Square and scampered up to the first class in my six-week politics evening course, where I met lots of interesting people and had a good old banter about the role of the state. It was fascinating. Then we went to the pub. Then I got on the tube with a seriously seriously nice girl from the course, who I could have nattered to until midnight. Then we parted ways and I continued with the seriously gripping The Soccer Wars which I couldn't recommend more highly. Then I got home, brushed my teeth, moisturised and clambered in to bed. Still clam-like. The city is fantastic. I have wonderful parents. My friends are amazing. La vita e bella. Muchos gracias. Cynicism to follow tomorrow. Over and out.

No title possible for such disconnected topics

The weekend was blissful thanks to good weather and nice people. It was also massively competitive, as I engaged in a round of Bingo Tunes on Friday evening, where the DJ played small excerpts of many familiar songs in fairly quick succession, and we had to cross them all off our cards [see above]. I had arrived late and knew full well that my chances of winning had taken a battering as a result. Furthermore, the prize was four pints of cocktails, which might have been a little too much, even for me, and I don't think takeaway was an option. But despite knowing that I couldn't win and that I didn't want the prize, I was unable to speak to anyone or even enter into a spot of dancing, as crossing the songs off my cards (I had three as I took my friends' on the understanding that I would be better at it than them) became my obsession. Recognising each track was not enough: I had to identify it within the first bar and a half, and have it crossed out before the vocals kicked in. Failure to do so would result in a spate of violent mental self-flaggelation, inspired by the scary posh monk in The Da Vinci Code. Eventually, someone else won the prize and I was able to relax, even managing to smile at the people near me, and it wasn't long before the dancing started in earnest and the alcohol I'd already consumed began to pour out from my forehead a la the pilot in Airplane. Stunning.

Less than twenty four hours later, my blood was up again as I was in west London for a charidee pub quiz, where our team trailed by around half a point for almost the entire evening. It was particularly infuriating because we did extremely well in an exceptionally tricky music intros round, with songs by Jurassic 5, the Stone Roses, Maximo Park, Foo Fighters, Catatonia and Portishead - not your average recognisable chart fodder. We didn't win but, having supplied several crucial and typically highbrow answers including the nationality of the chef in the Muppets and which of the seven dwarves wears glasses, I felt like I'd pulled my weight.

Sunday was unexpectedly glorious, and crowned by the news that, miracle of miracles, my parents' cat, Dennis, who escaped from a cat basket outside the cattery in the middle of nowhere back in October last year, had been found and taken to a vet's. I went back to my parents' after work last night to see him and he is mental, one moment being quite happy and just the same, and then suddenly hissing and growling in a fairly hilarious fashion. What's most disappointing is that, despite having six months to learn, he is still unable to speak English; I am desperate to find out where he's been all this time but he pointedly ignores my questioning.

The other morning, I got myself in quite a pickle. I had been having a shower and the bathroom got a little steamy, so on completion of my ablutions, I opened the window. This window faces out onto a communal walkway, and is near a communal stairwell. There is rarely anyone direcly outside my flat, but the stairwell is used quite frequently. I brushed my teeth, was applying my moisturiser, and then something very uncharacteristic occurred. I did a burp. Readers, I am as disgusted as you are. But there it is. And immediately, my surprise was flooded by panic, as I realised that, due to the open window, anyone walking downstairs, or indeed up, may have heard my repellent emission. The filing drawers of my mind slammed open and I could hear my cranial fingers leafing through my options. Within a time that I would estimate to be two seconds at most, I found my solution: blame.
"Urgh!" I exclaimed, disgustedly, and then followed that immediately with a deep bass "Sorry," the grunted apology of an invented male. Staggered at the speed, dishonesty and cunning of my solution, I had to accept that I am perhaps more dark and conniving than I may have admitted previously.

Now I am sitting at my desk, nursing a burned tongue after yet another wolfed lunchtime soup. I simply don't understand why EAT must heat their soup to boiling point like that. With the possible exception of McDonald's apple pies, I am aware of no other take-away foodstuff that requires the purchaser to sit and wait for 25 minutes before beginning the eating process. The whole point of take-away is that it's fast food. It should be ready for consumption. I don't want to plan ahead and buy my food at 11.45am, so that it's at a temperature less akin to lava by the time I am hungry. I shouldn't have to. You don't have to let sandwiches 'relax', or wait while sushi marinates. Things soup should be: 1) nicely hot. Things soup should not be: 1) still bubbling when I take the lid off back at my desk; 2) able to remove three layers of skin from the roof of my mouth just from the power of the steam emanating off the spoon; 3) capable of bonding a wobbly bit on the Flatiron building. Since today's chicken and garden vegetable broth is the last thing I am going to be able to savour for the next few days, thanks to the destruction of the majority of my tastebuds, it is fortunate that it was delicious.

