Lifting the lid. Or not.

Blimey, what a day - work was uncharacteristically busy which was really annoying as I had something I was keen to blog about: toilets. Or rather: the lids thereon. I have realised that I am in possession of what may be an irrational fear of toilets with the lid down. When I go into the WC at work and find a cubicle containing a loo with the lid down, I automatically about-turn and choose another one. Of course, there are obvious bodily emissions that any sane individual may fear that they'll discover when they lift the lid, but my reality is actually slightly darker. I have no idea where these things come from, but I genuinely panic that I'll lift a lid and find items such as: a severed head; a really really big, mean lizard; a dead baby; a pulsating mass of spiders, desperate to overflow over the seat, onto the floor, up my body and into my mouth... Anyway, so I was going to write about that, and then I was going to recount my internal deliberations re. using toilet vs. loo, but I had no time because I spent all morning updating the work's intranet portal and all afternoon in PowerPoint hell and then I had to go to the gym and then hopped over to Russell Square for the most amaaaazing fifth week of my politics course, and then I rushed home and stressed en route about getting a bunion (current fear), and now I'm back on my sofa, crying in front of a grandfather and a granddaughter singing together on Britain's Got Talent. Variety really is the spice of life and things for me seem to be fairly spicy at present. Am sincerely grateful.

Somno-masochism: an insight

God my brain is annoying. There I am, pootling along, really quite enjoying my days, and then I wake up and find that, once again, I have managed single-handedly to create and perform my own mental health setback, by dreaming about something really quite unpleasant. Now, obviously, on a scale featuring rape and mass genocide, my dream wasn't too horrid, but it still sucked. In it, my friend Astrid was now going out with my ex-kind-of-person, who I shall label TB. In real life, Astrid is in a long-term relationship with someone who is about as opposite to TB as it's possible to be. And for the past few weeks, I have been feeling really quite fine about the loss of the latter. But dreaming about him going out with Astrid hits approximately the same score on the funometer as allowing a blindfolded toddler to give you a haircut the day before your birthday party. And, just to further complicate matters, the dream continued. In real life, TB didn't really want a girlfriend. But in the dream, he was much more loved up. I was trying (bravely, I think) to make a social plan with the happy couple. I think I thought that if I went out with them a deux, I would confront my ickyness about their relationship and 'move on'. Initially, Astrid seemed up for the idea, but then she phoned me back and said that TB had been trying to get hold of her all afternoon (unheard of when we were together) and that he was desperate to book some tickets for an event for just the two of them (rarer than steak tartare). Of course, I said it was fine for her to go with him, leaving me with nothing to do on a Saturday night (deep ingrained teenage fear, now mostly conquered except in ridiculous dreams), and I ended the call feeling unbelievably bereft. Then I woke up, and although it was a relief to find that TB wasn't actually going out with Astrid (to the best of my knowledge), and although it was good to discover that I don't have to witness any grand plans he may or may not be making for any new girl he is a-wooing, I still felt a bit sad. And it does make me think, when everything is tottering along in a fashion that is really quite breezy, what on earth is the purpose of my brain making me re-mourn the loss of someone who I was already forgetting about quite merrily? What could be the use of making me feel insecure, abandoned, and slightly betrayed? While I'm meant to be resting, for god's sake. If my own brain is determined to make me start the day feeling crap, what hope do I have? Although I must say, it's now 11:40 and I feel absolutely fine, so maybe I'm over-egging this cake. Back to the Guardian online.

You win some, you lose some

So on Saturday, everything looked rosy. The sun was shining, I got up on time, and, in an act of heroic proportions, managed to fix my own washing machine by emptying the filter, catching all the water in a bucket, cleaning out the filter, and restarting it all. This may sound like child's play, but when you can visualise my washing machine, whisch for several complex reasons involving pipes that I was too tight to reroute, sits atop a raised platform in a tiny room, you will understand that the aforedescribed deed required me to jump on top of the machine, swivel around to lie on my chest, legs extended out of the door, while reaching down with thankfully disproportionate arms to push the drainage pipe to one side and switch off the plug at the mains. Prior to this, I'd tried to reach up to the plug from underneath, lying on my back among my boxes of Persil and bottles of Lenor, but I couldn't quite reach the plug, and as my eyes adjusted, I realised that I was absolutely surrounded by spiders. I was nearly sick, extracted myself from the confined space, did the universal get-the-insect-off-me dance accompanied by the universal squealy song called 'Get The Insect Off Me Now'. Then I got out the hoover and fed the spiders to Henry. As a result of the protracted process, I bruised both shins fairly substantially, broke a nail and cut my arm. Still, it was all counterbalanced by my success in retrieving a nondescript but troublesome piece of black fabric from the filter, and I apologise unreservedly for the smugness that must have oozed out of the headset when I phoned back Hotpoint to cancel my £160 call-out.

