From Front Line to Front Page...

First of all, read this, it's absolutely gripping.

Secondly, I can't quite work out what I think about Prince Harry's war efforts. On the one hand, he seems like a nice guy and it must have been annoying to do all that training and then not be able to go and fight. But then, on the other hand, they must have been able to tell him before he started at Sandhurst that the chances of him fighting on the front line were pretty anorexic - so I don't feel that sorry for him - it's not like it was unexpected. Plus he's a royal, so his life's not too tough. But then he did lose his mum. But then you can't just have special treatment because you lose your mum. But then, the only way he was able to go was through a massive and, to my knowledge, unprecedented media cover-up. I'm not too happy about this. I am happy he got the chance to fight, but he only had that chance at the expense of the 'trustworthy' reputation of our country's media. Our biggest news organisations all agreed to keep schtum so that he could go, in exchange for the juicy, attention-grabbing/money-making stories that Harry has been feeding them during his time in Afghanistan. And although there's a part of me that thinks that's all quite nice and British and sportsmanly, there's another, far more substantial part that thinks, 'Hang on, if they're all agreeing to lie about this, how many other stories are they all agreeing to lie about?' Have we got a free press or what? I mean, obviously they were free to print this but they chose not to - in exchange for profit-making coverage and exclusive access at an unspecified later date. I'm really not sure I'm particularly fine with all this. Don't get me wrong, I've never thought for a minute that the papers tell us everything there is to know, but this is the first time I've been aware of a deliberate cahoots-style agreement across the board and it's kind of freaked me out. The liberal in me is outraged but the Evelyn Waugh fan in me is glad that good old Harry got a chance to show his colours on the field - and let's not forget that for many people, Hazza's involvement on the front line would be a fantastic advertisement for our beleaguered armed forces. On yet another hand, royal involvement could equally rub a lot of potential recruits up the wrong way and surely the potential gain to the hiring strategy for the armed forces is offset by the increased danger experienced by those fighting alongside Harry. I think on balance it is very, very sinister that every single current affairs organisation in the UK agreed to keep us in the dark in exchange for juicy gossip, and much as I appreciate how frustrating it must be for Harry, who is clearly about as useful as a chocolate hairdryer in most ways and has finally found something at which he is obviously very talented only to be denied access to it by a US website who refused to play ball, I don't think that one young man's desires - third in line to the throne or not - should be accommodated if it means that our press agrees to pull the wool over the eyes of 58 million people. I dunno though.

Back to me. I had a tricky evening yesterday - I went over to the flat and, having been relentlessly positive since minute one, suddenly I didn't like it. It felt dark and claustrophobic and wrong. Plus the tiles were annoying. Nothing a few cheap light fittings from Ikea can't solve though, I'm sure - and probably just a last-minute panic. This time next week, all being well, my bed will be in situ and I'll be unpacking for my first night in my own home. Between now and then, the ever-increasing list of tasks continues to be formidable - but I've come this far and brute determination, the incentive of solo living and the hotly-anticipated return of Monsieur L'Atelier on Tuesday will help me over the finishing line. Bring it on.

Wino Takes All

Amazing what a couple of good nights out can do for the soul. I am now exhausted but feeling more sane than I have for a long while. Last night's wine tasting was fairly pleasing. I was seated at a table with a couple of colleagues and six other strangers who work in the building. In front of us were eight bottles of wine, four white, four red, covered in foil. The tasting was ostensibly to teach us the difference between Old and New World wines - but we were also challenged to see if we could identify even more details. Our first pairing was two white wines, and the instant I sipped number one, I knew what it was: Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc from New Zealand. I knew for certain because it is basically all I have been drinking since I did a wine course last summer - I have it at home, I have it in restaurants, and it's even our tipple of choice when we go to the godforsaken O'Neill's next door to our building.

Now, shocking though this might be, I don't actually see myself as a shy, retiring flower of a girl. On the contrary, and I know this may be hard for many of you Faithful to believe, I sometimes think I can be fairly forceful and persuasive! So I was about as gobsmacked as I get when our self-appointed team captain decided that both the first white wines we were tasting were Rieslings. I tried to show him the error of his ways, gently at first and then using other skills such as rhetoric, patronising scoffing and derisive lip curling, but nothing worked and they handed in 'our' answer sheet unapologetically. I can't deny that I was about as smug as anyone's ever been when we tore off the foil and found a Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc from New Zealand. I'd even got the year right (by complete fluke). I don't think my head actually came away from my neck with the force of the self-satisfaction, but a rupture wasn't far off.

