You can't stand under my umbrella

On Friday night I went out in Waterloo with Kate and we had a lovely time, but when we were nearing the station at the end of the night, I remembered that I had left my new umbrella under the table in the restaurant, and I couldn't quite be bothered to run back and get it, and I looked at Kate and I could tell that she didn't want me to go back and get it, and I totally caved in to my own laziness and unspoken peer pressure and didn't go back. And I look back now and I am ashamed at myself. It was a really nice umbrella - not interesting in pattern, but good quality and pleasingly slim. It had cost £9.95 and I'd used it thrice. I have other umbrellas, but such waste is unacceptable. I deserve to be poor and get wet.

On Saturday I met up with my parents and we went for a walk and tried not to discuss politics at lunch, and then I went on a date with a guy who I won't be seeing again. I know you'll want details, gannets that you are, but there's really not much to say. He was wearing a velvet jacket and a good retro shirt, and jeans and dirty Converse, and my mother would have sent him home but I thought he looked great. He was very funny (and presumably still is) but I don't want to marry him and I'd be gobsmacked if the feeling isn't mutual, if not even more vehement on his side. On Sunday, Emily came over and we watched a lot of TV, and then she left and I watched more. The X Factor was splendid, marred only by Simon Cowell's assertion that "there's nothing wrong with pole dancing." Then I went to bed and today I feel like death.

So there you have it. I may or may not be funnier tomorrow. You'll have to check back and see.

Thinking man's malt loaf

As you can't fail to have noticed if you've been concentrating, I have a Master's degree in English Literature. I talk about this all the time, because I generally assume that people think that I'm stupid because I'm a girl and I can't back up any of my opinions with statistics because I have numeracynesia and can't remember anything except song lyrics. My MA was a brilliant thing to do, I loved it and I briefly learned lots. But after it finished, I still felt, well, not paranoid, but like I'd only just scratched the surface of General Knowledge. And, three years after I graduated, I still have the sense that I'm pedaling frantically to catch up - my geography still sucks, my concept of world history is vastly improved but still shameful, my British history is patchy at best, my economics is woeful although less so having worked in a bank for 2.5 years, my understanding of politics is as easily penetrated as a 17 year old slapper on pills, and my literary insight is best summed up by the fact that I recently re-read a book without realising.

But last night, in a swing of Copernican proportions, the power balance shifted into my favour when I went to a three-hour-long Brecht play, armed with no prior experience of Brecht whatsoever bar a cursory glance at his Wikipedia page in the afternoon, yet I understood the plot, found it enjoyable and thought-provoking and I didn't fall asleep. OK, sure, it was well-directed and well-acted, and the questionably modern translation was suspiciously easy on the ear, but doesn't that mean I am slightly brainy? I think I must be. At one point in the interval I was cross-referencing it with Beckett. Ness and I even managed to critique some elements of it, deciding that the music, far from giving us a jolt or jarring with the rest of the play, fitted in so nicely that it didn't really serve its purpose. Get us! We were criticising the music because we liked it, because it didn't make us uncomfortable enough. Looking back on it now, it's a bit like when you re-read one of your university essays and have a kind of out-of-body experience, because you can't remember ever learning about that topic, let alone being able to write so coherently and convincingly on it. Anyway, for what it's worth, Mother Courage and Her Children was a great watch - not perfect, but fascinating all the same, and I'd recommend it, if only to prove that there's more to Fiona Shaw than just playing the woman with caviar on her face from Three Men and A Little Lady. Ah, popular culture, I cannot resist thee. I feel comfortable around you. We belong. I nuzzle up to you and we spoon. Brecht sits outside in the wingbacked chair, doing sudoku.

Bliss? I think not.

Yes, yes, I know. I should just drop it. If I was mature, I'd let it go. But I'm a 32 year old only child, and further to my mother calling me ignorant, my father has now - without directly jumping on the 'my daughter is a moron' bandwagon - kindly pointed out that it is "possible to be both intelligent and ignorant".

Now. Back up there, Sparky. I'm pretty sure I'm right here, but I'll just check on the off-chance... no, I'm right. Ignorance, as defined on The Internet, is "the state or fact of being ignorant; lack of knowledge, learning, information, etc." I think it's fair to say that the Venn diagrams of ignorance and intelligence don't seem to have much intersection. I suspect my father would say, therefore, that it is possible for one to be intelligent in one field , e.g. about pop music of the late Eighties and early Nineties, while being ignorant in another, e.g. the Conservative party or the value of living in Putney. And maybe he's right. But I think it's fair to say that I've done enough research on both Putney and the Tories to know that I'm not going to change my mind about them in a hurry. And I know that the opinions I hold on both subjects are not unusual.

So - my mother thinks I'm wrong about Cameron, and wrong about Clapham. And I think I'm right. And we both think we are intelligent beings, and that the other one is fundamentally wrong. And we can't both be right - the Conservative party is either going to make Britain great again, or it's not; and Clapham is either populated by blinkered idiots or rammed full of Lovely Young Men I Should Be Marrying. So if we can't both be right, at least one of us must be wrong. But of course, ultimately there is no such thing as objective truth: our own truths are created by the unique circumstances of our surroundings. Anyone, therefore, who tries to impose their own truth on another is fighting a losing battle. My mother is right to like Clapham, and I am right to dislike it. Our decisions are the best decisions for us.