As a result, I positively skipped in to Em's birthday brunch at Tom Aikens. After a delicious meal at Quaglino's on Friday night following the absurdly fun Steam Temple Experience at the spa in the Hotel Intercontinental, Em and I were glowing from top to toe, but nonetheless the assembled troops bravely managed to forget about health long enough to force bagels, scrambled eggs, smoked salmon, blueberry muffins, bacon, milkshakes, coffee, juice and white wine into our undernourished systems. We were the nightmare noisy table that is a bit hysterical, laughing a bit too loudly and having a bit more fun than everyone else. I slightly hated us but couldn't stop laughing. What do you call a cheese that doesn't belong to you? Nacho cheese. Ah me. Those were the days...

So then Em, Erf and I meandered down to the King's Road and I splashed out on some cute jewellery for Nicole's daughters, a dress from Zara and a long-desired pair of Havaianas from Office. I was wearing heart-shaped sunglasses and all was well in the world. Will the joys of consumerism ever cease to make me happy? I do hope so, but it seems unlikely. Shortly after 3pm, I took my leave from Em and Erf, and got on the Circle Line round to Paddington. I arrived at the station in plenty of time, found my reserved seat at the front of the train in Coach A, the quiet carriage, and sat down to read my book with ten minutes to spare. Then I realised with absolute certainty that when I exited the Circle Line at Paddington, I had picked up my handbag and my rucksack, but left behind the Office bag containing my new shoes, my new dress, the jewellery from Accessorize and a smoothie from Boots. Fuming, I stood up, grabbed my two remaining bags and pegged it back down the length of the train to the ticket barrier, just to check the station concourse on the offchance I'd left it there, even though I knew without any hint of doubt that I had not. I was right. I hadn't. My bags of newly purchased items were winging their way towards Moorgate on the Circle Line, assuming they had not already been discovered by a lucky vulture. The protective glow of self-satisfaction that had been emanating from me just moments before vanished immediately. All that remained was an aura of dejectedness and, following three trips down the length of the Paddington platform, a sheen of sweat.

But it's impossible to be grumpy for long with Nicole and her adorable brood, even when they are covered in pasta sauce and iridescent mucous, and all they want to do is see your boobies or show you theirs. I had a fantastically restful time on Saturday night, Sunday and Monday, continued to attempt to break the world record for most Weight Watchers points consumed in a single weekend, took some great pics, groomed Millie the pony, walked the dogs, sprayed one of the chicken's feet with some sort of scaly leg stuff, (kind of) helped to move a shed, looked after all three children single-handedly for an hour while Nic went riding (it went OK but I think two hours would have been beyond me), made a sauce for a sticky toffee pudding (indicative of health levels throughout stay), discussed mental health virtually without drawing breath and was back in my flat just before 4pm yesterday, when I watched back-to-back Britain's Got Talent (am outraged) and tidied everything in preparation for the week ahead. I'm trying not to think too much about my lost items, or be too grumpy about the fact that their combined value is almost precisely what it would cost me to claim for them via my insurance policy (no claims bonuses are SO ANNOYING), and now I am avoiding having to exercise by typing every minute detail that pops into my head. You'd have thought that with my holiday less than a fortnight away, I'd be working out non-stop, but I almost fear I'm past saving, and seem to have misplaced my mojo. Right. Must go down to the murky basement gym and punish myself after the weekend's excesses. Back asap.

And the beat goes on...

Yesterday, shortly before 11am, I wrote the following paragraph:

I just read the headline in the Guardian, which reads "Cabinet ministers press Gordon Brown for radical shake-up of politics: Elected upper house and caps on party donations on modernisers' agenda". And, with the whining voice of a six year old complaining about having to go to bed early, I said to myself, out loud, sitting at my desk, on my own, in my glass box office, "But I don't want an elected upper house."

I was going to edit it, by the way. It is unfinished. Regardless, I was going to follow it by a written down (and obviously hilarious) version of my internal dialogue concerning the House of Lords. But then Laura came into my office and we were chatting about Weight Watchers, and then at about 11:20, Eva phoned and told me she had a spare ticket to the Ivor Novello awards in the Grosvenor Park Hotel, and that I was welcome to the ticket if I could be on Park Lane in forty minutes. My lovely boss gave me the afternoon off, I hot-footed it to Bank and across town on the Central line, did my make-up en route (apologies Mum and all others who hate public make-up application: I am of your number but sometimes needs must), found applying my newish Laura Mercier eyeliner with fine brush onto inner upper eyelid somewhere around Chancery Lane fairly complicated, and was obviously livid to be wearing relatively subdued work clothes to an event where there would be dressed up people, but excited all the same. And then there we were, heading into the Grand Ballroom, just as we did the last time I went to the Ivors, when I was approx. sixteen and the highlight of my day was when Tony Mortimer asked me for a light. Now no one is allowed to smoke inside and Tony Mortimer is probably in his forties with seven kids by nine different women.

But that's not the only thing that's changed. To my utter relief, I'd heard of almost everyone who was nominated for an award, including Elbow (yay!), The Ting Tings (yay!) and Duffy (yawn). But what shocked me was that after the event, given the opportunity of returning back to Eva's house to watch Aladdin with her two toddling kids or staying out with the others to drink more booze and hang out with famous people, I unhesitatingly chose the former. Something dramatic has shifted within me and I'm afraid that, once again, the answer is clear. I am old.