From then on, my table decided I was some sort of wine genius, a Jilly Goulden of the banking world, and no answer was written down without my say-so. Sadly, since I have only been drinking one wine for the past eight months, I am entirely clueless about every other grape and was thus zero help. All I could do was confirm that something "wasn't Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc" which wasn't that valuable when we were drinking deep reds.

Anyway - it was a fun evening and I let my hair down, ate too much tapas and knocked over a bottle of £90 Bordeaux. Oops. Today I felt so much perkier that I managed to make it to the gymnasium but promptly tarnished those efforts by adjourning to O'Neill's with Laura et al. at 5pm, and quaffing white wine while inhaling ready salted McCoy's before heading to Donald and Bee's and having a delicious curry and several after-dinner chocolates. Now I'm back in bed feeling revoltingly full and almost human: my neuroses are pacified, the gas leak has been fixed and all is ticking over nicely. The fear of needing a new boiler is still looming but denial is not just a river in Egypt and I'll do my best to enjoy these last brief moments of abject poverty before the bailiffs arrive. Keep your fingers crossed.

Flagging

For some incalculable reason, I seem to have regressed into a shell of my former self. No longer buoyant and keen to exercise, I now delay going to the gym as a dentistphobe might delay going to the dentist. Just as I have, in fact, for the last three years - but that's another story. And despite several inspiring topics dangling in front of me like a Magic Tree on the rearview mirror of my life, I have been singularly reticent to write my blog.

I could have written about the man in the gym last week who was roaring with such ferocity as he weight lifted that I eventually stopped laughing and started feeling quite threatened by the brute force of his testosterone-fuelled idiocy. This is the kind of man who needs to be told, quietly and firmly, that he is a moron.

And I definitely wanted to write about the nationwide press coverage today that the results of anti-depressant medication are so similar to those of a placebo as to render the drugs' continuing production unjustifiable. The study's advisors are suggesting that use of SSRIs is limited to all but the most severe cases of depression - partly to cut down on the negative side effects often caused by these drugs and partly to reduce the huge cost of supplying all these to the 16 million Brits who take them every day. Now, I am one of the 16 million. I could be on a placebo - I don't really care. All I know is, a few months ago, I started taking a pill in the mornings and now I feel better. If you stop giving medication (or something purporting to be medication) to people like me, I think that would be a bad thing. That said, I do understand the problem. I saw a documentary about the effective treatment of Parkinson's with a placebo of saline solution not so long ago. Clearly the placebo effect is very real - but it works, and somehow we have to take something that we believe to be medication to get these positive results. Really I think the health service should just give us all water and sugar pills for all our conditions - as long as we never found out, we'd probably all be a lot healthier and happier as a result.

Yeah, so I wanted to write about those things. And I have to go to the gym. But.... meh... I really don't want to. I don't understand how I can have been so enthusiastic about exercise so recently and now feel like even standing to put a letter in the post tray is too much effort. Maybe it's the sheer weight of flat-moving stress that is exhausting me physically. In my defence, I have had a lot on my plate, painting the flat for over 20 hours this weekend, rushing to Brixton to pay for things after work and making big decisions with gay abandon. Then this morning I not only found out that I have a gas leak in the flat but that my boiler is dripping sporadically and covered in limescale. This will be expensive. But what can you do? The show must go on... Thankfully tonight I will find respite in our company wine club's Spring tasting evening which includes 'hot finger food'. Wine and carbohydrate-laden snackage... I feel better already.

Sight for sore eye

I'm a girl of many talents but tonight was a first: in the latter portion of the vigorously-supported Mark Ronson gig at the Hammersmith Apollo, after a few glasses of white wine and in almost complete darkness, with unwashed hands and a jostling crowd surrounding me, I removed my left contact lens, reversed it and reinserted it. I think there's a certain skill in that - useless, but a skill all the same, and I wanted you, the Faithful, to be party to that. Thank you for indulging me - your kindness will be rewarded.

I do solemnly swear...

