Glastonbury

Bless me, Faithful, for I have sinned: it has been eight days since my last confession. And for five of them, I was a sinner indeed, a muddy, sweaty, inebriated, heady, hedonistic sinner at the Glastonbury Festival 2009. I'd had simply no idea it would be such fun.

I arrived at around 5pm on Thursday and the sun leant on me heavily as I began the walk from the car park towards the distant tipi field with my heavy rucksack and several additional bags. The sweat began dripping almost immediately but I was determined not to take things too seriously because a) that would be going against the festival spirit and b) I knew from Glasto revision that the walk ahead would be lengthy and slow. As I trundled along, I looked around me at the curious sight of field upon field upon field of tents, all left unprotected, all containing the possessions of one or more of the 140,000 festival attendees, and marvelled at the huge variety of attendees, all human but otherwise very different individuals - hippies, posh kids, babies, wrinkly old potheads, druggies, alkies, musos and people just coming along for the ride. Although actually, on reflection, it was almost exclusively white. Which is food for thought. What did strike me is that arriving at Glastonbury after a long drive in the baking heat, picking up all your stuff, trudging a couple of miles in the heat and then having to pitch a tent in already packed camping fields is about the most perfect recipe for a break-up I can imagine, and my admiration and respect goes out to any couple who has managed to get through this experience without a ruckus. It was a moment that made me delighted to be flying solo.

Eventually I reached the tipi looking like I'd just emerged from a downpour, took off all my clothes and stood there, alone in its surprising space (approx. 15 foot high in the middle, and plenty of room for six people to sleep in comfort on the ground) for a few seconds before I noticed a grassy square in the middle of the matting and, on closer inspection, saw something slightly unexpected therein: a human poo. I was too hot and tired to be repulsed and giggled to myself for a while before going back to the reception tipi and announcing to the five assembled tipi workers that there was a pile of excrement in the Blue Ant. To their credit, they looked suitably shocked and were swift to rectify the situation. And due to an administrative confusion, we ended up being in the Black Badger anyway. Ah, the Black Badger. I miss it already. The purchase of a tipi was undeniably a Good Thing, allowing large amounts of space outside the tent on which to lie at breakfast time or sit in the evenings, and a row of regularly-cleaned portaloos, and amazing solar showers.

Besides, I really didn't spend that much time in the tent. Within an hour of dumping my rucksack, I was in a vintage clothing shop while drinking wine, and bought a fantastic long pink dress for £8. And things got way better after that. There are apparently fifty stages spread over a site area that is a mile and a half wide, with a perimeter of nearly nine miles. On my last night of four, I discovered an entirely new area which took me over an hour to walk around. It is just absolutely vast. And everywhere is fun. More than the music, there are bars, shops, theatre acts, comedians, fortune tellers, restaurants, craft classes, yoga workshops... It was dirty and it did rain, and my clothes got damp, and the toilet facilities were often foul, and I showered only once in nearly five days, but - but but but but but. The sun shone a lot too, the music was varied and at times amazing, the food was delicious (I ate bacon butties, pizza, rotisserie chicken, fresh fruit salads, donuts, muesli, sweets, crepes and biscuits), the people I was with were unrelentingly wonderful, and - the biggest surprise at all - everyone else was unrelentingly wonderful too. In four days, I didn't see a single person get irritable. There was just the most incredible sense of understanding - no matter if the girl in front of you was the size of a mansion and wearing a miniscule tutu and a bad bikini, whereas in London I might have winced, at Glastonbury, anything goes, and I felt genuinely delighted that she was happy and confident enough to wear whatever tickled her pickle. If someone sits down in the middle of the thoroughfare, you step round them. There's no competitive jostling for good places at gigs. There's no pushing and shoving full stop. Even with 140,000 people who, while maybe not all drugged up or drunk, are surely all tired and a bit fractious, there was a permanent, and I mean permanent, air of laissez-faire gloriousness. Despite not getting involved in any illegal substances, I felt a bit like a delightfully stoned Shire horse all weekend, plodding around in wellies and a good natured haze, happily criss-crossing the festival site from one fun adventure to the next. Laughing highlights were finding out that Nick once fell asleep while skiing, and an incident involving Ses sitting on a man's shoulders at the Blur gig but somehow getting on the wrong way round so he was face to face with her crotch. I doubt she would appreciate me going into too much depth about it, but rest assured that it was possibly the funniest thing I have Ever Seen and last night I was still laughing so hard about it that tears were streaming down my face. Musical highlights were Bon Iver, Little Boots and Blur - the latter a highlight not so much because it was the best gig I've been to musically, but because I was feeling as happy as I've been for years, standing with a group of fantastic friends, while some of my favourite songs were played live a few metres away by a brilliant band, and bang next to us was a group of some of their biggest fans who joined in on all the harmonies, knew every single word and shared their whiskey with us. I don't even like whiskey, but on Sunday night, it, along with everything else, was delicious.