Shortly after Jafar's henchmen had sent Aladdin to the bottom of the sea with a ball and chain around his leg, I reluctantly stood up and took the tube back to Russell Square for week four of the politics course, where we discussed the law, and when, if ever, it is appropriate to act outside it. Having consumed disappointingly large quantities of delicious food and wine at lunch, I was unable to resist the platters of charcuterie, bread, olives and chocolate biscuits that were laid out for our mid-evening break, and when Laura and I totted up my Weight Watchers points this morning, a rough estimate puts my score at an impressive 54, approximately 2.5 times my actual daily allowance. Hmmm. Not doing so well. Trying to think of the beach and the bikini horror but it appears to be particularly difficult when I am having fun. If only I could have a more miserable life, I would clearly be much thinner. Sigh. It's so unfair.

And after all that, I am still not sure about an elected upper house, even though it is clearly undemocratic. I need to work on that. And I'm still working on my theory of immigration. So much to do, so much to do. A bientot.

Warning: humour shortage

Last night, Em and I went to see Ken Livingstone speak at the Southbank Centre. I don't agree with all his views and I certainly don't want to hang out with him constantly, but he was extremely entertaining and enlightening - even after the pinch of salt had been administered. He confirmed that he will definitely be running against Boris in the 2012 mayoral elections, which I'm pleased about. In the questions session afterwards, I mentioned that he'd said that political ideology had been subsumed by celebrity, and that hardly anyone is engaged in the issues any more, and I asked what he would do to re-engage the electorate. His answer was along the lines of the old 'what we need is a good war' argument, basically saying that the combination of the fall-out from the economic crisis and the forthcoming and inevitable ecological crisis (which he made sound absolutely stark raving terrifying) would engage people for sure. A faintly depressing picture - if we're happy, we don't care, if we're unhappy, we switch on - but that's probably been the case throughout humanity.

I have nothing funny to say. Apologies.

OMG

One snack pack of Nairn's oat cakes = 15 points. Bear in mind that I would regularly eat one snack pack with a good dollop of homemade smoked mackerel pate (approx. 12 points per serving). That's 27 points (six over what I am allowed in an entire day) for what I thought was a healthy lunch. Hmmm.

Tuesday melange

After a busy weekend, I woke up startlingly early on Monday morning. I tentatively opened one eye and was thrilled that my digital clock read 06:50 - another hour of snoozing before I needed to sit upright. A short doze later, I reawoke feeling strangely refreshed and knew something was amiss. I opened my eyes, and saw that my clock now read 08:29. My alarm had decided that it was going to sleep in, and didn't go off. And I don't know how I did it, but I made it into the office by 09:03, 34 minutes from bed to desk, unshowered and with bed remaining unmade, but teeth brushed, clothes donned, make-up applied, hair tidied and choir folder remembered. I briefly felt like a B-grade superhero.

Friday night I went to see L'Elisir d'amore at Covent Garden with Arabee. I'd never seen a comic opera before, and I really enjoyed it from our £8 standing tickets. I don't know if it was due to the opera being less well-known or the credit crunch, but there were large swathes of empty red velvet in the stalls and lower circles, and the boxes were almost all empty. All the cheap seats were rammed, however, so I think it says more about the financial climate than the popularity of Donizetti. We had a good ol' natter in the interval and over wine in a pub beforehand, and all in all it was a delicious evening. Saturday was down to Tooting with Em for bargain threading (Feroza is ditched) and then dinner with Kate at the delicious and very funky Village East in Bermondsey - will definitely be returning - and finally on to Shunt. It pains me to admit it, and apologies to anyone to whom I've lied and said I've been there loads, but this is the first time I've gone to this self-consciously cool underground lair beneath London Bridge train station. I've intended to visit for years, but this was the first time that good intentions and willing third parties combined simultaneously, and Kate and I set off for the gloom of the arches with excitement. It was every bit as random and cool as I'd hoped, although the clientele was definitely in their mid-twenties, on average, and it was a little unexpected to find that the guys we'd been chatting to were still at university and aged 23. I don't know if they were unusually mature, or if the loud music meant I couldn't hear how idiotic they really were. Still, it was a brilliant night, involving white wine, fancy dress, throwing plastic balls at the head of ska band guitarists and pretending to be usherettes in a screenless cinema.

Since then I've spent time with two members of my extended US relations, had a day at work, gone to the gym, bought some scales in Boots, gone to choir, been reluctantly gobsmacked by Tim's impromptu magic display at the pub afterwards, woken up on time this morning, weighed myself, and enjoyed another half day at work. The scales and the weighing are on account of my decision, post last Friday, to try Weight Watchers for a few weeks. And the past 36 hours since I began, under Laura's beady eye, to count calories and calculate point allowances, have been shocking. My quantities weren't too bad, I knew that - but it appears that my main dietary treats, including smoked mackerel, halloumi and Pret's yoghurt with berries and granola, healthy though they sometimes are, are also so high in points that it is a miracle I haven't been recruited by Sumo UK for their summer extravaganza. One medium mackerel fillet, a staple part of my lunchtime diet, counts as 10 points, the same as a Big Mac. I am allowed 21 points in an entire day. A 40g block of halloumi, the size of a small matchbox, is 3.5 points, which sounds OK, until you realise that the average halloumi salad probably contains around 150-200g of grilled cheese. Oh. That may explain why I haven't lost quite so much weight as I expected in the past six weeks since I went on my pre-holiday diet.