Something for the weekend

Now this is the kind of thrush I like. Look at them, nesting in a traffic light in Leeds. Aw.

Like the Grateful Dead...

Sob.

As feared, the haircut is less 'Olsen twins' and more 'Rod Stewart after a run-in with some bleach'. And, in a monumental triple whammy of disappointment, the seriously, seriously gigantic and over-confident teenager who washed my hair a) didn't turn on the massage chair and b) didn't give me even a paltry attempt at a head massage, merely cursorily smearing some conditioner over about a third of my head and washing it off within approximately eight seconds, aeons before any of the product would have had the slightest chance to soak in, and then roughly towel drying it using a similar action to one you might employ when trying to absorb spilled water from a carpet with a tea towel, so that c) when she took me back upstairs and tried to wrench a brush through my Medusa-esque do, I felt like I was being scalped. Liv. Id. Most of all, I am livid at my total failure to complain. I heard the humming of the chairs and the contented sighs of the satisfied customers to my left, yet I did nothing. It was pathetic.

But on the upside, the hairdresser was waaaaay more handsome than I remembered, and he's not Polish, he's Hungarian, not that that means anything, but just in the interests of accuracy, and he's actually rather charming and I briefly fell madly in love with him. And in a worthy addition to the psychotic fast forward thing that us girls do so well, without even meaning or wanting to, I suddenly imagined us getting together and before I knew it, I was wondering whether this would be the last time I would have to go to a salon to get my hair cut, because my new fictional boyfriend, Alex, would be cutting it on a Sunday morning in front of Shipwrecked. It's really quite extraordinary how it happens. Ah well. Back to the grind.

It's not for lack of bread...

Hmmm. I appear to have misplaced my blogging va-va-voom somewhere around here. It might be to do with the fact that my brain has crashed following three nights out - singing at Damian's on Monday, a very rowdy book club at mine on Tuesday and a night out at Ed's in Brixton yesterday. Far too much cheese and wine consumed for my diet's liking but it's all been very fun. Tonight I am off to get my barnet seen to and I cannot wait - loved my monosyllabic Polish hairdresser last time because he properly argued with me when we were discussing my style ideas, but was also wowed by the fact that the salon has massage chairs at the sinks; the prospect of lying in a massage chair on the 'firm' setting while someone washes my hair is so wondrous that I feel slightly weak-kneed just thinking about it. Bring. It. On. Although obviously the fantasy of haircuts is always slightly better than the reality, in that I go into the salon thinking I will come out looking like one of the Olsen twins, and in fact I come out looking exactly like I did before, but with my make-up slightly washed off and streaky around my forehead, and my hair a lot more blonde and bouffant, in a state of high gloss that will not be recreated until I return to the professional ten weeks later, and you get that weird thing where they whip off the protective gown and you see your same old clothes and your same old thighs and you realise that your hair is about eleven times more glamorous than the rest of your body, and it's like someone's started giving you a make-over from the top down and then got distracted after job one. Hmmm. Slightly wishing I was just going straight home to watch last night's Apprentice.

PS - ten points to anyone who gets the title reference.

Lust is in the air

I'm sorry I didn't write yesterday but I am reading an absolutely gripping self-help book at the moment and it is requiring me to do lots of exercises and write down my innermost thoughts and dreams etc. which couldn't be more fun as it means thinking about myself non-stop, which is a special gift of mine as you will know, but it does mean that I haven't had so much time to write about myself for your reading pleasure.

That doesn't mean I haven't been thinking about you. I had a really nice weekend, slightly too much sitting in the flat waiting for the Virgin man and the supermarket man for my liking, as I would have preferred to be out in the sun, but otherwise all good. On Saturday night I debuted a new garment: a kind of black shorts and top combo item, kind of like a sleeveless jumpsuit but without the legs. It is well cool. I wore it with opaque black tights and black stillettos and felt a bit exposed in the thigh area but, being that it is definitely better to regret something you have done than something you haven't, I am pleased that I took the gamble. Even more crazily, I went outside while wearing this outfit, to the theatre with Alix to see Spring Awakening, which was absolutely freaking brilliant, quite saucy and highly recommended. We bought cheap seats on the stage, which meant we couldn't quite pick up all the lyrics, but were surrounded by cast members and right in the action. It was a young team and they were all very talented and enthusiastic and, as I always do when I enjoy myself at any sort of performance, I felt quite irritated that I wasn't involved. Especially because there were two or three male actors who were breath-takingly handsome and who could sing, a combination I have long found so irresistable that it was extremely tricky to resist lungeing at them as they exited stage right.

Monday morning was back at work and my boss recounted an incident from his weekend. Apparently, after dinner, late on Saturday night, he went for a walk through Leicester Square, because his friend thought he should see what the real London is like. It was about 11pm and he noticed a crowd gathered outside a bar near Capital Radio. He thought maybe it was a fight, so he went over to help, and saw two girls lying on the floor, completely drunk, one topless and the other licking her nipples. "There are so many horrible people in London," he said. I felt very defensive about my city and, having never ever seen anything quite so intimate happening in the street in any of my 31 years here, did try and make the point that he'd been unlucky (or lucky, depending on whether you like that kind of thing). But I think his mind is made up. Ah well.