Still, it's hard to be called ignorant, especially by a parent, especially as an only child. Even if that child is in her thirties. I've put a lot of work into the conclusions I've drawn, from my atheism to the dress cut that best flatters my figure, to which boy to kiss, which party to vote for, which bus to take, and which borough of London to live in. I've made my choices for logical reasons. They suit me. My parents have made their choices too, and I may think they're wrong, but - crucially - I don't think they're ignorant. Believe it or not, I am of the live-and-let-live persuasion. My parents have drawn the same conclusions as most of the parents I know. They've made up their minds and they're sticking to them. And that's good - parents should be stuck in their ways. Contrary to what I wanted when I was 14, trendy parents who wear skinny jeans and smoke are actually not that desirable. Give me my mum's tapered trousers and my dad's 'I wear a tie while mowing the lawn' austerity any day. I love them as they are - but if they even hint that I'm ignorant again, I'll do a Macaulay Culkin and divorce them, and the only thing they'll know about me is what they read on this blog. See how they like them apples.

Right. I'm off to the theatre to watch 190 minutes of Brecht. Pray for me.

DetennnnnSHUN

I despair. I really, really do. As if the Shadow Chancellor's announcement that the Conservative government will save a whopping £7 billion over the course of their first term, while capping public servants earning more than £18k (less than the average UK wage), when Britain's debt currently stands at approx. £800 billion and we're paying more in interest than on education and policing combined, wasn't laughable enough, now they're offering every school the 'chance' to go private and they're going to bring in soldiers to police the classrooms. Oh, and they're going to demand ties. Apparently ties will change everything. I struggle not to spit out my lunch. They wore ties on Grange Hill, for god's sake, and I don't remember that school being a hive of discipline.

I suppose there's a part of me that should be relieved: maybe this wave of non-policies will mean that the Tories aren't such a shoe-in next May as they'd boasted. But the anger towards Brown is unrelenting (understandably). And the vast minority would be prepared to gamble their nation with a party as unprepared for government as the LibDems. As usual - but more fervently than ever - I don't think any of them deserve to make decisions on my behalf. I hate ID cards. I hate big business. I hate privatisation. I hate the death penalty. I hate big government. I hate red tape. I hate war. I love the NHS. I love euthanasia. I love state education. I love variety. I love freedom of speech. I love equality. I believe in the carrot, not the stick. I believe the children are our future. I believe when I fall in love with yooooooooooou it will be forever. Meh, whatever. The whole system's gone to pot. There's no point getting my knickers in a twist about it. [Untangles underwear and thinks about haircuts instead].

Msery

Apologies for delay. Something's rotten in the state of Janemark. Am working on it though.

Meanwhile...

I am a feminist. I believe that women and men are equal (but different) and should be treated as such. Taken to its logical conclusions, such beliefs can upset people. They can even upset me, from time to time. For example, I really don't approve of engagement rings. Why should I be tagged as 'taken' when the boy is still gallivanting around, ring-free? But then, if I stick to my guns on this one, I don't get a pretty piece of jewellery. Which would be sad. Then again, being anti-engagement-rings on principle might not be the only reason I don't get one. Hmmm.

Changing my name, and thus my identity, after marriage is another one. I actually like my surname. Plus I am the last in a bloodline, an only girl, and that feels a bit sad. Then again, I do like the idea of sharing a name with my husband. I just don't see why it should be his. My only solution is that both people, upon entering into a marriage, choose a new surname. I'd go for Awesome. Jane Awesome. Has a certain humble charm to it, I think.

Anyway, in a similar vein, I freaking HATE the Miss/Mrs/Ms situation and it's been getting more and more irritating as my life's gone on. Why on earth should someone who doesn't know me be able to tell whether I'm married or not from my NAME?! It is so outrageous that I can't believe it still happens. My own name, every letter I receive, indicates that I'm unmarried. Every time I'm cold-called, every time I have to tell people my title, they find out my current relationship status. No wonder we all feel like branded failures if we're single.

Of course, for those who want to opt out, there is Ms. And Ms is the least good alternative to anything ever. Worse than margerine for butter. Worse than Diet Coke for Coke. Worse than fruit for a Chicken Royale. For a start, no one knows how to say it. Whenever I try and pronounce it, I end up feeling like I've lost the ability to make vowel sounds. And the person on the end of the phone always double checks, as if I've just said that my name is Vagina, so I have to go through the humiliation a second time. Secondly, for all that it was created as a relationship-status-neutral term, it is not remotely devoid of associations. If you call yourself Ms, you're basically saying 'I'm in my mid-thirties, unmarried, and livid about it.' Of course, there may be some married women, or happily single women, who still choose to use Ms. But I bet they are few and far between. Grumble grumble grumble. No alternative. Only thing for me to do is rant about it here. Grumble grumble grumble. God I wish it would stop raining.

Vindication

OK, so the Claphamite turned up last night wearing... wait for it... I don't think there's a drumroll long enough... Hush Puppy loafers, khaki chinos, a white shirt, a navy blue, round neck, very-chunky-knit Ralph Lauren jumper with a red polo player, and NOVELTY CUFFLINKS. In Clapham.

You couldn't make it up. Except you obviously could because it is so unutterably predictable.

Since I wrote the blog entry about Clapham and Putney, my mother has called me 'ignorant' and 'immature' and said that it is wrong to judge people based on where they live, and that I will grow out of these opinions. The conversation ended with me being unable to speak due to the conflict between my immediate desire to launch a counter-attack so brutal that it would all end in tears and my certainty that that wouldn't be a Very Nice Thing to do to the woman who made me into the charming young lady you imagine before you today.

Suffice to say, I think she is wrong. Just to add fat to the flames, now I'm judging people on where they live AND what they wear. And for absolute clarity, I'd like the record to show that I WILL NEVER GROW OUT OF THESE OPINIONS. It is wrong to judge people on where they live or what they wear, which is why I went on the freaking date in the first place, and why I didn't run away as soon as he walked up to me. But, on this occasion, I could not have been more right. He was precisely what I expected. And we're not going to get married.