Don't get me wrong. I am not crying into my Ryvita, feeling like a social outcast. I am generally a happy lass, and I do believe that I'm attractive and healthy as I am. But there's no denying that I'd like to shift a wee bit of weight before I have to prance about in my bikini in just under three weeks - so this seems like a fun thing to do between now and then. Call me odd, but so far, I'm enjoying it.

I went on this website last week to try and firm up my allegiances in advance of the European elections in June. On many issues I was confident that I had a fair bit of information in my filing cabinets, and I felt confident that I was clicking the right buttons. But on a few topics, namely EU integration and immigration, I felt pathetically ill-informed. I know what my gut tells me about these topics, but if there's anything my three weeks of politics course have taught me, it's that your instinct is all well and good, but if you aren't able to see or explain how these proposals can be practically implemented, then you're just a fantasist, which is nice for you and fun escapism, but really doesn't help the situation much. I'm now waiting for this book to arrive from Amazon; I saw the author speak a year or two ago and he was impressive and really quite fanciable. For some insane reason, due in part to the fact that I was feeling a bit needy having had a sweetly romantic but unsaucy dream about some total stranger on Sunday night, I ended up stalking him online yesterday and sent him an email asking him out for a drink. This morning, I received his reply saying that he was in New Zealand, which, as far as excuses go, is pretty solid. I almost imploded with cringe, deleted the email and have resolved to think no more on't.

Erratum

I know said earlier today that I am not fat. I stand by that. However, I am definitely fatter than I thought. Approximately two months ago, I had to go to the doctor, and she weighed me. I asked her not to tell me how much the scales read as I don't like getting too obsessive about pounds and kilograms, prefering instead to go by whether my jeans fit or not. But then when she later went out of the room to get something, I looked at her notes and found the result. Faithful, to say I got a shock is an understatement. It was as if I'd switched on my toaster, my hairdryer, and my microwave, held them all simultaneously and jumped into a bath of petrol. I wasn't happy.

Since then, I have been on somewhat of a diet and exercise regime, and I have, of late, been feeling a little fleeter of foot. So after a session in the basement gym a short while ago, I thought I'd get on the scales by the door and see how much I'd lost. Guess what? I was exactly the fucking same.

Immediately, a flood of (female?) excuses for this clear abberation swirled into my mind:

• The scales in the doctor's are different to the ones in the gym
• Muscle weighs more than fat
• My trainers weigh more than the no-shoes I was wearing at the doctor's
• My trainers may weigh several kilos
• My sweaty post-gym clothes are heavier than normal clothes
• I may be at a different stage in my hormonal cycle than I was before
• My lunch was still digesting
• My hair is a good inch longer now
• My brain may weigh more as I have acquired two months' more knowledge

However, the sad truth remains, that give or take a kilo, in two months of reduced alcohol, no chocolate, no crisps, no wheat, and increased exercise, I have changed not a jot. Sympathy welcome.

Weighty issues

So the MPs expense claims fiasco is still making me chortle. I know it shouldn't, I know it's outrageous, but it's just so ingrained in their culture. I was reading today that when Gordon Brown became an MP in the early 1980s, their annual salary was a risible £15,000. Expenses claims were how they survived. Now their annual salary is £65k, but over time, they've all colluded in wiggling the system in their favour and the unavoidable, laughable sense that they've all been simultaneously busted is slightly gleeful. I do want it to change, don't get me wrong - I think it's a serious issue - but the idea that our tax money has gone on the following surely raises a smile:

Nick Harvey (Lib Dem) - £30 per month for Sky Sports subscription
Julia Goldsworthy (Lib Dem) - £1,200 for a rocking chair
Alan Duncan (Tory) - £598 for lawnmower repairs
Oliver Letwin (Tory) - £2000 for repairs to pipe under his tennis court
David Miliband (Lab) - £145.96 for a pushchair
Margaret Beckett (Lab) - £600 for a hanging basket
Andy Burnham (Lab) - £19.99 for a dressing gown
John Prescott (Lab) - £112.52 for repairs to a toilet seat

Andy's £19.99 dressing gown was particularly poignant - I feel sorry for him that he didn't splash out a little more and go for something a bit nicer. But the one that made me feel saddest was John Prescott's repair work. How broken could it have been, for goodness' sake?! And how much did the seat cost in the first place, that it was preferable to spend over £100 repairing it rather than replacing it? The correlation that will inevitably be made between the size of Mr Prescott's derriere and the cost of the damage was what made me wince. One of the worst memories of my life happened about ten years ago, when I weighed... quite a lot. I was in Miami to do an interview with some tiny American popstrel, and we'd gone up to the rooftop garden of our unbelievably swanky hotel to take some photos on the beautiful wooden loungers by the pool. It was a stunning, warm spring day, the weather totally different to the cold rain we'd been having back in London. I was already feeling self-conscious as I was probably about five times the size of the starlet, painfully white and uncomfortable in my summer clothes that hadn't been worn since the previous year. But then, as I tried to relax on one of the poolside wooden stools, I felt an unmistakable crunch occur beneath my oversized buttocks, and seconds later, I was on the floor, the seat of the stool in two pieces on the decking beside me. Of course, I laughed. There was no other possible response. But I remember being furious that it had happened. I was convinced that the stool had been on its way out, and it just seemed so typical and so unfair that it had been The Fat Girl who had been the one to tip it over the edge.