I left reluctantly yesterday morning and have been feeling emotional and bereft ever since, assisted by the footage and reviews that I have been watching and reading non-stop since my return, which is a bit like looking at old photos of exes after they've dumped you, but as Laura reminded me this morning, at least everyone else has gone home too, and it's not like the fun is continuing without me. God it was fantastic though. Bring on 2010.

Slave to the rhythm

Despite almost 32 years of evidence to the contrary - and, believe me, no one was more shocked than I to find out the truth - it has emerged that I Am Cool. For on Saturday night, I attended the UK Beatboxing Championships Final and I had a motherfucking brilliant time. (Note: if, like me, you are a fan of beatboxing, you will know that you have to say motherfucking before every single motherfucking thing you say. That's what the motherfucking kids are doing.) What was even more motherfucking cool than the abso-motherfucking-lutely incredible beatboxing was the fact that in the motherfucking hiatus between the first and second rounds, some motherfuckers in the audience started an impromptu motherfucking dance-off! A genuine one, with everyone standing around watching, wearing a face that said "I could obviously dance as well as this too, I just can't be motherfucking bothered right now." I was well impressed. Since then I've been hanging out with my motherfucking parents and tonight I have motherfucking choir practice.

Disaster

About four or five years ago, when the Krispy Kreme donut ship had just docked in the UK, and everyone was going insane in the membrane about them, I decided to see what the hoohah was about. I consider myself to be a huge fan of donuts, in every sense, and these were said to be the Kreme de la Kreme of their genre, so my expectations were high. I bought my favourite, a simple glazed ring, and bit in. As I chewed, I could sense my thighs and buttocks sighing with relief as I realised that it just wasn't that nice. There was an overpowering vanilla flavour that was too strong, the glaze was too thin and the texture was too gooey. I would certainly be able to resist them in future.

And since then, I have resisted completely. I regularly walk past a Krispy Kreme outlet in Liverpool Street station, and am never tempted. I turn down all offers when people buy the huge KK selection boxes for an office celebration. All it takes is for me to recall the slightly sickening sensation of the glazed ring of yore, and I remember that eating one would be wasted fat. There are plenty of other ways for me to triple my recommended daily calorific intake that are far more delicious.

Or so I thought.

Claiming hunger a few moments ago after a diminuitive lunch of an EAT chicken salad and a few sticks of pineapple and mango, I emailed Laura for assistance. Seconds later, she entered my office with a donut reverently held before her on a white napkin. Like the one I'd sampled years before, it was round and glazed, but this one was covered with an additional sprinkling of white chocolate curls. We performed the dissection. Nuclear-red jam oozed out. Cautiously, I took my half, unconvinced: if the glazed ring circa 2006 had been was sickly, how bad would it be with the addition of further dough, neon jam and white chocolate? Nonetheless, weak and frail with post-lunch starvation, I bravely pushed my fears to one side and took a bite. Sweet god of all things heavenly and unhealthy, but it was delicious. Firm but moist, smooth and sweet, offset with a good and unusually central pocket tangy jam and the textural surprise of the thick chocolate shavings. My half was gone in a matter of seconds. And when Laura said she didn't want the rest of her section, I picked up the remaining third and forced it down too.