As if Mr L'Atelier wasn't distracting me enough, last night he emailed me the link to the transcripts of the inquest surrounding the death of Diana, Princess of Wales. Now, I share with Mr L'A a vague disinterest in Diana - certainly any inquisitiveness I had felt about her life and death was more to do with the extent and effect of the media attention and less to do with love affairs and the monarchy and hidden letters etcetera. But I was told that the transcripts were slightly addictive and thus, in a rare quiet moment at work this morning, I began to read them. It's now mid-afternoon and, in between bursts of Excel efficiency, I have managed to skim several people's testimonies, including Diana's stepmother, Lady Spencer and her friend, Rosa; I'm currently up to the lunchbreak that occurs halfway through Paul Burrell's first day in the dock. Mohammed al-Fayed's apparently ludicrous version of events is still to come, about which I am most excited.

I'm reading all this against my better judgment. I do not need to know the contents of the discussion, and before I began to scroll through the pages, I had next to no interest in the case. But, unexpectedly, they are compelling in the extreme - an extraordinary insight into the workings of the Royal Family and this most public of deaths. Embarrassingly, I had no idea quite how much conspiring has gone on in the interim: I was shocked to discover, for instance, that Prince Phillip is thought to have ordered their deaths to avoid a Muslim connection with the Palace. It all seems pretty laughable considering that Diana had been dating another Muslim for the previous 18 months and had only been seeing Dodi for about six weeks - but still, people do love a good scandal.

What's made me laugh is the smug upper class cameraderie that shines through - at one point, Nicholas Soames is asked by al-Fayed's lawyer whether he was shooting in Scotland on a particular date in August and the judge, familiar with the first day of the hunting season, interjected with something like, 'Not for three days?' I can just imagine the knowing smiles going round in the courtroom. I'm not al-Fayed's biggest fan but there's something a bit sick, smug and uncomfortable about all this that makes me feel a bit like I'm reading The Merchant of Venice. I'll admit, though, that I'm now hooked - and in the absence of a current series of Ugly Betty or Desperate Housewives, I suppose I have room to squeeze this new soap opera into my life for the time being. But right now, I must tear myself away and head gymwards. Not long 'til the weekend's paintfest begins - I need to build up my strength.

Woman vs. Machine

Much as I'd like to be a zenful person who never experiences rage, sadly there is no shortage of things that, even if they don't make my blood boil, certainly raise it to an active simmer. And while I normally consider myself to be fairly patient when it comes to the eccentricities of computers, there are a couple of issues that are guaranteed to have me making obscene finger gestures at my monitor. One of them occurred yesterday, when I'd written a lengthy email full of hilarious anecdotes and pithy comment, highlighted one word to edit and pressed backspace to delete it, only my computer didn't register that I'd highlighted a word and took my backspace-pressing to signify that I wanted to go back a page. Of course, when I returned forward, my lovingly-crafted work of minor genius had been lost forever. That certainly was irritating.

But far more frequently, several times a day, I have to suffer a greater injustice when my Bronze Age work computer struggles to keep up with my commands and freezes. Even a relatively simple request, say, saving an Excel spreadsheet, can be too much for my faithless friend. Wiggling the mouse is futile, as is frantically pressing any button. Nothing will expedite its return to normal. But in the meantime, although it is too busy to do my bidding, it can still manage to post a message on screen saying: 'Microsoft Excel [Not Responding]'. Just the sight of those latter two words sends me into a frenzy of rage, usually accompanied by some foul-mouthed tirade better suited to an East-End ganster. Really, which jobsworth Stanford graduate came up with this most irritating of concepts? I know you're not freaking responding you patronising machine, I've been sitting here waiting for something to happen for several seconds! Do you think I haven't noticed that you've done absolutely nothing since I pressed 'save'?! Do you think I haven't realised I can't move my cursor? Or use another programme? Or do anything remotely useful until you've finished having your attack?! Don't waste your precious few spare bytes telling me you're doing zilch! Conserve your energy and expend it on fixing the freaking problem! Do you think I would get away with that as an excuse? If my boss came in and found me incapacitated after a boozy lunch with a Post-It stuck on my head saying 'Not Responding', do you think that would be acceptable? Of course not! So why should we accept this shoddy behaviour from a machine, eh? Eh? Answer me you cretin!

Not that I have much pent-up aggression at the moment or anything...

Two track mind

I think I might still be in shock. It's around 18 hours since I returned from my Ikeathon and I remain a shadow of my former self. Worryingly, not even copious quantities of chocolate seem to be able to lift my mood. I will have to persevere with that one - where the Cadbury's Caramel and Penguin failed, perhaps a bag of peanut M&Ms will succeed...