These days I'm no longer fat, thankfully, but I still find weight a fairly constant concern. I'm currently preparing myself for ten days on the beach at the beginning of June and gearing up for that initial reveal of myself in a bikini, surrounded by people who are already bronzed: a moment of unparalleled awkwardness. I'm doing my best to eat less and exercise more in the run-up to the event, but even when I'm not working too hard at it all, there's that fairly constant stab of envy as I see one naturally slim person after another eating pizza or doughnuts or biscuits without thinking. I just envy that ability to eat without analysis - to grab lunch in McDonalds or guiltlessly order a Fiorentina for dinner and have no guilt or repurcussions. As Eva's mum always said, 'They'll turn to fat,' but they will have had decades of carefree munching and they don't know how lucky they are.

But back to politics (and away from any discussion about buttocks, whether they're mine or John Prescott's)... I had class three of my six-week politics course last night. The topic was inequality and it was fascinating. I found myself agreeing with Napoleon rather than Marx - equality of opportunity rather than equality of outcome - so my dad's fears that he's 'bred a red' can be calmed a little. But I still fear that, expenses scandal included, no matter how many scandalous truths are revealed about our governing system, the vast majority of people won't engage with politics because they simply don't believe that their vote will make any difference. The parties are too similar, the representatives are self-interested and the democratic machine is fundamentally flawed. How can we change this? I don't know. I am sure that some sort of parliamentary reform is vital, probably involving proportional representation, but even then, the extant political parties don't seem to reflect the national interests. And, worryingly, as I read in today's Guardian, the media won't change this: "What aspect of the restoration of trust in politics would be in the media's interest? The answer is no part of it at all." They are loving this scandal, they love discontentment, they love demonstrations that turn into riots. Good news is no news. In a country where the media, more than anything else, shapes public opinion, that's a fairly depressing state of affairs. And I can't even smother my sorrows by comfort eating. Bah.

Hi, it's me

Ooh, I'm all riled about those silly Americans who have made a series of TV ads highlighting the failures of the British NHS, in order to deter Obama's plans for a more supportive healthcare system across the pond. Sure, there are lots of people who have been let down or disappointed by the NHS. It's certainly not perfect. But count up the percentage of Brits who feel lucky to have the NHS, and compare that to the percentage of Americans who feel lucky to have their current insurance-based system, and I'm certain that the answer would be fairly conclusive.

And then there's all this kerfuffle about MPs expenses. It really is quite laughable what they have legally been allowed to get away with. The sad thing is, the entire saga is just confirming what everyone thought before: the whole system sucks. Voter disenfranchisement is in full force now, next to no-one has any faith that the marks they leave on their ballot paper will do any good, leaving the door wide open for lairy parties like the BNP to waft in at the European Elections next month - their supporters won't be put off by superficial scandals like this one. It's all so terribly disappointing and, for the life of me, I can't see what's going to change anything except a massive issue like a war to pull everyone off the sidelines and reengage them with their government. And, much as I want parliamentary reform, even I wouldn't advocate getting involved in any more military disputes. Thankfully I have the third week of my politics course tonight and we are discussing voter apathy, so maybe I'll be able to supply you with the answers tomorrow.

On a different note, I can tell you that currently annoying me most are people who leave voicemails that begin, 'Hi, it's me.' Growl. Obviously if I can recognise your voice, then saying 'It's me' isn't going to change anything. What is even worse, however, is 'Hi, it's only me,' which shows such an appalling and deep-seated lack of self-confidence that it actually makes me angry rather than sad. I think I have too much time on my hands.

Hanging with Mr Cooper

Last Tuesday, I was having a post-work drink with Ses on the balcony outside the South Bank Centre when she spotted someone she thought might be famous. I turned round to look in the direction she'd indicated, and immediately met eyes with Dominic Cooper, who is indeed a bit famous, having starred in The History Boys (play and film) and Mamma Mia, among other things. I was livid he busted me looking round at him, as ever since his appearance on Never Mind The Buzzcocks last year, when he came across as a wee bit full of himself, I have felt like he might need taking down a peg or two and in an ideal world I would have pointedly ignored him. Still, once I'd been spotted spotting him, my cool was already lost, so I maximised my opportunity by having a longer look when he went past. He was dressed fairly like he is in this photo: scruffy jeans, biker boots, a black or very dark brown cropped leather jacket (zipped up) with a longer T-shirt hanging out - and longer hair. Facially and follicularly, he looked, as always, a bit grubby - poss. through over-use of bad fake tan. I long to exfoliate him.