People love Clapham and Putney because they're safe and predictable. There are lots of other people there who think Just Like Them. They wear their Ralph Lauren to be part of a club, a club whose motto is 'I am safe, predictable, casjual, I like yachts and I'm pretty wealthy'. One day, I too may want to live somewhere safe and predictable. I don't have a problem with that. That's actually bollocks: I dread that day with every nucleus in my body. But the fact remains that it might happen in future. The key words there are the final two. My real beef is with anyone who chooses to buy property somewhere safe and predictable when they are in their mid-20s. And it is my right to have serious beef with that. It's not ignorant or immature to have beef with someone who shuts down from all life has to offer when they are still childless and free from almost every possible responsibility. As beef goes, that is some deeply patronising beef, sure. But it's NOT ignorant beef. Argh. I'm angry. I was very ANgry with my mother. [Deliberate misquote from a film, mum, don't worry your pretty lil' head further].

And breathe.

The Mask

On the tube last night, I was standing in the corridor between the two rows of seats, and a bit grumpy not to have a chair of my own, when one of my favourite things happened: a woman began to apply her make-up. This is like my favourite kind of reality TV, happening live, in glorious technicolour, right in front of me. Of course, women putting their make-up on in public is not cool. I don't like it in principle. But sometimes time restrictions mean it has to be done, and as a spectator sport it shits all over rugby. I would rather watch a woman putting on her make-up on the tube than have an obscenely good looking boy to stare at in her place.

So I adopted my 'I'm not staring at you' face, which involves angling my book carefully, and looked more closely. This woman was really pretty, and had excellent skin, but was wearing too much foundation. Her eye make-up was impressively applied, even and natural. Then she got out her Touche-Eclat, drew two pale lines underneath her eyes and started to rub it in. At this point, I looked up for an instant, and noticed a guy further down the corridor. He was staring at Make-up Woman, agog. He was in his late twenties, very sweet, with spiky blond hair. I don't think he could have been more transfixed if he'd been watching a turquoise cat knitting a beret while singing Oklahoma! in a beautiful tenor.

And I realised, once again, just how odd it all must seem to the uninitiated. So for the benefit of my male readers, here is a quick insight into the contents of my make-up regime. Item 1, foundation. Flesh coloured product that attempts to even up the skin tones. Without this, I would look marbled, streaky, creased and possibly diseased. Item 2, Touche-Eclat. Having used this for several years, I am still not convinced this actually does anything, but it is a supposed miracle product that allegedly contains light-reflecting particles that reduce the appearance of dark circles. Since my mental state generally leaves me fairly sleep deprived, I normally have bags that could double as handy pouches for stolen cars, so I assume it's better safe than sorry. Item 3, blusher. This is the one pretty much everyone gets - a flush of red on the cheeks clearly adds to a healthy glow. But it's not all simple: too much and you look like Aunt Sally from Worzel Gummidge, too little and you look anaemic. The danger is palpable. Item 4, eyeliner. Again, fairly obvious - dark lines around the lashes make the whites of the eyes look brighter and the eye appear more defined and thus more striking. Risky to apply on the tube but, in my case, crucial; the second most vital item in my arsenal, after foundation. Item 5, mascara - to make lashes long and lustrous, opening up the eye and adding contrast. In my opinion, pretty useless without eyeliner, but that's just me. Item 6, lipstick. This can basically go one of two ways - red, to draw attention to the mouth, or pale, to make the mouth blend in more with the rest of the face, thus making the eyes the main feature. I tend to go for the latter as I think I look a bit whorey with dark lips, but it certainly suits a lot of girls. Each to their own.

So. Those are my six basics. Not many items, and a fairly standard routine for me - but infinite combinations for each woman. Watching how someone else uses their tools - whether they've gone for a powder or a liquid foundation, matte or normal finish, and whether they apply it with a brush or their fingers, patting it or smoothing it - it's all endlessly fascinating. And just when you think it can't get any more interesting, they get out their mascara and start to apply, adopting their version of the eye-bulging, lip-stretching gurn that is so pointless given that one's eyes do not open more than one millimetre further when our mouths are gaping (I've checked). The gurn is too good to be true and my personal highlight of the whole procedure. Yesterday's was particularly gruesome - the heretofore attractive woman turning into a taut gargoyle that shocked her blond admirer, who looked relieved when she finally packed away her equipment. I remember a similar look of astonishment on an ex-boyfriend's face when he watched me transform myself a while ago. I wonder if, for boys, they'd rather not understand - too much of an insight, like learning about tampons and vaginal tears. Ah well. Too late. And even if you'd rather not have read the above, fear not - that is only scratching the surface. We haven't discussed primer, eyeshadow, bronzer, Lipcote, lip liner, lip gloss, that green stuff some people put on to counteract rosacea, eye make-up base, liquid vs. kohl eye liner and hundreds of other intricate processes that can affect us ladies, should we choose to accept it. But no matter what your level of comprehension, here is one fact you can have for free, just for paying attention: if you ever hear a girl saying she hasn't ever worn foundation, be aware that every other girl in the room wants to stab her.

Volte-face

So just because I'm not self-indulgent enough on this blog, I see from my notes (yes, I have to write things down to tell you Faithful, else I'll forget these precious gems) that I am yet to tell you about a Major Event in my recent past, i.e. I had a filling. In a cavity. In my tooth.

Argh.

I can't write this. It's not what's on my mind and is thus a sham. I don't do shams. Hams: yes. Shams... Not so much. I'll be back when I'm normal. Or, at least, feeling more stable. Uber-Faithful, have no fear: I'm fine. Just having a crisis of confidence, an experience that is highly unpleasant for one so sure of one's own abilities and USPs as I. Feel free to leave messages of support below. Suggested content is something along the lines of:

"O Most Wondrous Jane,

You are, without question, one of the funniest, most intelligent, fearless and talented people on earth. Your life's meniscus is taut with interesting and challenging events. Your existence is massively enviable and I defy anyone to reject the opportunity of spending time in your company. In fact, anyone who did not actively pursue the chance even to stand near you on a tube is of questionable intellect and/or possibly harbours state secrets.