Something fun did happen on the building front today - I wanted a dimmer switch put in my sitting room and bedroom and, naive first-timer that I am, had no idea whether I'd be able to afford this extravagance, but Lovely Dan said they would cost me about £6 per room, including parts and labour. See, if you don't ask, you don't get. Everything else is costing me a fortune though, and the people who buy the place simply aren't going to appreciate that I had to spend £400 having the kitchen electrics rewired, spend two weekends stripping manky wallpaper off my bedroom walls because the old owner didn't have a big enough radiator installed, or put an extractor fan into the bathroom. But then, I'm not doing this for the potential buyer. I'm doing it for me. Hard to believe that this is for me at the moment, when all it's doing is causing me stress and driving me into debt. Bring on the rewards, I say.

What else can I talk about, other than flats and sickening Mr L'Atelier-related schmaltz? [Long pause] Hmmm. Remove those topics from my mind and I'm afraid the tumbleweeds start rolling by, the wind whistles through the empty channels and somewhere in the distance an old door creaks on its hinges. Fidel's resigned, the government's screwed up on computer data again, Hillary's on her way out, there's been a seventeenth teen suicide in the tiny Welsh town of Bridgend, league tables are unreliable, the Brit Awards are tonight, Pakistan and Kenya are still messy and the UK's immigration laws are set to be dramatically altered but all I can think about is bathroom paint and how many hours there are until Tuesday 4 March. Tragic.

Ikea: Swedish for 'What you most need is unavailable'

My bedroom at home is a metaphorical bomb site. My new flat is a literal building site. It's a sad state of affairs when one's tiny, sterile glass office is the most pleasant environment on offer. The light at the end of the tunnel does exist, I'm sure, but I can't claim to have glimpsed it yet. However, in order to collect some items urgently required by my lovely builder and thus hopefully expedite the moment of first viewing of said end-of-tunnel light, this afternoon I left work, commuted across London, jumped into my mum's car and drove south to Ikea, Croydon.

An hour later after a journey through the rush hour, I started to wend through the showroom. It was really just as I'd remembered it, vast, irritating and invaluable. One question did continually arise as I wove my merry way with wonky trolley through the labyrinthine hell: why, in the name of sanity, do they allow children in this funforsaken place? Besides that, who in their right mind would bring their offspring to an environment that is already so devoid of peace and low blood pressure? I think once one's journey has been delayed by a small person more than five times, it should be legal to mow them down and store their remains in whatever handy Swedish-designed vessel happens to be nearby.

Miraculously, despite the junior hold-ups, I managed to make it through the showroom and down into the pick-up aisles fairly quickly. Excitably, I started collecting all my items, stacking the first couple of doors onto my flatbed trolley and feeling rather independent and capable. Full of the joys of minor achievements, I wheeled over to the appropriate place for my bathroom sink unit, where I had been personally assured that a box would be waiting, but - horrors - found only an empty space. My jaw dropped. This was the vital component. I had come all this way specifically for my bathroom sink unit. All the other purchases were secondary. Sure, I could buy the sink that would sit atop the unit, but without the unit, my builder would be unable to plumb anything anywhere. At first I was agog that, despite having checked stock availability online earlier this afternoon and then rechecked in the bathroom department on arrival at the store, there was still no sign of the unit. Then I became a bit grumpy. But then I realised that there was nothing else for it. I bought what I had found, got back in the car, and set off for Wembley.

An hour later, I arrived in the West London Ikea and began the process all over again. Thankfully, the missing items were present and correct and I think by this point it must have been bedtime because the child-count was dramatically and blissfully lower. Things were generally calmer and I left the store, shopping list completed as far as was possible, feeling much happier. There is not a cell in my body that believes I will finish this project without at least eighty more late-night trips to one or other of the branches, and returning to Homebase/B&Q is also inevitable, so there's no point developing too passionate a hatred. But for future reference, don't trust the stock check. It ain't over 'til the sink unit's in the boot of your car.

Can I see the light or am I merely hallucinating with exhaustion?

MacFlurry

Well, one thing I'll say for my blossoming relationship - things with Monsieur L'Atelier haven't been gathering dust. After our dreamy Valentine's Day, I met a few of his lovely friends for a delicious Thai meal on Friday night, had a drink in a Soho pub with his gorgeous sister on Saturday night and then on Sunday morning, my mum caught us kissing in the street outside my house. Classy...