Now they are all I can think about. Much like Pringles, I fear I have popped and will now be unable to stop. I have opened the sluice gates, and an obsession with Krispy Kremes has begun. My mouth is awash with donut-infused saliva. I need more. I must have more. I will stop at nothing to get another. Although I can't quite be bothered to stand up. If the only thing that will save me from clinical obesity is my own laziness, I think we're in a serious situation here.

Back

Well, I'm back. Back in the UK, back in London, back at my desk, back in the game. Apparently I am "disgustingly brown" - I can't decide how I feel about that. Probably good, on balance. The most amazing thing that has happened since my return is that I received an email from Transport for London saying that someone had actually handed in the items I'd left on the tube like a dick last month. They'd been given to a tube worker at High Street Kensington, and I'd left them when I'd got off at Paddington on a Circle Line train bound for the City, so they went almost the entire way around the loop on their own, with no one nicking the brand new flip-flops and brand new Zara dress. Maybe they're disgusting. Either way, it really is absolutely extraordinary and very very wonderful that a) someone was nice enough to do that and that b) the TfL system managed to match up the bag with my description of it on their website. The efficiency alone makes me very happy. It wouldn't happen in Egypt, I can tell you. I toddled over to Baker Street yesterday, showed them my ID, described the items and hey presto, a couple of minutes later, we were reuninted. Marvellous.

A request to the Dream Fairy: please can I stop dreaming about shopping? For the last four or five nights, I've had the most wonderful consumerist dreams, where I've purchased quirky items for my flat and/or beautiful vintage dresses and then woken up and found I own them not. It is a very disappointing way to start my day.

Now I am counting down to Glastonbury and wondering when, if ever, I am going to notice a subsidence in my appetite. Coming back to work has been odd and my focus has been better on other days, I must admit, but my boss has missed me which was lovely, and I am largely happy. Plus, there's nothing like hearing about others' love problems to make you glad to not be going through sagas, isn't there? To all you whose hearts are aching at present, have strength: this too really shall pass, time really does heal all wounds and there really are plenty more fish in the sea - so many it's easy sometimes to get a bit lost en route. Stay strong, mes amis.

Second time lucky

Bloody hell that's annoying. Yesterday evening I sweated it out in a horrible internet cafe, while the butch German lady next to me exhaled red Marlboros in my direction and had an irritating conversation over Skype with her ponytailed German boyfriend, and I wrote what, I am sure, was the longest and funniest blog entry I have ever written in the history of Lost Looking For Fish. And now I revisit the page to find out that only the title made it live. I don't think there's much that annoys me more than having to retype a work of brilliance. It's never quite as good the second time. I am spitting with rage. But here we go again. Heavy sigh. And begin.

I can't remember much of what I've been doing since I last wrote. All I seem to recall is applying suncream and then complaining to myself that I haven't been turning brown. Tan update: my feet are brown apart from a few red spots that have appeared along my flip-flop line as a result of some sort of heat rash. Sexy. My lower legs are, I have had to concede, immune to the sun, and are as pasty and white as if I'd been wearing a pair of gaiters for the duration of my holiday. My knees are brown. Result. My thighs are also brown, but fat. Irritating. My stomach is the colour of molton Galaxy, but, as discussed previously, this is entirely useless. My chest is uneven in hue and a bit blotchy. My face and arms seem to be turning a healthy shade, but I refuse to be lulled into my customary false sense of security, whereby I become convinced I am bronzed, spend hours looking at myself in my hotel room mirror to confirm the fact, and then fall for the conspiracy that is doubtless agreed among all airlines to make the mirrors in aeroplane bathrooms make everyone look at least seven shades darker than they are in reality, so that I waft through the Gatwick arrivals hall convinced that people are falling over with envy at my perfect sun-kissed appearance, and allow myself a few moments of concern lest my friends and family fail to recognise me, confusing me instead with some unnaturally blonde Native American Indian, and then I arrive home and look at myself in my non-conspiring mirror and realise that I am precisely the same shade of off-white that I am in midwinter.