Right. Self-help, introspection and navel-gazing beckons. Til next time.

V Fun

Ow. Ow. Ow. That's basically what I've been doing fairly non-stop for the past 36 hours. You really haven't missed much. On Wednesday after work, Laura and I made use of two free guest passes she'd been given, and went to our local Virgin Active! gym in the City for an evening of intense exercise. Determined to get our money's worth, we optimistically decided to go to not one, not two, but three classes throughout the evening. We started with 30 minutes of 'V Core', which was basically a selection of really Sixties exercises like stomach crunches and press-ups, but with the letter V stuck in front of each of them to suggest some sort of unique and 'now' vibe. Believe me, holding yourself in push-up position with your elbows on the floor for minutes at a time is no more fun than it is normally when it's called The V Plank. Likewise, the V Crunch and the V Lunge can V Fuck Off.

Then was 45 mins of 'Body Pump' which is, for the uninitiated, V Hell On Earth. A perky woman with a Madonna headset plays bad house music and shouts at you to lift a dumbbell in time to the songs. The girl in front of me was unquestionably strong but had the rhythm of a drunk toddler. I resisted following her, determined to follow the beat of the music as I had been instructed, but because she was confidently doing the opposite to me, while being about a stone lighter than me and wearing serious gym kit including a top made out of some hi-tech breathable fabric and special gloves to prevent blistering while gripping the weights, the result was that I looked like I was the one doing it wrong. Livid.

I finished off the evening with an hour of yoga, which was fantastic, until yesterday morning, when I tried to sit up and go to work, and felt like I had been on the rinse cycle in a vigorous human-sized washing machine with several large bricks. It has been agony ever since. Thankfully, yesterday evening was a perfectly-timed and long-awaited treat: an after-work spa session at The Sanctuary with Em, my birthday present from last year. We saunaed, we steamed, we jacuzzied, we lounged with the koi carp, and we ate healthy food. It was blissful and exhausting and, despite an awkward incident when handsome young Pete from choir busted me on the tube home wearing no make-up, with wet, unbrushed hair and blotchy skin that made me look as though I'd been in a fight, I still managed to maintain my zen state and arrived back at the ranch convinced I would be dead to the world within moments.

So it was frustrating that my V Broadband decided to work for the first time since Sunday, as I was then unable to tear myself away from my laptop. I was faffing around with Skype for some time, and eventually got to bed just before midnight, where I became transfixed by the Presents for Men Travel Paraphernalia & Outdoor Leisure catalogue for Summer 2009. Always a favourite, I was sure there would be a gem or two therein, but even I wasn't prepared for the brilliance of this fanTAStic telescopic photo arm. I can't think of a time when I've seen two models look more like they would rather be dead. And who can blame them? Their product is the most desperately humiliating gadget known to man - if you can't read the text, the photo arm even includes a mirror to help you aim the camera. The kerchief alone is winceworthy enough to justify storming off the shoot but the guy's terrible faux-surfer necklace is equally terrible. The rictus grins say it all. I was so excited with my find that I didn't get to sleep until nearly 1am.

Morning has broken

I may be 31 but I am still a teenager at heart, as well as a sufferer of hyponarcolepsy, a rare narcoleptic derivative that is completely fabricated in order to explain a propensity to sleep when stressed. As such, I cherish my sleeping hours with a vehemence that many consider perturbing. My slight hysteria about sleep reaches its zenith at around 7.25am each day, when I awake and realise that my alarm will go off shortly. Desperate to pack in as much kip as possible, I try every trick in the book to scrounge a few more seconds of snoozing before my iPhone's reveille kicks in. Any noise, any interruption during this time will be met with red-eyed anger and possible neurotic whimpering as the exhaustion I am experiencing tells my brain that getting up will be a categorical impossibility without the maximum remaining sleep possible. Without the few minutes left on the clock, I reason, I will reach such a state of exhaustion that I will be forced to stay in bed until mid-afternoon, lose my job and become homeless, a concept that initially seems appealling, allowing, as it does, a fair bit of time to rest. Eventually, good sense kicks in and I either snooze, or panic about not snoozing, until it is no longer possible for me to stay in bed and get to work on time. Then I lie with my eyes open, whimpering further, groaning occasionally, and stretching langorously for a few minutes, all the while desperately searching for a plausible reason why I must stay in bed. Then I get up, always saying 'Alright, I'm up! I'm up!' to some invisible nagging parent.