In addition to that, even though I may have ever met you in person, somehow I KNOW that you are an intensely beautiful and sensual being, with a wonderful body and winning smile. Without the lessons and experiences you share in Lost Looking For Fish, my life would be infinitely poorer. In fact, without you, the justification for my existence would wither to the point where I would have to question my motivation for going on. You are a stranger, but you keep me alive. I love you.

Yours always, in deepest admiration,

[insert your name here]"

Don't all rush at once.

Genetically modified update

Just what the world needs. A chicken that will never say the word 'spastic'.

The Baad, urr, Modern Complex

Last year I was eflirting with a guy who dropped Der Baader Meinhof Komplex into conversation so many times that I realised that he wasn't cool and was, in fact, a tryhard. I went off him before we went on our date. Then we went on a date and he also went off me. He was one of those petite boys and very intellectual. Took life very seriously while thinking he was very laid back. I then relentlessly took the piss out of him. Lethal combo. Anyway, all that's irrelevant. The only reason I thought of him is that I recently, finally, got around to seeing Der Baader Meinhof Komplex the other night, having had a Last of the Mohicans about it since it came out in cinemas.

And I can confirm that the film was really good - well directed, not too long, well acted, plausible and compelling. I learned a lot from watching it - 1970s Germany isn't a time:place ratio I know much about [NB the clever way that phrase suggests that there are other time periods in German history about which I am a PhD-level expert?] - and what really struck me was how much things have changed, seemingly for the worse. These young people had grown up in the shadow of WWII. Prominent Nazis were still in power in their country. And they were ashamed at the role their government was playing in Vietnam. So, like the Parisians, they protested. I absolutely categorically do not condone any sort of violence. I am not interested in any movement that uses terrorism to promote its message. But I was profoundly ashamed of the complete lack of comparable vehemence among young people today.

Perhaps the film was unrepresentative. Perhaps there weren't really thousands of young Germans earnestly discussing world politics and then risking their lives and their criminal records by getting involved in street protests and underground movements. But, in comparison, I can't think of a single person I know who has ever really put themselves out for the state of the world. I mean, I know people who've done voluntary work. And people who've done paid work for good organisations such as charities, organisations that can make a difference. But really, no one I know (as far as I know) genuinely puts themselves out, Big Time, for the poor, the weak, the oppressed, just because it Has To Be Done. They'll do it because it's rewarding to volunteer for the Samaritans, or because helping set up a newspaper in Ghana is interesting and good for their CV, or because being a teaching assistant in a state school makes them feel better about themselves than it would to be a far-better-paid teacher in a private school. All these things are fine - they're even, in fact, Fantastic, given the comparative level of commitment shown by many of their peers. Certainly, something is a darn sight better than nothing.

But back there, in the Seventies, it seemed to be the norm to make serious, fundamental compromises to help those in need. Is that an accurate impression? I have no idea. I was a foetus. But I can speak about the now. And today, it is as though the towering majority spend the majority of their time engaged in an endless struggle to get their own shit sorted to a quasi-fictional, certainly rarely-attained point when they are finally happy to start giving up their free time or their salary potential to help others. A reflection on the perfectionism and self-obsession of our society, I'm sure. And I am certainly not any different. It's just a shame, is all. There is still no shortage of absolutely horrific things going on around the world and the only thing we ever manage to do is go on the occasional march around London or sign online petitions, the singularly least useful thing on the planet after Gordon Brown's 2010 election acceptance speech. Just wish we were all a bit less selfish. Starting with other people, of course. Like the whole not-flying trip. I'll join in when it seems to be making a difference.

Just FYI

Last week I sent an email to an author who I absolutely love. He replied. I replied again. He replied again. Then it could go no further without me offering to stalk him, so it ended.

21 September 2009 23:52
Subject line: Fanmail
I think you are so clever and funny that I don't quite know what to do with myself.
Yours,
Jane

22 September 2009 10:52
Subject line: Fanmail
You should try being me sometime. It's no picnic, I can tell you.
Regards
AM

22 September 2009 11:24
Subject line: Fanmail
Oh, I don't want to *be* you. I just want to bask in your brilliance.
Being anyone is tricky at times. And picnics are seriously overrated.
Keep up the good work. And if you ever need an ego boost, drop me a line: I'm clever and cool and I think you're the dog's.
Jane

23 September 2009 10:18
Subject line: Fanmail
My ego, as any number of people would doubtless wearily attest, requires no further enlarging. But thanks for the encouragement - always nice to think that someone is paying any attention at all.
AM

THE END

I don't really know why I'm posting that exchange here. It makes me smile, I suppose. I like his mixture of arrogance and insecurity. And if I don't post it on my blog, then I might forget all about it.

A long wait...

So this was slightly disheartening:

SW4get it

I'm going to have to be careful not to reveal any identities here, but the other day, a girl I know went on a date with a boy I know. I used to know the boy quite well, but not any more. Actually, all that is irrelevant. What is important is this: within approximately ten minutes of the start of the date, I am told that the boy uttered one of the most deal-breaking, if not the most deal-breaking line, in the history of dating. Sadly it will be lost on any foreign readers, but for the London-familiar among you, feast your eyes upon the following, surely up there in the most off-putting statements anyone could ever make in any context, let alone at a time when you are meant to be wooing a girl, let alone when that girl is gorgeous and cool and unique and Hot Stuff. Are you ready? He said this:

"To be honest, I don't really ever see myself moving out of Putney."