In the brief moments when I am not busying myself with tanning, I did something fairly momentous: I followed in the footsteps of Moses by climbing Mount Sinai. Should you ever attempt such an expedition yourself, let me inform you that your trip will go roughly as follows:
1. Take seat in minibus at approximately 11pm. Drive through Dahab to another hotel, to pick up collection of assorted tourists from multiple countries. Leave Dahab and travel for approximately two hours to the base of Mount Sinai.
2. Exit minibus and meet guide, Mohammed. They are not all called Mohammed. But mine was. Set off up gently sloping path, lit only by moonlight. Think to yourself 'This might actually be fine,' but then look up to your right and see Mount Sinai towering above you and wonder how you will make it to the summit in the three hours Mohammed says it will take. He should know. He has walked up it pretty much every night for the last two years.
3. After 7km of winding and gradually steepening paths, reach the foot of the 750 stairs that will take you to the summit. For the forty-ninth time, refuse Mohammed's offer of hand-holding and bag carrying, trying not to get into some Germaine Greer-influenced row with a man whose few words of English probably don't include 'patronising' or 'chauvinist'. Take a rest with your group. Glower at the really weird Australian girl, Angel, who has the body of a gymnast but the face of a wizened old hag and nicotine stained teeth that make her look half-female, half-drug-addled-rabbit, because she has happily allowed Mohammed to carry her sizeable rucksack and hold her hand since we left the carpark.
4. At approximately 4am, begin climbing the stairs, still lit only by the light of the moon and stars. Wonder at the Arabic definition of 'stairs' - in the UK or the US, these death-traps would be cordoned off immediately and all tourists banned from attempting the climb. Frequently wobbly, uneven stones with perilous drops down one side with the added frisson of not being able to see a freaking thing you're doing. Marvel at the two mountain goat-like Hong Kong boys who skip upwards, nattering animatedly and chain smoking. Draw comfort from the fact that the two Egyptian men behind you are wheezing to the point of hospitalisation. With each step, become convinced that you are travelling further into one of the world's most inaccessible places, and then marvel at happening across a well-stocked shack selling cold drinks, biscuits, refrigerated Snickers bars and a selection of tourist items including Bedouin headscarves and postcards. Feel guilty about not giving Moses more respect, but become gradually more convinced that the ten commandments and the burning bush were probably heat- and altitude-induced hallucinations.
5. Reach the summit and breathe in the awesome view for several consecutive seconds, before realising that your sweat-soaked T-shirt and wet hair is combining with the nippy summit air to provide ideal conditions for rare Egyptian hypothermia. Rent a musty camel blanket from a trusty local and wrap it around yourself gratefully as though it is a mink stole. Despair as you realise that sunrise is still an hour or so away and that the possibility of dying of cold atop Mount Sinai is becoming more distinct. Lose the feeling in your fingers.
6. Remember handy snack-pack of fig rolls among possessions and wolf down with metaphorical relish. Putting actual relish on fig rolls is a mistake.
7. 5.45am. Watch the sunrise. Take a billion incredible photographs and allow yourself to be convinced that the quantity of your pictures will ensure that you have the greatest selection of Sinai sunrise photos ever taken, better even thanthose of the man behind you who has brought up an impressively gargantuan tripod and a selection of paparazzi-style lenses to capture the moment.
8. After a brief tussle with the blanket man and, perhaps, a row with Mohammed - mine started with me slipping over near one of the cafes and him saying if I'd been holding his hand it wouldn't have happened, and me trying to point out that the top of a rocky mountain isn't the best place to start a fight with me if he knows what's good for him - begin the descent, choosing with the rest of Group Ramses to take the Difficult Route down the stairs - that's the 750 we climbed, but then a further 3000 steps rather than the winding 7km pathway.
9. Reach the bottom an hour later, in beating sunlight, wondering if you will ever walk again, but somehow muster the energy to traipse obediently around St Katherine's Monastery. Then buy an ice-cold Diet Coke and a refrigerated Snickers bar, the latter almost certainly as a result of subliminal messaging, and consume both like a crazed American dieter who's fallen off the wagon in Disneyworld. Climb back in the minibus and collapse.

