Sunday summary

There is a unique type of moment when I'm sitting amongst a large and intimidating group of people and I realise that, in a few seconds, I will put my hand in the air and ask a question. My heart - thankfully fairly unnoticeable and reliable at all other times - will seem to shift north around five inches, coming to a halt at the base of my neck. Lodged in its new position, it will start to contract and expand with terrifying force and velocity, giving me the sensation that an angry racehorse is trying to kick its way out of my body through my sternum. Simultaneously, the blood will rush through my ears, my face will redden and I will be unable to hear anything except the pounding hooves. The sensation is not pleasant but I will be powerless to resist the pull towards my question, for once the process has begun it will not cease until it has reached a satisfactory conclusion.

I went through just this involuntary cycle on Thursday night when I went to see Tony Benn speak in Bloomsbury. He really is incredibly inspiring and made me feel fairly small for doing so relatively little to change the existing status quo. He mentioned that he'd left Parliament to concentrate on politics and that he now spends his time campaigning for several issues about which he feels particularly passionate. I asked him which of these he felt was most important and he said, 'It has to be peace, doesn't it. Because without that, everything else shrinks into the background.'

On Friday I was disgruntled when my boss clarified that the amount he was giving me as a bonus was, in fact, in Euros, not Sterling, wiping a third off the figure I'd been expecting. But later I laughed when I realised that an hilarious and select group of items are supplied by 'mongers': cheese, fish, iron and doom. The English language really is fantastic.

On Saturday I decided that the price difference between B&Q and Homebase is entirely justified. Dad and I went to B&Q first to buy my paint and various other sundries. After standing for several minutes, unassisted, at the paint mixing desk, we were eventually startled when a tiny, young, male helper appeared in front of us with more gaps than teeth in his mouth. When we asked for a meagre 5 litres of paint, he informed us chirpily that our request was impossible as, due to a computer error, they didn't currently have any in-store. We drove to Homebase which, after the apocalyptic hell of B&Q, seemed like an oasis of order created by Capability Brown. Everything was serene and efficient, there was a surplus of paint, a helpful assistant with excellent dental work and a 10% off deal.

Last night I had a blast from the past, attending a dinner party in west London with a few schoolfriends and their boyfriends. One needs to be a fairly serious Trivial Pursuit fan to insist upon playing with the old board and the new questions, but I was in the company of fellow obsessives. The if-you-knock-the-piece-of-pie-out-of-the-holder-by-accident, you-lose-it-forever rule was invoked, as was a new (to me) condition, that, once all six pieces of pie have been collected, you 'parachute' straight to the middle for the final countdown. I loved the use of the term parachute. Once at the centre, we played the standard 654321 method, where in your first go, your team must answer all six questions on one card correctly to win the game. If this fails, at your next turn you must answer five correctly to win, then four, then then three until a victory is reached. We were playing girls against boys and I'm pleased to say that we won comprehensively in an extremely irritating fashion by eventually working out the answers after several minutes of intense and wide-ranging discussion. 'Was it Japan? No, no - South Korea. No, I'm sure it was Germany. Ooh, no, it was Spain, I remember we did it in Middle IV.'

Now I must go for a run to clear my head and thin my thighs, then to Hammersmith buy a bathroom sink and some taps, then to the flat, then back here for American Idol. And tomorrow, the painting begins. I'm genuinely not sure I can handle the excitement.