Now he's gone on holiday for a fortnight and normal business can resume. Yesterday afternoon was spent continuing the marathon wallpaper stripping at the flat with my sub-contracters/parents. Today I have written a things to do list which is so long that I shudder at the sight of it. Now I must head into the dungeon and visit the office gym - all this wining and dining is heavenly for my soul but hell for my thighs. And tomorrow I will revisit Ikea - but this time, I'm going alone. Wish me luck for my journey into the known unknown.

Nuage numero neuf

My mum has expressed her concerns that I am making myself too vulnerable through this blog. I expected her to say that I am setting myself up for a massive fall with Mr L'Atelier and was prepared to reassure her that he's read it and still appears to like me - but no. My mother doesn't like the idea that people the world over can read my personal thoughts. I have no idea why it is suddenly a problem that someone in Sydney or Cameroon or Bali knows I am experiencing the heady sensations provided by a new love interest, but she's concerned. There's a good chance she is overestimating the attention this blog gets - although I have over a thousand hits a month, most of them only stay on the site for a few seconds and relatively few are regular readers. Anyway, I'll try and respect her desire for a little less transparency - but in the interests of total honesty, I feel I should say briefly that last night was surely one of the happiest Valentine's meals that anyone's ever had and I am walking on air.

Equally, in the interests of total honesty, I should clarify that my last statement was metaphorical. Sadly in reality, I am walking with a limp after I tripped up the stairs at Moorgate tube station at 8.25am and landed with my right kneecap on the corner of a higher step. Which was so cool of me. It's over two hours since the incident and it's still really hurting. I think maybe I should leave work early... Like now. Tick, tock, tick, tock.

Warning: gushing to follow

I'm being sickeningly stereotypical, I'm afraid. Mr L'Atelier is rocking my world and I can't concentrate, can't sleep, can unfortunately still eat - but it's really hard to focus. Nothing is upsetting me, I feel like I'm protected from everything that's happening around me by an invisible airbag, I am simply unable to engage with daily life in the normal way. My headiness even affected my professionalism today when my boss asked me to change his flight back from Europe and I did so - but forgot to change his cab, so when he arrived later than planned, there was no one to meet him. I apologised profusely, he told me to relax, but really, there wasn't much to do today and forgetting that task was fairly inexcusable. Will have to pull my socks up tomorrow although unless the world-rocker in question stops being quite so wonderful for even a few minutes, I can't see how I'm going to be anything other than pitifully distracted. I'm just waiting for the devastation to come but meanwhile trying to enjoy this entirely novel feeling of true giddiness and perfect simplicity. It's too good to be true. And he seems to think so too. Remarkable. But anyway - nothing is annoying me, I have noticed nothing except the arrival of text messages for two days and consequently have nothing to report except schmaltz, hence my absence. Apologies, but it's for your own safety. I'm sure I'll be back soon with some vitriol. In the meantime: spread the love.

And the winner is...

Much as I hate to admit it, I was wrong - again. The Least Rewarding Task In DIY (TLRTIDIY) is not Painting White Celings White, Painting Behind Pipes or Stripping Wallpaper. The true winner is, in fact, a glorious conglomeration of previous claimants to the title. I'm honoured to announce that the LLFF Award for TLRTIDIY in February 2008 goes to:

Stripping Old Wallpaper From Behind A Pipe, Two Inches From The Floor Inside A Cupboard That Will Soon Be Painted Over And Later Filled With Clothes.

As an entrant to this esteemed category, I fail to see how this can be beaten in future rounds but it seems that with each twist and turn, my merry route through decorating takes me to new lows. So watch this space, I fear the contest is not over...

That said, stripping wasn't all bad. Here follow my top three tips for happy stripping. One: buy a steamer. Without a shadow of a doubt, the best £20 I've ever spent. Two: cleanse, tone and moisturise immediately following the steaming session for that just-facialed look. And three: avoid the wearing of glasses during the steaming process. Visibility is reduced which is initially funny, then annoying, then dangerous, especially when fast moving scraping action is combined with being up ladder. Of course, the best tip I can offer when it comes to wallpaper stripping is 'get someone else to do it'.