I mean. Can you Adam and Eve it? What is so difficult is that my mother will now email me saying, "Pickle, what's wrong with that? You are too fussy." And I know why she thinks that. But youthful Faithful, back me up here. Is that not The Worst? Putney! Of all places. Surely it is the most mediocre borough in London. It excels at nothing. It is not very glamorous, or very urban, or gritty, or cool, or interesting, or cultural, or expensive, or enviable, or anything. It is just pure MOR. If it was a clothes shop, it would be River Island. Or maybe, at a push, Next. And he wants to shop in River Island. For Ever. As one of my friends pointed out, it would be blinkered enough for someone to say they were never going to live anywhere other than London. But Putney. Sigh. I do worry about people sometimes.

So that was a favourite anecdote for a while, and, I believed, a unique and special one. Until it happened to me.

I have been set up with a guy - we are going on a date next week - and in an earlier email to me, he suggested meeting in Clapham. I gently pooh-poohed the idea, saying something immensely subtle along the lines of 'I'd rather die. Please, I beg you, let's go absolutely anywhere else. Kabul, Darfur, Scunthorpe - all of them would be fine. Just not Clapham.' Then in a later email, he revealed that he lived there. In SW4. I apologised for being rude, but didn't retract my hatred of it - and he replied saying 'No offence taken: I love the place.' And I know this sounds melodramatic and possibly absurd, but my initial reaction was to want to call off the date.

Absurd or not, I simply cannot imagine falling for someone who loves Clapham. The kind of person who loves Clapham is so different to me. In fact, it is just not possible that I could love that type of person. I'll still go on the date, of course - a row over a glass of wine is still one of my favourite pastimes - but I wouldn't go dusting off your hat yet, Cilla. And mum - two of my girlfriends have agreed that they would have reacted similarly, so I'm not the only one out there who feels like this. Of course, all three of us are single and probably will be forever. But the fact remains that I'd rather be on my own than married to someone who thinks a crazy night out is a gastropub in the Old Town. Shudder.

Just you wait - I'll be walking down the aisle with a guy who lives on Abbeville Road before you can laugh in my face.

Middle Class Public Service Announcement

Shock announcement: Toptable, London's premier FREE restaurant booking site (because in the old days it used to be, like, soooo expensive to make a reservation), might be a sham.

For those Faithful who have better things to do than scour the internet for 3 courses for £15 deals, the way it works is that you book a table on the site, using their recommendations and other diners' reviews to help you out. Then afterwards, you write your own review. As a reward for writing the review, you get some points. When you have enough points, you get a free meal. Everyone's a winner - the site gets hundreds of up-to-date reviews each week and every now and then, the punter gets to go to Quaglino's (or A.N. Other life-threatening restaurant) for free. Well, free except booze. So not remotely free, then. But still.

Aaaaaaaaanyway. It was all going well, until I went to Bertorelli's with Joanna last month and wrote a slightly terse - but very fair - review. And then I went to lunch with my mum at Luc's in Leadenhall Market, and I wrote a mixed review, saying that the service had been fantastic but the food was a bit meh. Although more articulate than that. Then I was bored at work and, in my vanity, decided to reread my old reviews, and found that none of my recent ones had been published. So, in my boredom, I decided to complain. "I wouldn't like to think that only positive reviews are getting put on the site," I said, in true Disgruntled of Tunbridge Wells style.

The email reply I received certainly did little to assuage my concerns. Well-written and courteous, it explained that "restaurateurs are much more open to criticism if we take it to them directly rather than posting it publicly [sic] (have always wanted to do that. God it's patronising)."

I wrote back expressing my bored outrage:
"Thanks for your response. I feel very strongly that all feedback - negative or not - should appear on the site. It is good that you take it up with the restaurant, but this should be in addition to, not instead of, posting it on the site. I wrote that review to benefit other Toptable users. If I'd wanted to complain to the restaurant, I would have. I don't like to think of all the other negative reviews that people might have written that aren't visible on the site itself. What use are the reviews if the only ones that are posted are positive?"

So. There you go. It's not funny. It's probably not even useful for most of you, since the majority of my readers don't seem to live in the UK. But for those Toptable users out there - be warned. Things aren't as unbiased as they seem. I'm quite surprised that I was naive enough to have believed otherwise, but am choosing to celebrate a brief lapse in my characteristic world-weariness rather than berating myself for a lack of cynicism.

In other news: I have decided that, much as I love the smoking ban, there is one element of it that really sucks. The small areas outside pubs have now become absolutely uninhabitable. On a pleasant evening, it used to be enjoyable to sit outside having a glass of wine with a friend. Now it is akin to getting into a bath filled with fag butts while smoking six Marlboro reds simultaneously. I was at the Fitzroy Tavern yesterday and despite the gorgeous, temperate late afternoon weather, I was forced inside by the stench of cigarettes in the congregation outside. When urine cubes are a favourable aroma, you know something has gone badly awry.

Entirely unoriginal observation

You know that film with Michael Douglas, Falling Down, where he starts shooting everything due to his rage at modern life? Well, had I had my trusty semi-automatic to hand in EAT just now, I might just have begun a real-life reenactment. It's not the salespeople's fault, they're told to do it, and they do it with a smile. But please, someone, tell me how I am supposed to cope with being asked, pretty much every single day, if I want bread with that, or a drink, or any fruit? IF I WANT ANY BREAD, I'LL FREAKING WELL ASK FOR IT. I am not mute. I am not in a vegetative state. I am not so imbecillic that, while really wanting something, I am unable to get it from the large refrigerated display cabinet, and have to rely on an EAT employee to remind me that I might want a beverage. If I forget to get a beverage, I'll learn. I'll burn my mouth on their soups that are clearly heated somewhere near the surface of the sun, and I'll remember to get one next time. But the fact that the world may be coming to a point where a third party feels like they must remind me to take in fluid is terrifying. What next? Smiley women popping up in the street to remind me to urinate? People coming round pubs at 11pm telling me it's time for bed and that I should be sure to get a good night's sleep if I want to focus properly at work the next day? Text reminders from clothes shops alerting me to the fact that it is common decency to get dressed before leaving the house? I am 32 years old. I have lived on this planet for 11,738 days (thank you, Days Alive Calculator) and I have not yet become dangerously dehydrated or forgotten to eat for several days in a row. Not once. And I don't plan on starting now. But I will stop eating at EAT unless they start respecting my ability to keep up to speed with my basic human needs. Yes, that's a threat. Yes, EAT people, you should be scared. But no, I don't have a semi-automatic. Just leave me alone. Give me my soup, and let me go. Is that too much to ask?