That was Friday night and Saturday morning. Since then I've been walking a little like a cowgirl, not aided by the fact that yesterday evening I went riding at sunset, galloping up into the desert behind my hotel and loving the smell of hot horse. The evening would have been nigh-on perfect, were it not for the tiny, tiny ginger kitten who'd scampered up to me as I walked along the beach over to the stables, shouting its little head off. I tried to give it some water but it was slightly hysterical and wouldn't concentrate, so then I took its picture and tried to walk off, but the little thing followed me like a puppy for about ten minutes. I was striding pretty fast, trying not to get emotionally attached, but every time I looked behind me, there it was, bounding along on its tiny ginger legs, its tiny ginger tail poking straight up behind it. Finally we came across a group of children. 'Brilliant,' I thought, 'here is the solution to my problems. These charming street urchins will delight in the little creature and will surely share some of their local produce with it. I need worry no longer.' My sense of well-being lasted for a few seconds, until a fat Bedouin child with wild hair threw a tennis-ball sized rock at the kitten, and narrowly missed. I reprimanded her pointlessly, knowing that adorable ginger kittens are ten a penny and profoundly unwanted, and that I was singularly unable to rescue it myself. Steeling myself and feeling like a bitch, I walked on. And I never saw the little kitten again.

I don't know, it's a funny place, this. As a relaxing holiday destination, it's perfect. The weather has been unrelentingly wonderful: I've seen one cloud in the ten days I've been here, and even that was a pathetic attempt which came nowhere near the sun and in fact served only to emphasise the depth of the blue surrounding it. The people are friendly. The yoga has been great. The coral has been unforgettable. The hotel, especially the pool, is truly fantastic. Without hesitation, I am thrilled to have been here and feel like one lucky bunny. But would I return? I doubt it. Although Egyptian cities are apparently far more cosmopolitan, this is a Bedouin area. I have seen around ten women in all the time I've been here. All the workers in my hotel, all the workers in every restaurant, cafe, internet shop, dive centre - they're all men. It's simply not right. Obviously their treatment of animals leaves something to be desired. There is a lot of rubbish about - if you like your beaches clean, your tap water purified and/or your sewage systems efficient, stay well away. And the corruption is laughable (as long as you don't live here, when it's perhaps a little less hilarious): the police system makes Sicily look like a Quaker commune. Police arbitrarily decide laws on a week-by-week basis, enforcing them entirely at random and extracting huge fines from anyone who doesn't comply, regardless of whether or not they were aware that they were contravening any rule. I couldn't live here if you paid me. And what's brilliant is, in an instance of wonderful temporal harmony, I'm coming home tomorrow.

I had a gorgeous final full day today, snorkeling round the seemingly-bottomless Blue Hole and taking endless photos that will never look good when I get home. Then I sunbathed by the pool and burned my left knee. Now I'm going to check my emails, jump in the back of a pickup and head back to the hotel to pack. I think I've been bitten. Growl.

No title forthcoming

Nemo found

If snorkelling here is The Bomb, scuba diving here is the A-Bomb. I just went down for a try-dive, my first since I was in my teens, and it rocked the house. I saw lion fish, with their weird Red Indian headdresses, and a baby scorpion fish nestled in some coral that I had to get about two inches away from before I could spot, and brain-like coral that was the most lurid yellow imaginable, slightly tinged with green, luminous to the point of glowing. I took some photos on my rubbish Kodak throwaway underwater camera but I'm not holding out much hope. My favourite bit was being about five metres under and absolutely surrounded by hundreds upon hundreds of the most gorgeous orange fish, all wearing fluorescent lilac eyeliner. My least favourite bit was pulling on my hideous, too-tight website in front of a cafe full of onlookers. But it was worth it.

I had a new yoga teacher this morning, who identified within seconds that I am left-handed and correctly diagnosed me as being over-analytical. My one-on-one classes are fantastic and I want to pack Monica in my suitcase and have her guiding me for an hour and a half every morning and evening when I'm back at home. Still not nearly enough progress on the tan front, frustratingly, but I will keep working at it. As usual, my arms look vaguely healthy, as if I've been for a long walk in Dorset on a July afternoon. My stomach, which no one sees, is the colour of the most gorgeous dark mud. And my legs are clearly being smeared with total block by the Tan Demon every night while I'm sleeping, as it looks as though I have been sunning myself in thick trousers. Right. That's my news, over and out. Ew. The boy on the next door PC is playing what looks like a medieval Arabian version of The Sims, and just sneezed vigorously without covering his face. Then he looked at the floor, clearly saw some miscellaneous matter had been propelled thereon, and rubbed it in to the tiles with his dusty flip-flop. Now he's eating pungent crisps. I had planned to sit here a little longer and try and catch up on the news from home, but I'm not sure that idea appeals so much any more. Hmmm.