On a more sombre note, I did see something while driving through the estate where my new flat is situated that made me feel a bit sad: two Asian kids, one a little girl wearing a headscarf, playing a vigorous game of football - but using a plastic bag filled with other plastic bags as a ball. It was getting blown around all over the place. They were howling with laughter so I guess there's no problem but the absence of a toy ball in my neighbours' lives did give me a jolt.

But it's not all complaints and sobriety: last night was the hotly-anticipated second date with Mr L'Atelier and I'm pleased to announce that he totally lived up to my internal hype, a feat rarely, if ever, achieved by any human. He's spent the past week skiing in France and after taking me out for Valentine's Day this week he will be heading off to Seattle and its environs for a fortnight. I'm pretty sure he's worth the wait but will keep my cards close to my chest. Although he does read my blog. D'oh.

Slow progress

I was wrong. Oh, so wrong. The least rewarding part of DIY is nothing to do with painting. Even painting the bits people will never see is, in fact, rewarding on one level - because just for that moment when you paint that patch, you are seeing it, and you are rewarded. No, the least rewarding part of DIY has to be when you work on preparing a surface for paint. It's too awful. No one will ever see the surface unpainted. No one will ever appreciate what you've been through. Arguably, in a a few weeks, even you will forget the hours of miserable, thankless toil.

More alert readers may have guessed that today I prepared a surface for paint. The walls in my bedroom-elect are mouldy and I have to strip off all the paint and liner paper, treat the mould, seal the concrete and then paint on the topcoat. I thought it was going to be fairly easy - on Wall 1, the paper came off in huge strips big enough to wrap up a giant's fish and chips. I was feeling fairly upbeat until I started Wall 2, where the previous decorators had clearly and inexplicably used Superglue to affix the liner to the wall. I became deeply nostalgic for the huge strips - now the pieces of paper I was removing were around the size of a postage stamp. Suddenly the area to be stripped loomed very large.

On the upside, I had a fantastic time singing along to the whole of Starlight Express and the first act of Chess before I gave up. And now I'm off to see Sweeney Todd, so it could be worse. But really, if you're lucky enough to be landed with this task in future, hiring a steamer is probably wise. And for the record, professionally, if given the choice, I actually think I'd rather be the other kind of stripper.

Ooh!

I just won a prize! A free consulation with a herbalist thanks to the beautiful people at Firefly Tonics. What fun! Now as well as being perky and giddy, I can have beautiful skin and a healthy digestive system. Or something. I will detail the entire process. Gripping.

TFI Friday

It is a momentous day: my builder has started. Before you know it, my walls will be down, the kitchen will be in, the bathroom will be redesigned and I'll have moved. OK, not quite before you know it - but soon. All being well. I've got to go over there tomorrow to wash down the walls of my bedroom with some sort of anti-fungal solution, so that will be glamorous. And there are several million other things I need to do - but all in all, the cogs have started turning a little faster, we're gathering momentum and I'm feeling pretty positive. Plus I have my second date on Sunday with lovely Mr L'Atelier - we spoke on the phone for 25 minutes last night and I fumbled my words, giggled like a teenager and came across as woefully thick. Hopefully I'll be able to sound slightly more articulate on Sunday - although let's not forget for a moment that I am an amazing catch and he is extremely lucky to be spending an evening in my company.

I've just had a vin-fuelled lunch with some workmates - most people managed to spend the meal engaged in a level of light-hearted banter entirely fitting for a Friday afternoon, but I became embroiled with a Mail-reading colleague who wants to close the borders and was claiming that only one in every eleven births in London was to an English mother. A) Who cares? B) Isn't that why London is great? C) It's almost certainly bollocks. D) If it's true and you don't like it, what on earth are you going to do about it? Waste your life complaining about the status quo? Go ahead - but don't do it while I'm trying to enjoy my lunch - my liberal outrage kicks in and I can't let it lie until you capitulate. Grumble. It fair ruined my scampi and chips, I tell you.

Anyway, things are on the up: I'm off to the gym in a minute to exercise drunkenly, and then out for dinner tonight with at least three people who love a sing-song, at a house with a piano and an exceptional pianist. Sounds like a sure-fire winner to me. A bientot.