Such is the waking nightmare I go through every weekday morning. You'll see why I'm not convinced that I'm ready for motherhood. Bad enough, you will agree, without further incidents with which to contend. But this morning, at approximately 7.16am, a full fourteen vital minutes before the first alarm was set to bore its way into my repose, I executed an unexpectedly vigorous rotation, accompanied by an abnormal duvet flick manoeuvre, and in doing so, knocked my (full) glass of water down the back of my (walnut veneer, art deco, bought on eBay, imported from Italy) bedside cabinet, all down my (matt painted) walls, into the back of my (ageing, past-fixing) stereo, over the (four-gang) plug socket beneath the bedside cabinet, over my (dusty) carpet, and deep into the (unreachable) crevice between the skirting board and the carpet's edge. As I typically do in these situations, I lay still for a moment, wondering if it would go away. But realising that I have to be a grown-up these days, I got up, found tea towels, and mopped. As always, I was struck that my average-sized water glass had managed to contain over three litres of liquid. It was 7.23am before I got back to bed and, naturally, I had to stay therein for a long time to recover from the stress. On the upside, I found a long-lost hairclip under the bed.

In unrelated news, I didn't like this joke, but I laughed because it was sad. I think my father will enjoy it, so here Dad, for you, is a joke I read on a BBC blog this afternoon:
A woman is looking at herself naked in the bedroom mirror. "I feel horrible," she says to her husband. "I look old and tired, my hair is grey and my skin is saggy. I could really do with a compliment." Her husband looked up and said, "Well, your eyesight's good."

He Is Risen

Allegedly.

Fact or fiction, I still celebrated Jesus' death and resurrection with gusto and managed not to spend too much time moping about lack of minibreak to Prague / walking in Lake District / similar boast-worthy activity. I went to see Charlie on Thursday evening, where we were joined by Tracey and celebrated the latter's birthday with a lot of wine. I giggled until I was nearly sick, especially when the Conversation Starter coasters that Charlie had supplied asked us which celeb we would most want to date, and I couldn't think of anyone, so then we expanded it to 'Celeb, living or dead', and I said Paul Newman circa Cat On A Hot Tin Roof, and Trace said Jim Morrisson, and Charlie said Tom Selleck in Three Men And A Little Lady.

Then I had a very rude dream about Alistair Campbell which was mighty confusing, especially because I was playing hard to get and it appeared to be working. God he loved me. It was very fun. Friday was lovely - we went and had lunch by the sea and pretended it was warmer than it was. Then I had a delicious dinner with Nick on Friday eve, another delicious (if I do say so myself) dinner with Kate on Saturday, a delicious lunch with my parents on Sunday and a good ol' self-obsessed natter with Ses yesterday as we walked along Regent's Canal and had a nice crisp bottle of white in a pub in Primrose Hill. Can't complain, really. Although obviously I can. But I won't.

My joy for today is that I finally plucked up the courage to speak to the Halifax about my impending mortgage renegotiation, and it turns out that a) the amount won't leap nearly as much as I was fearing and b) I don't have to renegotiate again for another 4-5 years after this, so things should settle down. Feel a lot less stressed now. Meanwhile I have bored my Faithful to tears. Let me think of something I can tell you to cheer you up. Ummm. After ten days of dieting, I can already pull my work trousers down over my hips without undoing the button. Now THAT is satisfying. But possibly not interesting. Hmmm ......quite a lot of time passes..... Seriously, I've been sitting here with this window open for 20 mins trying to think of something to type and I can't. I'm afraid I am spent. More when it happens (to me). You'll read it here first.

Threading festival

This morning on my way to the office, I saw a small fat woman clutching a print-out of a map, being given directions by two other women. If you can't find a London street when you have a London street map, you've got problems, haven't you? I shall add 'Being able to map read' onto my list of Blessings I Clearly Should Have Been Counting But Wasn't Because It Didn't Even Occur To Me.

Aaaaanyway. In the interests of full disclosure, I think I should report that yesterday after work, I was threaded. This, for the uninitiated, is a method of hair removal that originated in China, is now the norm across Asia and is gradually sweeping into The West. It involves making a kind of miniature cat's cradle out of some cotton thread, trapping the hairs therein, and pulling them out. It is popular on very sensitive areas or where more precision is needed, most usually the eyebrows. The woman who I went to see was called Feroza and being in her 'ladies-only salon' (a room with a curtain) sent me right back to being in India. All preference was given to the mobile phone, which she always answered immediately, even if she was mid-treatment. Originally from Bombay (her word), she was typically charming while being aggressively bossy. There was absolutely no discussion about my opinions on brow shape, just a list of things I'd done wrong when I'd plucked in the past and a catalogue of instructions for the future. The whole thing took about eight seconds, wasn't particularly pleasant or agonisingly painful, and I will probably go back - that said, I've also been recommended a lady in Tooting who does threading for £2.50 which is certainly tempting, although there is something about someone who charges approx. 10% of the standard going rate that makes me slightly edgy.