How many people are in a group?

In a burst of community-mindedness a couple of weeks ago, I had the idea of setting up a book club for the women who live near me. There are around eight hundred flats on the estate, and I felt sure that at least some of these tiny worlds would contain women who might want to meet up and discuss books. I had fantasies of six or seven of us convening in each other's flats on a bimonthly basis, drinking tea and wine and thrashing out the finer points of the latest Alice Sebold. Before you release the hounds, I'll hold my hands up and confess freely: yes, I was expecting to be one of the more literary among the gathering. The point of the exercise wasn't to critique Proust or make smug in-jokes about Goethe. I wanted to pique the interest of people who aren't normally motivated to read much, and the posters I put up were designed to reassure someone who might normally feel under-confident about such a thing. Potentially massively patronising and naive, I'll concede. But surely still a nice idea? I love books. Reading gives me a lot of pleasure. Why not spread the love?

I became aware that I may have got it wrong when I caught the eye of a lady who lives near me and told her I was off to stick posters around the estate. She looked a bit confused, understandably, so I walked over to her and explained that I was starting a book club. I proffered the poster. She smiled like an indulgent mother, and said, "Oh! Good!" nodding enthusiastically but clearly none the wiser what I was talking about. Despite having had frequent neighbourly hi-and-bye conversations over the months, I now became unsure whether or not she speaks English. "Ah well," I reassured myself. "There will be others." I switched on my iPod and trotted off to each of the stairwells, sticking posters up with Sellotape next to another one advertising a series of ten pilates classes for £75. My idea was free - surely I would be inundated with requests?

Almost immediately, I received an email from a lady who claimed to be interested, although she pointed out a typo in my poster and added the unrhetorical caveat, "I hope you're not planning on reading chicklit." Slightly deflated at her tone, I wrote back saying that I was happy to read whatever the majority chose, but that since it was just me and her at that point, I would let her know if others took the bait. A day later I received another email from a lovely sounding lady who was very positive about the idea. But that was two weeks ago. And since then: nada. The three of us have all agreed that we need more than three to be a Club, so for now, the idea is gathering dust on the shelf, and my poster is still stuck to the door of my stairwell, a bit bedraggled and sticking two metaphorical fingers up at me every time I get home, mocking me for trying to create some community spirit. I'm a bit disheartened but not nearly enough to give up altogether. Maybe a fresh round of posters is what's needed: a 'We've got three - but we need three more' type of encouragement. Or perhaps I should take the hint and accept that people aren't that fussed. As Interested Party Number One said when I told her I hadn't had anyone else get in touch: "they work, they have busy lives." I do the former, and I thought I had the latter. Ah well. On to the next adventure.

I HATE Boden.

But I have promises to keep...

On Friday night and Saturday morning, I walked twenty miles around this great city. And it was hard. Grania had decided to join me a couple of weeks ago, squeezing the charity walk in between the end of the working day and a 6am train to Gatwick on Saturday morning, which was insania but I was glad of the company. At about 7.15pm we left my flat, took the tube to London Bridge and walked over to City Hall, where there was a band playing inspiring tunes to get us in the mood, and we were given our route maps and a free bottle of water and our commemorative T-shirts and our bowler hats. Yes. Our bowler hats.