So far, so unremarkable. But last night, also a Tuesday, I was back at the South Bank, this time at the National Theatre, and lo and behold, there was Dominic again. This time I managed not to make eye contact with him, but it was all I could do to stop myself making a Tim Henman fist of satisfaction, as this too-cool-for-school celeb was wearing exactly the same outfit as before. There are, of course, many possible explanations for this, but I have chosen to believe that Dominic has seven mufti outfits, one allocated to each day of the week, and that by spotting him on two consecutive Tuesdays, I have uncovered his fashion simplicity and am now revealing it to the world. Take that, Mr Smug.

I, of course, was not wearing the same thing to the South Bank on two consecutive Tuesdays. Last night I went straight from work in flat shoes, black trousers (slightly too tight as I am between sizes at the moment), red babydoll T-shirt (slightly misshapen as it's from Hennes and I have washed it, ooh, three times so it's really a miracle that it's still in one piece), black cropped jacket (not warm enough for suddenly brisk spring winds). I met my mother in the NT's tapas restaurant (disappointing) and then we went to see Burnt By The Sun, a play about Russia just before the Stalin onslaught, which was given five stars by The Independent, five stars by The Daily Telegraph, and about two stars by me and my mum. I had really wanted to see it as my Russia knowledge is woeful, and the acting was OK - but I didn't learn much and the script sucked. Sucked, I tell you. Not impressed. I was seated alone as mum and I had bought our tickets separately, and I had a mouth-breather on my left and a rustly woman on my right who did not sit still for more than six seconds. Every time she moved, her scratchy jacket fabric rubbed against itself - not deafening but certainly distracting, and, like all noises (particularly snoring), most annoying in its inconsistency. Growl.

This morning I woke up early again to do yoga. It actually appears to be getting more difficult the more I do it. I'm not sure how that works but I'm not particularly happy about it. My Half Moon Pose is noticeably wobblier, particularly on the left hand side, and even Camel's Pose, which I used to find quite pleasant, is now a dread-worthy moment on the DVD, especially as it is a warm up for the three Upward Bows, my nadir. Ah well. It's all part of the fun, isn't it. Right. That's enough for now. I'm off. A demain.

Pathetic attempt to tide you over

Oh dear, I have slipped into rubbishness again and don't have time to make it up to you. My excuse is fairly momentous: I have been busy at work. I know. It has been a shock of the highest degree to me too. Rest assured, however, that I am almost certain that I will be able to update you in full tomorrow. For now, be excited with me that something absolutely marvellous happened to me this lunchtime: I ate some slices of raw tomato and I liked them. Not quite as electric as Katy Perry's number one hit, but, for me, more important. I am still in shock, to be honest. I'll be asking for extra coriander next.

Back asap. And apologies.

Hormoanal again

I am very hormonal at the moment. This month, the hormonalism entails being monosyllabic, exhausted to the point of nausea, unmotivated, pointlessly but painfully nostalgic and in possession of a slightly blotchy face. Sometimes it sucks being female. I was bemoaning my lot last night over dinner with Murray, specifically with reference to the fact that if you meet a single guy aged 31, the normal assumption is that he is happily single and has choosen to be so, whereas if you meet a single girl of the same age, the vision that comes to mind is of a rabid dog, salivating, howling and desperate to get her claws into her next victim. Whether it is true or not that no 31 year old girl really wants to be single is not the issue - the fact is, society makes her feel like a failure. It's freaking annoying, especially if, like me, you have no current desire to be in a relationship whatsoever - and I gained Murray's pity, which was some consolation. I think.

On a positive note, the play we went to see last night pre-dinner was really good, almost excellent. Three Days of Rain starred the compelling James McAvoy (who I'm sure must be unattractively full of himself in real life but yet I can't stop liking him), and two other less-famous people. On the basis of this production alone, it appears that the more famous you are, the better your American accent. James had the fewest slip-ups, while Nigel was OK except on words like 'York' and when he went into shouty mode, and the female actor was the least well-known and sounded a bit like she was in a Cornish AmDram production of Guys and Dolls. But with the exception of the distracting accents, the play was pretty fantastic. The script stole the show, fast-paced, unpatronising and very funny, and for the most part, the actors pulled off the speed of the dialogue with dexterity. The Shaftesbury Avenue theatre was packed and, after an initial panic that no one was going to stop whispering and rustling all night, I calmed down and have to admit that the audience was largely well behaved, with the exception of the girl on the other side of Murray who had a distractingly intermittent coughing fit involving crackly Strepsils packets for the final three or four minutes of the play. I nearly killed her but I'd noticed how nice her vintage dress was at the interval so I was slightly more forgiving than normal, and just settled for a death-inducing glower as we filed out.