It's now 14:21 and I am counting the hours until the extended Easter break. I'm not too keen on Christianity or any faith, but naturally I do love the public holidays. When I am Ruler, I will of course make the UK a secular nation and remove all religious symbolism from the state, so I'll have to replace the Christian bank holidays with other ones. I think a bank holiday to recover after the clocks go forward will be essential. I'll also give all my subjects a day off every time an British national sports star or team is in the final of any event. I'll make three new annual holidays: National Music Day, National Exercise Day and National Learning Day, where you get the day off work to try something new in each of those fields - unless you do them all the time, in which case you have to help someone else to expand their repertoire. And I'll give anyone a week off if they acquire a new kitten or puppy (up to a maximum of one baby pet per annum). To support the resulting loss of income to business, I will raise extra revenue by taxing anyone who lives in a house that has a Smeg fridge, an Aga bought since the turn of the century and/or household items made by Alessi at 50%. God, it's sounding GREAT. Vote Lost Looking For Fish! It's the only way out of this mess!

Anal. Ytics.

As is the norm for someone who writes a blog and takes an interest in such things, I follow the action on these pages with Google Analytics. This tool allows me to see, for example, how many visitors I get, the city in which they live, how long they viewed a particular page and how they found my site. Many of my regular readers access the site directly, either through a bookmark or through typing the name into their address bar. But a fair few access LLFF through Google's search engine - and another of the things that Analytics allows me to monitor is which search terms people are using to find this site.

The most popular, fairly unsurprisingly, is 'lost looking for fish', closely followed by 'lostlookingforfish'. I must say, however, that I was disappointed by the number of my Faithful who are clearly unreliable spellers or inaccurate typists. Typing 'lost' and 'looking' don't seem to present too many problems, but in the last month alone there have been attempts to locate lost looking for 'fih', 'fiah' and 'fsih' so in future I will remember that our piscean friends represent a dexterity challenge. These Googlers, though, are at least on the right tracks and I am fairly confident that, when someone types those terms and then clicks through to this blog, they'll have come to the right place.

Sadly, however, there are a few people who search for issues with which I don't think I'll be much assistance. Unsurprisingly, I get a fair few (presumably disappointed) visits from people with fish-related queries. Someone simply searched for 'lost looking fish' which made me feel a bit sad. Someone else was interested 'how to tell what fish just had a baby' while a third clicker was simply 'looking for nice fish' which seems slightly vague but charming all the same.

Another search was more specific, asking for 'astrid "finsbury park" drunk', which sounds like it could be a story worth hearing, while someone else was clearly with me on the pedantry of the lower-case 'i' problem, as they searched for 'gmail inbox capitalisation lost'. I doubt that I was much help.

This one tugged at my heartstrings: 'how to shrink my massive bottom lip without makeup'. I simply couldn't imagine how these terms threw up my blog as a result, so I performed the same Google search myself - and sure enough, half way down page four, there was LLFF:

"I was reading a gripping article this morning about the massive figures that are ... I now have full sensation back on the right side of my chin and lip, .... over a week since my operation and I still can't feel my chin or my bottom lip. ... in The Guardian "Amazon could shrink by 85%" and panicked that my regular ..."

Clearly my wisdom teeth and my tendency to be hyperbolic were mostly to blame in that instance. I hope our swollen friend found more practical advice elsewhere. In a similar vein, a slighly paranoid Googler enquired 'is 5"10 small for a male?' and was directed to these pages for the answer. In the interests of generosity, I'll assume he meant 5' 10", in which case I'll say "No, it's about average in the UK, but personally I probably wouldn't date you." I suppose there's always the chance he (I'm assuming it was a man) was referring to another body part and meant 5 inches and 10/16ths, in which case I'm afraid I'd need more information to make a judgment call. There, ladies in gentlemen, is proof - should it be needed - of the importance of proper punctuation.

Right. I'm off to Get A Life. Well, for a few minutes, anyway.

Bleat

Aw, look at the adorable, orphaned lamb who lives on the farm near Nicole. Note to self: always go and stay with Nicole around Easter, but next time, ask her not to tell me stories about her dogs excitedly eating the newborn lambs' placentas if they happened across them in a field.

Goodbye Dolly

Now Nic, if you're reading, please be assured that I think you are absolutely amazing and I loved every moment of the weekend. But flipping heck, how do these people do it? Nicole is my flatmate from university, who now lives on a farm in the middle of almost nowhere, with her husband, her three dogs and three daughters aged approx. 3.5, 2.25 and 8 months. Her life is fully content and almost incessantly wonderful, and she is mostly a pretty happy bunny, but it is absolutely certain that, were I in her position, I would be locked up. Firstly, I simply cannot imagine living in the countryside and not going insane - although I reserve the right to reverse my position on that statement for any of a variety of reasons at some unspecified point in the future. But secondly, I am clearly, categorically, not ready for motherhood.