So. Then we dashed up inside the spiral of City Hall to see the big press room which was fun, and then back down to the starting line for about 20:45. West along the river from Tower Bridge to the Wheel. On the Wheel for an 'exclusive' nightride which was great, could see for miles, tried and failed to ditch our bowlers by swapping them with passers' by, then over Waterloo Bridge, up Victoria Street, left halfway along, across to Channel 4, where we had a tour and learned that Richard Rogers always likes to put phallic symbols in his buildings, and Grania ate a flapjack (later regretted), and then we set off again, wiggling through south Victoria, across Vauxhall Bridge Road, over Ebury Bridge, near Google, waved at Simon, correctly following the yellow arrows when the pack ahead of us had turned left, up into Belgravia, south of Harrods, up Beauchamp Place, past lots of drunk people, left onto Brompton Road, past the V&A, right at the Natural History Museum, past the Science Museum, up to the next stop, the Royal Geographical Society, where there was a string quartet playing and we ate biscuits and photographed ourselves standing behind the lectern, and then we went on, along Kensington Gore and then Ken High Street, past many more drunk people, past a queue of Eurotrash waiting to get into a club in the building where Barkers used to be (poss a new entrance to the Roof Gardens?), and we agreed that we'd genuinely rather be spending our Friday night walking twenty miles than queuing to get into that club, and then left opposite Olympia, down past Barons Court, noticing that one of the flats with the huge windows on the Talgarth Road is for sale, and then past where I once weed in the street following massive night out at Lucy and Tina's when I fell off a bed into a wooden clothes drying rack and got a black eye, and then Grania told me about when she once got home to her mum's house after a big party and was sick in the dog bed while the dog was still in it, and then we arrived at the Fulham Palace Road and turned left into Charing Cross Hospital to visit the amazing Maggie's Centre, which is beautiful and so worthwhile and made it all so much more powerful but we couldn't sit down in case we never got up again, so we carried on down Fulham Palace Road, went to Fulham Palace at the south end but turned around and came straight back after posing by a fountain in the courtyard, and then went up the New King's Road, over the hump, past Crazy Larry's and Embargo, and then right near the Chelsea Bun, onto Edith Grove, past where the Stones used to live, left onto the Embankment, along along along, and then right over Battersea Bridge, down past the QVC building to the roundabout with the Shell garage, where Grania bought a toothbrush, and then left onto York Way or whatever it is, past Battersea Dogs' Home, where I was photographed stroking the photograph of a kitten, and then on into Battersea Power Station, the architectural highlight for me, which was moving and incredible and I loved it, and we ate egg mayonnaise sandwiches and drank squash and stretched a bit, and then on to Vauxhall, so close to home, but no, left over Vauxhall Bridge, right onto Millbank, past Labour HQ, past the Commons, over Parliament Square, round the back towards the park, but then onto Horse Guards, and then actually across Horseguards, where they do the Trooping of the Colour (I think, having never been as a grown-up) and the moon was bright, and Grania and I had our photos taken with handsome (it was dark, let us live our dreams) guards wearing full pointy-silver-hat-with-long-white-horsehair-tassel-thing and they squeezed us very tight and we giggled like forty year olds at a Chippendale shows, and then went through the building out onto Whitehall, and then (hilariously) down the exact road where the woman's wee went on my foot, and some other woman tried to talk to us at that point, wanting to bond about the handsome guards, and Grania and I both wanted to bond and be nice, but also it was about 4 in the morning and we had a little further to go and we were tired and smalltalk proved beyond us, and we ploughed on, under Hungerford Bridge, along the Embankment again to the final stop, the Savoy Hotel, where we went up to the third floor in a lift and drank cheap Champagne out of plastic flutes on the balcony and then I sat on my own in the big, loudly-carpeted room while Grania went to the loo, and I listened to the band, and when she came back she said I looked like the loser guest at a bad wedding, sitting there in my walking boots, and then we went down the stairs and briefly got embroiled in another conversation with the same woman, but then she overtook us when she became confident of the route, and we carried on east along the river, past Somerset House and Blackfriars, up to the Millennium Bridge and then left up the stairs towards St. Paul's, and then right and right again, back onto the river, and we could see Tower Bridge, our goal, but it wasn't getting any closer, and then the route took us north of the river about a block, along Upper Thames Street and then Lower Thames Street, and then to the Tower, round it and right, over Tower Bridge and finally down the stairs to the finish line, where we were given medals and free muesli and then we had to race to find a cab so that Grania could get back to my flat, pick up her luggage and head back to Victoria for the Gatwick Express. I had a bath and went to bed, and then woke up three hours later because my legs were aching so much. I took two Nurofen and went back to sleep. Then at 11am my downstairs neighbours started playing loud, bad R'n'B. I lay on my sofa, then went to my parents', fell asleep after a delicious dinner at about 9pm and went to bed. Maggie's Centres are £550 richer as a result. Excellent.

Menstruvacation (DYSWIDT?)

I know I go on about how easy boys have it, what with no biological clock and less pressure from society in terms of their physical appearance, but it's normally a bit in jest. I mean, it does suck that only one gender has a biological clock, but as far as the looks department is concerned, I genuinely love getting dressed up and doing my hair and make-up, and I would feel straight-jacketed, deprived and totally miserable if I only had one outfit I could wear to weddings. When it comes to looks, I'd rather be a girl. Sure, it's hard - but it's fun.

However, this morning I remembered one thing that means it really does suck to be female: menstruation. The run-up of PMT is annoying, too - I've been grumpy for the past three days and all I've wanted to do is lie under a 900 tog duvet and groan softly. But there's a kind of luxury to it - I file it with hangovers in the way that it is a physical impossibility to function at full throttle so instead you take a mini-holiday from normal pressures. Merely getting through the day without crying or stabbing someone with scissors is a major achievement.

But once PMT is over, then DMT starts. And DMT - where D stands for During - is less funny because it is actually (for me) really quite painful. When I was in my mid-teens, I once had such a bad stomach ache that I nearly fainted on a train to Waterloo. I was carried off by a man at Vauxhall and put on the platform to recuperate. Then I phoned my dad from a payphone sounding as though I'd lost a limb in 'Nam, and he had to drive for about 40 minutes to come pick me up because I was in such agony. Like migraines and cystitis, unless you've had it, you don't really believe they exist. But trust me, period pains can be paralysing. Thankfully, these days a couple of Nurofen usually do the trick and the phase normally passes in a few hours, leaving me feeling shattered but delighted to be merely normal, in that same way that the joy of 'not having lost my wallet' or 'no longer having a sore throat' makes wallet-losing or sore-throat-having almost worth it.

Today, sadly the Nurofen failed me, and I was on the tube to work and had to get off midway through my commute and sit on one of the platform chairs at Borough, doubled over in pain but relieved that I hadn't actually been sick or passed out when I was still in the carriage. It's such a specific and exhausting pain, and it's now eight hours later and I still feel like there is someone wringing out my insides. I am absolutely shattered. All I want to do is go home and lie diagonally across my sofa, eat takeaway and watch bad TV, but I can't - my temporary flatmate is in residence, and he has first dibs on the sitting room tonight. Instead, I'm going to go for a couple of drinks at 6, and then go home, sneak into my bedroom, don a lot of velour, clamber into bed and watch a DVD on my laptop. It's all been a bit much but then I look down at my feet, clad in new leopard-print pixie boots, and suddenly everything is OK again. I can't imagine many men being cheered up by the same sight.