This morning I had an unpleasant shock as I reached the tube station opposite my flat. The nice people who work there usually liven up our commute with a thought-provoking Quote of the Day, written on a whiteboard near the ticket barriers. Past morale-boosters have been by Oscar Wilde, Seneca and Jane Austen. But when I went past today and scanned the board hastily for its pearl of wisdom, I became aware that it seemed a little more vacuous and unremarkable than usual. When I saw the quotation's owner, I realised why: it was Brittany Murphy, star of Clueless and 8 Mile. I'm sure Brittany is a lovely and intelligent girl, but on a level with Seneca? I think possibly not. I scooped my lower jaw off the tiled floor and was about to file a complaint when I realised that I was running seven minutes late, due to my inability to get out of bed this morning on account of my hormones. So I scuttled down the escalator, levered myself onto a carriage, unrolled Prospect from my bag and got on with another day in the life. Politics class tonight. Woop.

Bitch club

So last night I went to a new book club, solely because they were reading this book, which I found relentlessly interesting and also sometimes funny and very clever and inspiring. I was excited about attending the new book club, although I made the mistake of meeting up with Ses for a quick drink beforehand, and we got talking about boys and when 18:30pm came around, my desire to stand and walk down the stairs of the South Bank Centre (Southbank Centre?) and join my fellow readers had waned somewhat. But like a good little struggling intellectual, I did what I'd said I would do, and took my place in the circle of strangers. It was a good mix of nationalities, ages, genders (well, only two of these as far as I am aware) and characters, and we had a frisky, wide-ranging discussion over the course of about ninety minutes. None of this, however, was aided by the lady who compered the evening. An employee of the South Bank Centre, she is, I'm sure, a well-intentioned and clever individual. She seemed really quite attractive too, if writing that will make up for the vitriol I am about to unleash. Goodness me, she was the most excruciatingly bad book club compere in the relatively short history of such a role. You know how, when people are pseuds, and trying to discuss something, and they want to appear as though they're just weighed down with the sheer burden of the fascinating concepts and ideas that are stored within their grey matter, and they scrunch up their eyes and/or rub their foreheads in an attempt to massage out the wondrous truths within or perhaps in order to ease the pressure on their straining temples? And they speak in a very specific language of crapademic half-baked guff, i.e. "I was particularly interested, y'know, in the way in which the concept of nation kept coming up in the book, and boundaries, and, y'know, I'm just playing devil's advocate here, but is it possible that... y'know... I mean, going back to what you were saying about football, and tribalism, and that idea that, I mean, picking up on Mike's point about travel and fear, and then thinking about, y'know, the identity of the writer, his Polishness as opposed to his desire to be seen as an African, compared to, as we said earlier, his status as The Other when he was in South America... I mean, would anyone like to take that further?" In between eating handfuls of free crisps, I was left with the burning, heart-pounding desire to start commenting, "I'm particularly interested, y'know, in the fact that you think we are so, y'know, overawed by your status as compere that we won't, y'know, notice that you're talking absolute shit, and trying to use intellectual concepts in order to prove to us that you know what you're, like, doing?" But I didn't. Honestly, though, is it too much to hope that someone might be able to string a coherent sentence together once in a while? Growl. It was fun though. And breathe.

Back to the grind

Apologies to the Foreign Faithful, but here in the UK, yesterday was a Bank Holiday and I didn't get around to writing. Not that I was out gallivanting, you understand. In fact, I spent most of the day in a fug of confused efficiency, careering from one urgent project to the next in a manner that was both uncharacteristically chaotic and rather liberating. The impetus for said efficiency was the impending arrival of a new temporary flatmate, a young Berliner who will stay in my spare room for a maximum of ten nights a month in exchange for some money. I had to make space in his cupboard for his possessions, and became embarrassed anew at the fact that my clothes will not fit in the two large wardrobes in my double bedroom, even with the addition of a substantial chest of drawers, and that, shortly after moving into the flat last March, my clothing overflowed into the spare room closet, which is now completely full in the way that means that you need both arms and substantial bicep strength to insert a new item into the denseness.

So, with difficulty, I cleared a space in the cupboard, which then meant I had a surplus of items on my bed. I got rid of my second yoga mat, my old Ikea laundry basket and a large bag of old shoes via Freecycle, and was feeling very virtuous when, at approximately 5pm, Emily told me about Music Magpie. I then spent the following six hours typing in the barcodes of around 450 of my CDs, and quickly burning any I hadn't previously copied onto my hard drive. And so it came to pass that, after nearly three decades of jealously hoarding vinyl and then cassettes and finally compact discs, the age of tangible music formats has come to a close for me. It feels unbelievably sad and very wrong, but I simply never listen to them, I haven't bought a CD for years, and... well, it's done. And if the ones I am sending off make the grade, the money I get will pay for my flights to the Impending Summer Holiday Destination. Woo.