On the hoof

Got to be quick as am catching a cab (read: meeting others to sit in back of dusty pickup for 10 minute drive back to hotel) but basically: snorkelling here is The Bomb. Apart from the jellyfish. They are the opposite of the The Bomb. They are The Extinguisher. But other than them, we had an amazing day. Blissful. Falling asleep after a delicious lunch in the cool shade of an open-sided beach hut, then pottering ten feet to the water's edge for a snorkel in the most fantastic coral reefs, surrounded by tiny Finding Nemo fish and those very thin, transluscent things with long hooter noses that I find strangely cute. I had a black and white stripey fish who became quite fond of me and followed me around for about twenty minutes. It was all heavenly. But then you see a man riding by on a horse, leading two other horses to hire out for tourist beach rides, and, thirty feet behind, a tiny foal following, clearly thirsty and tired. And then the man dismounts and the foal starts drinking milk from its mum, the horse that the man's just been riding, and it's all very wrong to my over-sensitive Western eyes.

It's been a blissful day though, and I feel a million miles from UK politics. I still have no idea about the result of the European elections although I just saw on the MSN homepage here that Gordon is considering electoral reform. Great news, although it seems hilariously unimportant now. The Handmaid's Tale is as good as I knew it would be, I still haven't got sunburned through continual application of factor 30, as a result I'm not changing colour much, but really, other than that, I have nothing on my mind, which is heavenly, and I still have another six days to go. Insh'allah.

Egyptian Men and Mummies

Of all the men in all the tourist destinations in all the Arabic countries in the world who stand outside on the street asking/begging women to eat at their minging restaurant/buy their badly made tourist tat/trust them with their lives and let them drive them home/marry them, I wonder if any of them, ever, have had an answer in the positive. I simply have no idea why they bother. "All my life, all I have been looking for, eet iz you, madam, you are so byoootiful, please, please do me the honour...?" Has that ever worked? Do they know someone who knows someone who once walked the dog of someone who asked a blonde in the street to come home with them, and she said yes? It is simply staggering.

But then, when in some ways so much is different, then suddenly everything is the same. Yesterday I was lying by the pool surrounded by three mothers, one English, one Estonian, one German, all of whom had babies under three months, all of whom lived in Dahab with their husbands/boyfriends, and all they did, all day, from approx. 10am til about 4pm, was talk about their offspring. It was breathtakingly boring. Then again, all I did during the same time was try to get a tan. I doubt I was particularly interesting. But in my head, I was scintillating. They, on the other hand, made ditch-water look like a sparkling dinner party companion.

All is well here, though. I have never been whiter, of course, but that is inevitable for any hot holiday I go on. I have made friends, yoga is brilliant and I managed the crow pose for all of a second yesterday before falling forward into a somersault. Last night we went to a restaurant for dinner and had Egyptian cabernet sauvignon which stripped approximately three layers of skin from my throat and larynx. Miraculously, it became more delicious after a few glasses. Today I have been playing Would You Rather...? by the pool with Lucy and Clare. Tomorrow I am going snorkeling. I am eating a lot of fig rolls. The binding of the Paul Auster book gave up and so I had to abandon ship and start Margaret Atwood. There's more to tell but this keyboard is unbelievably sticky and I am getting aching wrists.

Ohmmmm

There is something so delicious about sitting in a weird internet cafe in the late evening, with the hum of cicadas and the crashing of waves outside, writing a blog in the light of severely unflattering strip lighting, while slightly worrying about getting eaten to near-death by mosquitos. I am having flashbacks to India 2006 and it is not remotely unpleasant.