Rage

A couple of weeks ago, I received a notification that I had been tagged in someone else's photo on Facebook. The guy is in my choir and he'd been on our tour to the south of France, so I thought maybe there were some hilarious new pics of us online, cavorting around in hotel car parks and/or straightening unwilling people's very curly hair. Excitedly, I clicked the link in my email to view the photo. Seconds later, the Facebook window opened and there, in front of me, was this:

And I was tagged. As were two other girls from choir.

To say I went fucking ballistic is a gargantuan understatement. Obviously, from the outside, I did nothing. A tear may have pricked my eye. But in my head, I was sitting astride an H-bomb aimed at his house and whooping as I went down.

Now. I may or may not be fat. I happen to think I am not. In comparison to some people, I am a bit larger; I am definitely thinner than others. However, although I am not fat, I will freely admit that I am not 'thin'. No one would point at me and go, 'God, look at that thin girl.' The other two girls weigh less than I do. But even so, and I hope that neither of them would mind me saying this, they are probably not those foal-like girls who can gorge on pizza and beer for three weeks and not gain a gram either.

So what mind-bending drugs had this boy ingested to think that tagging the three of us on this photos was a good idea? To the best of my knowledge, there is not a single person alive in the Western Hemisphere who is not aware that it is absolutely, categorically UNACCEPTABLE to hint, to insinuate, to even BREATHE the idea that a girl is fat. OK, maybe, just maybe, it might be OK to call a girl fat when the girl in question is a) your best friend and b) so laughably skinny that to suggest that she is porky would be both ironic and hilarious. But, as I have made abundantly clear, and as is no doubt obvious to the 'wacky' individual who posted this picture and tagged our names to it, none of the three of us are in the category one might call 'laughably skinny'. And the guy certainly does not know us well enough to make a risky gag like that. He's eight years younger than me, approximately. What could he get out of this? It wasn't in a run of 'paintings that look amusingly absolutely nothing like people I vaguely know'. This was one lone painting in a series of otherwise completely run-of-the-mill, smug-rich-person-touring-South-America photographs. Just goes to show that you can have the most expensive education in the world and still be emotional pondlife. And yes, it'll be awkward if he's read this the next time I see him. But I am still gobsmacked at his lunacy and I had to vent. What. A. Dick.

Today is crap

1. It is pouring with rain.
2. I am ill with a sore throat and aching limbs.
3. Patrick Swayze is dead.
4. I have just dropped a buttered, Marmited corn thin, Marmite side down on my cashmere jumper. This is the cashmere jumper I wear when I'm ill. I can't take it off or I will get a lot iller. So now I smell of ill person and Marmite. FFS.

Saturday was really fun. I went for dinner with my friend Eva and then walked some of the way home, from Holland Park to Marble Arch, where I caught the bus. When I'd left my house at about 5pm that afternoon, I'd looked pretty cool - I was wearing a new spangly cardigan, my eye make-up was excellent and my hair looked slept-in. And, several hours later, as I walked past all the patriotic tourists who'd been watching the Last Night of the Proms in Hyde Park, I was filled with a sense of worldlove and contentment, and I beamed happily at many of my fellow flaneurs as I strolled towards London's heart, while listening to music by Lambchop, Crosby, Stills & Nash, DeVotchka and Quiet Village.

Then I got home and looked in the mirror.

My eyeliner hadn't just disappeared, it had sunk about two inches, increasing the depth and intensity of my bags and nestling into my crows' feet so as to define them with greater precision for the partially sighted. My hair, previously fluffy and full of joie-de-vivre, was now lank and clinging to my perspiring forehead following my walk. And, as the crowning glory, I beamed into the mirror as I had done at so many passers-by, and found a peppercorn the size of a grapefruit lodged between my left front tooth and the neighbouring incisor. My mental image of myself as an attractive, healthy thirty-something, humming along to her walkman as she smiles at strangers had to be updated quickly to a sectionable, sweating mentalist. Far from an advertisement for happy independence, in retrospect, it was a miracle I wasn't arrested.

On Sunday I saw two films. One was absolutely brilliant: The September Issue - not so much a triumph of skilled film-making as one of those cases where the subject matter is so extraordinary and fascinating that almost anyone could have held up a mobile phone camera and made a similarly gripping and eye-opening movie. I wished it could have lasted several days. Then I came home and watched The Family Stone, a film I was recommended by a friend who shall remain nameless to spare her any humiliation. It was absolutely the worst film I have seen in some months, derivative, embarrassing to watch, patronising and as subtle as a kick in the storecupboard. Take the opening scene, where a gay couple arrive at the home of one of their parents for Christmas, and are seen unpacking bags of beautifully wrapped gifts from their expensive car. So far, so PC. But one of the pair is black, while the other is white. Sigh. And - why not go the whole hog? - the white one is deaf. Actually deaf. I laughed out loud. Anyway. The mother, we discover, has breast cancer and is soon to die. Of course. So I was ironing away, scoffing at the increasingly absurd and irritating plotline where another (straight) son falls in love with his girlfriend's sister, but it's all OK, because his brother fancies the girlfriend, even though her character is genuinely less sympathetic than Hannibal Lecter, and later the bus drives away but then the brakes come on and he sprints to catch up with it and she gets out and asks if he has plans for New Year and I am trying not to be sick, but in the middle of it all, there is a scene where the dying mother is looking out of the window at the snow falling and you know that she is thinking, 'This might be the last time I see snow falling,' and in spite of myself I welled up, suddenly struck by the thought that, shit, this might be the last time I watch a movie, or iron a pillowcase, or get into clean sheets at night. I try to appreciate how lucky I am, but sometimes I forget to appreciate the normal things. I shouldn't have to be dying or confronted with death to appreciate living. So, for the record, I'm truly glad that today is crap, and I am grateful to have a sore throat and to be breathing in and out. And I'm happy that I'm seated here on my sofa, wearing one slipper and smelling strongly of Marmite. Yes.