I suppose no one is really ready until it happens (and often not until some time the event), but my goodness, the relentlessness of it never fails to shock me. I think I'm going to be prepared, but every single time I spend even a couple of hours in the company of kids, I am stunned anew at the patience and resilience of all these people who manage to parent them, full time, for decades. It is just staggeringly tiring. Rewarding, I'm sure, but oh! The exhaustion. I truly don't know if I would ever be able to cope. And then, when you're at your most tired, they don't let up - they get louder. It is really quite extraordinary. Nic's eldest, Alice, is absolutely gorgeous but let down by the fact that she is obsessed with her doll, Dolly, and, when it suits her, treats it like a real baby. It's the inconsistency that would drive me to distraction - if she's going to bathe it, request real nappies and real baby food for it, request its face to be washed, request real muslins, request it to be swaddled before she'll sleep etc., then I'll do my best to take it seriously - but not when she also leaves it face down on the floor by the fire and doesn't flinch when the dog starts licking the encrusted food off its face. I know, I know, it's tough to expect a three and a half year old to exhibit tenacious parenting skills when I'm nearly ten times her age and still doubt my own capacities in that field, but hey, it's a tough world out there - if you can't do the time, don't do the crime.

The other eye-opener for the weekend was that the family's euphemism for the girls' rude bits is 'storecupboard'. I've heard other families call them fuffies, noonies and lalas but storecupboard is a new one on me, and lends a new, rather sad and unpleasant meaning to my mother's lovingly labelled 'Cary's Storecupboard Chutney'. I'm not sure what route I'd take if I had a daughter, but I suppose the important thing is to make sure a word is found that's not too embarrassing to be said in public, because sure as eggs is eggs, I'm pretty sure it's something you'll get sick of hearing over the years if you get it wrong.

On an unrelated note, I watched this home video by Russell Brand last night and got really sad. I've linked to it to spare you the irritation of not being able to watch it yourselves, but please, if you aren't inclined to click on the link, then don't. It's really very depressing. He's a nice guy, I'm sure, and I am not about to do some sort of rabid character assassination, but really, I don't want the film to get any more views than is absolutely necessary. About a minute into the footage, Russell decides to ask his mother a question, and goes out in the garden where she is making a phonecall on a mobile. He smilingly takes the phone out of her hand, assures the caller that it's Russell speaking, asks if his mother can ring her back in a few minutes and, hardly pausing for breath, snaps the phone shut, ending the call. Throughout this episode, Russell's mother giggles adoringly and unquestioningly: ultimate priority is given to his desire to film an entirely pointless exchange. Beneath the widget showing the film are comments from adoring fans squealing about how cute Ma Brand is and how lovely the mother-son relationship seems to be. But for goodness' sake, how rude! I simply cannot imagine a situation where someone is filming me for a BBC documentary, let alone some entirely random blog posting, and I walk out into the garden where my mum is chatting to a friend, extract her phone and end the call. I am a boisterous, sometimes tricky only child, and even I wouldn't dream of that. Clearly Russell's own mother, her friends and his fans are all in awe of his celebrity, and I think this is a sad thing. That said, I've just been rabbiting on about it myself for the past few hundred words, so I don't have a leg to stand on. Ah, hypocrisy. What would I do without you?

Capital news

Ooh goodness, what excitements. The people at Google have, in their infinite wisdom, recapitalised the 'I' of 'Inbox'. I am currently trying to persuade myself that the switchback was entirely as a result of my whiny blog post on the subject, but somehow I doubt that is the case. If millions of campaigners can't get Google to change their stance on Chinese state censorship, I doubt my meagre rant would have made any difference to their stance on grammar. In any case, things have at least been restored to their proper position and I can tick that off my ever-fluctuating mental list of Things By Which I Am Vaguely Irritated At Present. Now I'm focusing on the fact that my cowboy boots are still at the menders' and I want to wear them soon; the fact that the person on eBay still hasn't responded to my URGENT question; the fact that I have a cold and my lips are chapped; the fact that American Idol isn't on for another four nights and the fact that I don't have a personal chef to cook me dinner tonight.

Close shave

There was a narrow escape this morning when I was emailing an Outlook distribution list of around twenty senior people, one of which is my boss's ultimate boss, and nearly signed off the message with the unorthodox 'Kind retards'. I told Laura, who said she read in the paper recently that someone had sent an email to their CEO, and instead of Dear Angus, wrote Dear Anus. That really must happen quite a lot though, I reckon. Must be a nominal hazard when you're called Angus. Yet another reason not to rely on the computer's spell check facility.