Today I feel exhausted in that way that you get when you have more wine to drink on Saturday than you can remember ever drinking before, on what was pretty much an entirely empty stomach, at your lovely friends' wedding, and then spend Sunday and Monday trying - and failing - to rehydrate. I am still very, very thirsty. And my recollection of Saturday is hazy at best, but I can say that all my memories are extremely happy. Apparently I went up to Lucy at a lateish stage in the evening and briefly danced in her vicinity before announcing that I was completely sober and that I was unable to dance due to feeling too self-conscious. This was a massive, massive untruth. At the end of the wedding, I am informed that I went into cheeky mode (which, despite hundreds of examples to the contrary, I always naively believe I can get away with), and took two gargantuan hunks of cheese and a large basket of crackers from the marquee and ran back to the outside table where a group of us were sitting, despite our host's clear desire that we would stand up, leave the cheese and go home. Later I went back to the bar, found three half full bottles thereon, collected them and took them back outside. When someone in a position of responsibility appeared to spot me, apparently I broke into a trot and said 'I'm not here, I'm not here...' accompanied by gales of giggling. Pathetic. I have no defence, I am sure it must be true - but I remember it not much. The next morning, I was feeling substantially less hilarious, and thanked my lucky stars that Justin was also at breakfast at our B&B, as our host decided that it was the time to talk about property prices and the credit crunch. I didn't really engage in the conversation, although Justin later said that I managed to disagree with pretty much everything he said, just barking 'That's not true,' at all his suggestions. Apparently it was like having breakfast with Paxman.

Now I'm back at work and struggling to get through a very busy day at work, as I think I am still recovering from my efficiency yesterday and the gallons on Saturday - but I did find five seconds to scan the papers online and must admit that I chuckled a fair bit on finding that the supermarket, Morrisson's, has been selling a spelling toy containing the word Yatch. Yacht has always been a really rubbish Y letter anyway, impossible to spell and both elitist and seaist. I think we should get rid of it. In America, I think it's more commonly Y is for Yak, although perhaps Kentucky Cous can confirm this. How about Y is for Yucca as a substitute? Or we could do a bit of subliminal healthy living stuff and do Y is for Yakult? Alternatively, we could advertise the recent buddy movie, Y is for You, Me and Dupree, although that might be a bit premature... Oooh, how about Y is for Young offender, with a cartoon of a youth behind bars as a preventative measure to deter the baby from carrying out aggressive behaviour in the future? I think it's a winning plan. Right. Must go to gym and burn off several thousand wine calories. Sigh.

There where things are hollow

Oh dear. How terribly unBritish last night's blog posting was. I have just reread it and felt distinctly uncomfortable at its unabashed happiness and overflowing joie de vivre. It was all true, of course, and I reluctantly admit that I am still feeling fairly fleet of foot and frisky. But how deeply uncharacteristic.

The only thing I can think of that might rectify this is a more lengthy complaint about the monstrous T-Mobile commercial that I witnessed being filmed in Trafalgar Square yesterday eve. First of all, the crowds gathered round the stage were huge. Yes, that's 'crowds'. Many, many people, all willing to give up their free time, desperate to be in a thirty second TV ad. The fame obsession of the British public will never cease to amaze me. I don't know what it says about me that I was willing to give up my free time to stand on Charing Cross Road and watch the proceedings, but I hope it's slightly less awful than actually wanting to be in the ad. I suspect it's a gossamer line.

A camera on a huge boom swooped over the masses, who obliginged by screaming mechanically and waving and sticking their tongues out, trying to do something - anything - to stand out long enough to earn their 0.15 seconds. Then the distinctly underwhelming celeb, Vernon Kaye, strode onto the temporary stage and shouted at those gathered beneath him, welcoming them to the next 'event' for T-Mobile. It was all so gross and I felt wrong and dirty for staying - but just when I was losing all self-respect, the karaoke began. After a fair bit of delicious wine at lunch, I was sucked in, hook, line, and singer.

We were getting into our stride a few tunes in - I had especially enjoyed Summer Loving - when the camera zoned in on a funky-looking blonde lass wearing a hoodie. As she saw her face on the big screen, she pushed off her hood and started really working the mike.
"Urgh," I thought to myself, "typical wannabe, making sure none of her fake-tanned mug is obscured on TV." She started singing - quite well, to be fair - in fact, staggeringly confidently for someone in the public, although it seemed like the sound balance on her mike was a bit more favourable... I felt briefly outraged for the other singers who'd came across as a bit breathy and understandably under-rehearsed, but then the man next to me said, "It's Pink," and I looked again, and from the mole on her face and a piercing somewhere, I realised that he was telling the truth, and the hoodie-wearer was, in fact, an American C-lister, with a moniker that matches T-mobile's logo colour, paid handsomely to turn up and give the advertising event of the afternoon a bit more star girth. All around her, everyone was smiling and reaching up to her, and suddenly I felt very protective of all the people who'd been happily chanting along to Build Me Up Buttercup before a Pop Star arrived. Sure, they'd only been there to get on TV too, but underneath all the commercialism, it had briefly seemed like a bit of harmless, inexpensive fun. But that's not enough for us these days. We can't just sing and look happy. We need additional endorsement from a well-known face. We need to be shown how it's done. We need to be put in our place. And it stinks. I wandered off shortly afterwards, leaving the fame-hungry hoardes to their worship.

I know, I know, I'm a hypocrite. I shouldn't have gone along at all. But I was curious. And it was a gorgeous sunny evening. Yes, I'm confused. But I do my best. And you love me for it.