Anyway. Namaste. I am deeply content. The Egyptian experience has, thus far, been entirely devoid of unpleasantness. My Easyjet flight was on time, I was one of the last people to board the plane but managed to sit in the front row on the aisle, the seat I would have chosen if I'd been given an entirely empty aircraft from which to choose. I fell asleep before take-off and awoke twice for a matter of moments before landing. I wafted zenlike into the arrivals hall, filled in a swine flu awareness form as I wandered along, was the first into the empty baggage reclaim, received my luggage quickly, my trolley was uniquely happy to move directly forwards, I found my driver holding my name aloft in a clearly typed font, the transfer to my hotel was smooth and fun, I persuasively argued with my American lift-sharing companion that joining the US military was not perhaps the most constructive method of guaranteeing peace for her compatriots in future, I found my room at the hotel to be clean, I appreciated the towels folded into swan formations on my bed, the air conditioning worked, my tuna salad eaten downstairs under the stars was tasty, my book continued to be gripping and my sleep was easy.

Today made yesterday look like a nightmare, so uninterruptedly perfect was it. I awoke on time and wafted (again) to the yoga room, which is built into a mountain and is therefore cool and quiet. I discovered that I am currently the only person at the hotel booked into the yoga class, so I am having personal, one-on-one classes with the seriously nice Anne for the next few days. I feel a bit like Madonna, although with more pronounced bingo wings. Anne is 37, very pretty, an only child and moved here from Balham, South-East London, about a year ago. On first glance, her lifestyle is faintly intoxicating. After yoga, I breakfasted in the shade on yoghurt and honey, washed down with green tea, and then wafted in the most self-satisfied fashion possible up to my room, feeling a picture of calm. I donned my bikini and my factor 50, and made my way up to the gorgeous pool, deserted for at least the first two hours of my lying around phase today, surrounded by beautiful wooden loungers and comfortable striped cushions. Just in case I wasn't smug enough already, I did 100 lengths, reapplied the Piz Buin, and then arrayed myself horizontally on the pole position lounger, from which I barely moved until late afternoon, sitting up once to eat delicious falafel, and standing once to swim and talk to other friendly guests. At 5pm I was back in the yoga studio for my second class of the day, followed by a shower and aftersun application before walking along the beach to Dahab town centre, which is reminding me of wherever it was that Simon and I stayed in Kerala, and I'd probably be a bit more charmed by it if I hadn't witnessed similar tourist places before. It's about 60% building site, 35% rip-off and 5% genuinely laid-back cool, with some fantastic lounges on the beach, cushions for your ass and bench backs made of felled palm-trees covered in thick rag-rugs. The beer is flowing, the people are friendly, the music is cheesy and all is well. I smirked irritatingly at the newly-constructed house I saw on the walk here, which had a carefully painted sign outside declaring it was 'For Seal'. Nice idea, but I'm not sure he'd want it, given that it was monstrous and, I suspected, unfinished, although it was difficult to be certain. I've had a delicious meal of chicken kebab and rice, and I'm now about to head back to the ranch for urgently needed R'n'R after my panic-filled day. More when anything happens. Apparently it's pouring with rain back home. Gloat.

Pack it in. Please, someone.

I have not stopped. And now it is nearly midnight and my bed looks like a big table in the middle of a large country fair's jumble sale before the organised vicar's wife gets on with allocating who's doing what. I can barely see the top of the pile of clothes I have decided to take with me to a country where the weather will be so hot that wearing any clothes will be an act of madness or masochism. I am also taking a selection of uncomfortable shoes, jewellery I'll forget to put on, and a range of unflattering bikinis. My selection of suncream, after sun, sunburn gel and assorted other sun products weighs at least six time the Easyjet baggage weight allowance. And thinning down my chosen items is simply out of the question. I feel a late night coming on.

Holiday reading is as follows:
Studs Terkel: Hope Dies Last
Joseph O'Neill: Netherland
Philippe Legrain: Immigrants: Your Country Needs Them
Ryszard Kapuscinski: Imperium
Paul Auster: Moon Palace
Murakami: Norwegian Wood
Margaret Atwood: The Handmaid's Tale
Aravind Adiga: The White Tiger
Aldous Huxley: Brave New World
Robert Harris: Ghost
Flann O'Brien: The Third Policeman

Will let you know how I get on. See you in Egypt.