On a different matter, it is widely known that, should you be both a) waiting for a bus and b) a smoker, lighting a cigarette will ensure that a bus will come around the corner in a matter of seconds. In a dramatic development, I have, this very morning, finished my semi-official survey (sample size: one) and concluded that it is similarly guaranteed that, moments after putting on hand cream, you will suddenly need to relieve yourself and thus, shortly afterwards, will consequently have to suffer the irritation of washing off said freshly-applied cream. The time lapse between the application of the lotion and the urgency of the toilet visit is in direct proportion to the expense and perceived luxuriousness of the handcream.

I'm not claiming that my survey should be backed by public funding, or that it will save lives, but there is little doubt that these findings could prove vital should one ever need to produce urine urgently, e.g. if samples are required at gunpoint by a perverted gunman. I admit, asking the weapon-brandishing man (it would definitely be a man) to hold on while one slathers one's hands in top-price moisturising lotion would obviously be a little unusual, but if it gets the results, who cares?

Two photos and a momentary revel

Oh god oh god. This photo actually brought tears to my eyes. The whole G20 summit has been absolutely gripping to follow, but as you all know too well, underneath all the attempts to be worthy and educated, I am of course just another superficial girl and despite my best attempts, I can't help myself. I have to comment. Just look at it. Have you ever seen anything so depressing? Poor, poor Sarah Brown. It is an absolute disaster. The first thing my eyes are drawn to is her pronounced womb, hugged so cruelly by the synthetic fabric of her ill-advised pencil skirt. What is she doing?! She is clearly and undeniably a pear-shape, so why on earth is she wearing something that would only be vaguely bearable on a true hourglass? Her shoulders look tiny, her waist appears only to be defined by the clinging waistband of her tights and, horror of all horrors, there is actually a visible dent in her upper thigh from the bottom of her underwear! Then there's the fact that the suit itself has never been in fashion, the buttons are slightly straining, her opaque tights aren't right for the look and her shoes make her calves look clumpy. It's just too sad. Swap the two women's outfits and things would have been far better - Sarah's womb and thigh nightmare would be completely disguised in Michelle's prom skirt, while Mrs Obama could have dazzled us with her smile and made us forgive the royal blue error beneath.

Of course, Sarah Brown is nothing to do with fashion. There's absolutely no need for her to be glamorous or cool. But you'd have thought, as the most senior wife in British politics and clearly an extremely clever, capable, nice woman in her own right, she might have asked for a tiny bit of clothes advice on this most high-profile of occasions. Next time, Mrs B, just try to go for something a little less corporate, a little more loose, make sure you buy the right size - and, for the love of god, woman, please avoid any sort of VPL.

And this is the other photo that had me squinting forward at my monitor this morning. When I imagined the G20 dinner, it wasn't anything like this. I must admit to finding the Arab wearing his headphones over his scarf childishly funny, and wondering how it is possible to relax for even a second with all those microphones, translators and aides surrounding them. The man peering over the shoulder of the far off delegate on the left seems to be at least 8 feet tall, while the young guy hugging the curtain on the right appears about to enter a new orbit of stress. I have to be honest, I preferred my vision of how the evening might look: everyone chilling out, slippers on, ties off; Angela Merkel with her hair in a topknot, wearing a facemask; the men smoking pipes, shouting out requests to the iPod controller; an arthritic spaniel wandering in and out; Jamie Oliver coming in to admit that he dropped the pasta in the sink when he was trying to strain it and everyone saying 'Oh, don't worry, it'll taste fine,' in concilliatory tones. Surely more conducive to a fun evening? But possibly not such a great environment for an evening which ultimately concluded in the announcment of a $1.1 trillion dollar cash injection. So far, the markets seem to be pleased about this, but until my house price rises, I'll be raising a cynical eyebrow and refusing to comment.

Finally, as warned in the title of today's posting, a brief and (I hope) uncharacteristic revel. I am a very lucky bunny, but I must just quickly note, as I never have said it out loud before, that I freaking love being able to sing. Last night, three of us met at Harry's flat to rehearse for a wedding at which we're singing in a few weeks. And suddenly, the black and white notes on a page were able to bring tears to the eyes of the happy-couple-elect. It's just the most wonderful feeling, to be part of something that comes from your body alone, that can be done anywhere in the world: complete and joyous escapism, a mental and physical act that challenges and rewards. I'm not the best singer, and I tend to brush off comments about enjoying it for fear of looking uncool - but, in case I'm hit by a bus in the next 24 hours, I'd like the records to show that singing, whether in the choir or in smaller groups or even on my own, makes me very happy indeed and it's a hobby I'd recommend without hesitation. I was in fine fettle on my bus journey home, humming along to Stevie Wonder and feeling pretty self-sufficient and massively fortunate. Then I woke up this morning with the sensation that thirty or forty smallish beanbags filled with a warm, leaden gel had been placed on my skull and shoulders, and that two large thumbs were slowly and methodically attempting to push my eyeballs out through their sockets from the inside. Depression: it's a fascinating beast and for reasons of self-discovery alone, I don't regret having it but ooh, I wouldn't wish it on anyone. TGIF.

Things to do

Go to Halifax and prove my name and address by showing them my passport and my driving licence
Go shopping for hair accessories for small (female) children in advance of weekend trip to Oxfordshire
Have eyes tested at 16:50pm today
Don't forget appointment, as I did at 11:30am this morning
Eat a bit less (food)
Drink a bit less (alcohol)
Drink a bit more (water)
Spend a bit less (money)
Sand back kitchen counters, stain and then re-oil
Do parachute jump
Remember how to speak French
Live abroad for a while
Travel round Asia
Read books about ghostwriting
Finish website design and put live
Finish Prospect magazine
Finish approx. 17 books that I have started and fully intend to complete
Listen to eternal backlog of edifying Radio 4 and Philosophy Bites podcasts
Go freelance and get a dachshund
Take off make-up every night
Make bed every morning
Address overflowing box of admin under coffee table
Accept that I will never be good at the guitar unless I practice
Accept that I will always have things I want to do more than practice the guitar
Accept, therefore, that I will never be good at the guitar
Go 95 consecutive waking seconds without thinking about boys

Update

I read online today that being green is a truly unselfish act. I thought about that for a while this afternoon. I've long held the opinion that there's no such thing as a selfless act - but [it's difficult to type as I have my hands on my head at the moment. I don't know who that blonde girl is in The Apprentice, but she has to die] this gentleman was saying that, since none of us will see the results of our efforts to recycle or fly less, it would be hard to argue that there's a selfish element. But you know me, I'd argue that [ohmygod, I actually can't watch, this is agonising] night is day, black is white or that cellulite is a turn-on. And I'd say that Doing The Right Thing, even if there is no discernible benefit at the time, is always selfish, because it makes you feel good about yourself. And on that basis, I'm back to my first claim that there is no such thing as a selfless act. I'll let you know if that changes.

Back to today. I couldn't resist beaking in to the Bank area at lunchtime and I'm disappointed to report, I couldn't see anything much at all. Lots of happy, smiling people and happy, smiling coppers, with a lot of drummers drumming. It was a bit like the Notting Hill Carnival but without as much marijuana in the air or empty beer cans on the floor. What did strike me was that, for every protester, there were about 487 people taking photographs. I've never seen so many cameras, it was quite extraordinary. The media presence these days is absolutely gobsmacking. I went back to the office with a spring in my step, and was able to watch the drama unfold throughout the afternoon on Sky News, read about it on the Guardian's online site and a couple of news blogs, got second-by-second updates from Twitter feeds and saw photos uploaded just moments after they'd been taken. It was something else. Regardless, I stand by my earlier confusion that I think the protests were largely pointless and won't change anything. But I'd love to be proved wrong.

[Sir Alan's fired the wrong person twice now. Ah well. No one with an IQ above double figures switches on The Apprentice thinking their blood won't reach boiling point].

In other news, I went out for dinner with Justin last night and drank far too much wine. And then had half a pint in a pub. It was a very fun night and I have no regrets, but times aren't unmitigatingly happy at the moment, and gals like me would be advised to steer clear of that popular depressant, alcohol. So tonight when I met up with Tracey, I resolved to be good. I had a virgin strawberry daquiri in Gordon Ramsay's hotel bar in Camden, and then a single glass of house white in the pub where we ate dinner. I was feeling so pleased with my self-restraint that I came home and ate a mini Caramel, then a yoghurt, then a mini finger of Fudge and then a mini Curly-Wurly. Fear and self-loathing in SE London. Growl.

Protest picks up speed...

After a quiet start, things seem to be happening down the road from where I sit, 9-5. We just had a leg of the protest wander past our building. Was fascinating to see the reactions of all the guys and girls in my office as the pallid people strolled along two storeys below. "We won't pay for your mess" read one banner, drawing lots of sarcastic remarks about the bankers paying for the benefits of the scroungers. "You sold us shit and said it was gold" read another, which, a few guys joked, was hard to argue with. Now 'comedian' Russell Brand has joined the other crowds outside the Bank, and I have to admit I am weakly impressed that he's actually got off his arse and gone along. For the most part, so far I feel like the protest is a bit pointless because it's not clear what they actually want. At least with things like Live Earth etc., the goals have been clear. This, I suppose, is just an unfocused protest about the current mess - people showing that they're not happy with the status quo. And of course, the very incoherency makes it true to life, since reality isn't organised and clear: it's disorganised and various. Which is all well and good - but Little Miss Practical here can't help feeling that the whole protest would be a lot more likely to have an effect if there were clearly defined goals. I'd like to see some more positive suggestions for the future - how about some banners with possible solutions? "Cut interest rates further", "No more City bonuses", "Tax transatlantic flights at 50%", "Russell Brand should wear less foundation" etc. Surely more helpful? Less fun though. And I'm not sure that anarchy is really about answers, is it. Viva la revolucion...