Stand in the place where you live

Now this I can agree with: http://worklessparty.org/ The article might be a fraction long for a busy LLFF reader, but the idea that we are too efficient for our own goods rings very true with me, and is firmly in line with one of my other obsessions, the paradox of choice. I was listening to Oliver James on the radio the other day, the author of Affluenza (which I haven't read), who was talking about all parents rushing off to make more money to support their children and god knows I don't have a clue about all this being single and childless, but he was suggesting offering serious cash incentives to parents to stay at home while their children were young, paying them around £25k a year not to go back to work but instead to be full-time parents, at least for the first three years, and it does make sense in a crazy way. All this money, all these desires, it's not right. I didn't agree with John Major about much, but conceptually, Back to Basics is surely where it's at.

But now, Back to Me. I feel like I've been flying by the seat of my pants a bit recently, rushing around trying to have fun and get everything done before I hit the beach on Saturday. The weather has just been glorious, which has added to the confusion since I am now unable to exercise during daylight hours as it would mean wasting possible tanning windows. In an attempt to pre-empt the beached whale whiteness on Beach Day 1, I have slathered myself in Clarins fake tan, which has come up trumps everywhere except the area between my fourth and little toe on my left foot, which is the colour of Dale Winton.

I didn't talk nearly enough (for my liking) about my politics course last Thursday. Now it's all rather distant and less emotive, but I feel I must share that we were joined by two journalists - one, representing the liberal left, from The Guardian, and one from the right-wing Spectator - and although it was all gripping, my favourite bit was probably the feeling that us outsiders doing the politics course were all a bunch of cynics and that the two people who worked 'in the business', who I would have expected to be far more cynical than the rest of us put together, both genuinely believed in politics as a force, and both seemed frustrated that we and the population at large are so delighted every time things go wrong, and so convinced that it's all a great mess. One of them said it was a bit like the scene in The Life of Brian where they say, "All right, but apart from the sanitation, medicine, education, wine, public order, irrigation, roads, the fresh water system and public health, what have the Romans ever done for us?" [copied and pasted from a Gearch search, not transcribed from memory] - the idea being that we all sit around slagging off politics and the failing system, and it's so easy to forget all the amazing things that have changed in the course of the last few decades, in the course of half a lifetime - gay marriage legalized, double the funding on the NHS etc. Of course not all changes are unarguably for the better but the fact is, things, massive things, do change. And they will in the future too. It was heartening and inspiring. My second bit was when the Guardian journalist, who I slightly loved, said I should become an MP and that she'd vote for me. I answered, as I always do when people tell me I should become an MP (which happens more often than I would expect) that I am far too lazy and don't want to work that hard. But it was still nice that she liked me.

I wonder if, if I ever have a massive change of heart and decide to stand as an MP, having written the sentence above will come back to haunt me? Although, that said, if I do become an MP, I don't think that admitting that I'm lazy and don't want to work very hard is the most embarrassing/career-destroying thing I've written on this blog. A short click away in the Jane = idiot section, I'm sure any dirt-hunters would find a lot better material. Ah well. Maybe I'll change my name before going into politics. Wouldn't want to meet a world leader and find that they knew that I'd once fallen drunk off a bus after my 10k run and that my ankle is permanently swollen, or that I'd temporarily blinded myself by accidentally putting deodorant in my eye or that I once set fire to my mum's pashmina at a wedding reception while talking to one of the judges of Britain's Next Top Model. Better to keep this identity a secret, eh?

Patronising post

Sincere apologies in advance: I am fully aware that I will come across as an unbearable bore in the following sentences. Equally, I am sure that the vast majority of you reading this will need no prompting. But, for those of you who are wavering, this is just a quick message about Thursday's European Elections. Please vote. This is a crunch time for British politics and we have to capitalise on the recent messes over expenses and the economy. I don't care who you vote for (except the BNP) - just get out there and show that you give a shit. If you're not sure in which box to put your X, this online quiz might help.

Right: nag over. And: I really am sorry.

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.