Asparagus tips

Now, you know me - I'm not cruel. Well, not really. OK, I am. Sometimes. But never intentionally. However, just this once, I am going to say something that I am aware may be hurtful - yet I strongly believe that this information could be valuable for the greater good and thus its sharing is justified. It's nothing truly awful, just two small tips for any men out there who are trying to impress their ladyfriends. I am sure these pearls will be obvious to most readers but on the offchance that they strike you as novel, here they are:

First - brush your teeth. If there is a nationwide shortage of toothbrushes (and this is the only acceptable excuse), then chew some gum. Do not, I repeat, do not turn up with lunch breath. Just thinking about it makes me want to hurl.

Second - use your cutlery. I'm absolutely not implying that we need the same levels of etiquette expected at Buckingham Palace but eating an asparagus spear by stabbing it in the middle with your fork, lifting it vertically to your mouth and using your lips to bend it into two halves is unacceptable. Especially if the two halves still turn out to be far too long and you have to put down your fork and manually force the dangling section into the dark recesses of your putrid oral cavity.

That's it for now. On their own probably not deal-breakers, but in tandem a hard act to want to revisit.

None of this has anything at all to do with last night, of course. These pieces of advice are totally random, a propos of absolutely nothing, rien, nada and it's entirely coincidental that I went out to dinner at Latium, where they served the pork belly with asparagus. Honest guv'nor.

I have just seen online that the Archbishop of Canterbury says that the introduction of sharia law for British Muslims is inevitable. It's not often that my jaw actually drops, but it just did. Fortunately, along with my jaw, interest rates have also dropped so my mortgage payments will be about 30p cheaper each month. Increased religious segregation in Britain is apparently unavoidable but I can still afford to live here. High five!

Reality frights

OK. You know when something seems like a really good idea, and then you think, 'Hang on, am I just getting carried away?' and so you really think about it, and you decide that no, you really are sure that it's a good idea, and then it happens and even though you double-checked that you were sure about it, when it actually happens, you're like, 'Shit.'? Well that happened to me yesterday when a contact from our New York office was emailing me about the New York Half Marathon and explaining that booking doesn't actually open until about three months before the event, and I was complaining and saying that it's really hard because you a) don't know whether to start training and b) don't know whether to book your flights and if you leave them to 12 weeks before they'll be much more expensive. And then, quick as a flash, she emailed back and said that if I couldn't get in through the normal channels then she had a contact who would definitely get me a place. And suddenly, just like that, I appear to be committed to running a half marathon at the end of July. I know, I know, I said I was going to do it. But still, I'm slightly in shock. I've run for 45 minutes with no training whatsoever. Surely running for 2.5 hours won't be that much harder? Oh god. I'm going to die, aren't I? Well, at least I'll die in New York - there's a certain glamour to that which will console me as I lie sweating on the pavement in Central Park, metres from the starting line, and start to see my life flash before my eyes.

Sticking with the US of A, Super-Duper Tuesday has been and gone and really, none of us are much the wiser. Still, I'm seeing someone for dinner tonight who is bringing along a selection of polling data from the Democratic nomination process so we will analyse that and perhaps I'll be full of gripping insight tomorrow. What I do know is that, of those polled, over double the number of respondents felt that Hillary would cope better with the economy than Obama - so given yesterday's bad financial news and negative predictions, that's surely a boost for HRC. But it's certainly not over yet. In other news, Tesco have just announced their first £1.99 chicken which makes me feel wrong inside. I drank too much white wine last night, had a boozy lunch this afternoon and may well indulge in an alcoholic beverage this evening. Combined with my carb-heavy food intake of late, my post-work trip to the gym will have to be extra-efficient. And Laura and I have spent the last ten minutes discussing which animals we're going to have in the Baby Animal Petting Zoo that we are going to set up under my desk for quiet moments during the working day. Top of our Wish List at present are a baby panda, a baby polar bear and a box of Dalmatian puppies. Any submissions welcome.

I'm not complaining, but...

I know I'm lucky. Less than a year after I started my job, I'm a home-owner. But this limbo period is driving me slightly nuts. I've owned the flat since 27 December; six weeks later, I'm yet to spend a single night there. The builder is starting on Friday and will take three further weeks - but even then it's not over as I'll still have more painting, carpet laying and physical moving to do. In the meantime, I'm absolutely shattered as my sleep quality has plummeted to the point where all I seem to do is doze lightly for six hours while having bizarre and disturbing dreams, which hardly seems worth the effort. The last holiday I went on was in May and we had something like four sunny days out of fourteen. I had a trip to Lanzarote booked in September but that didn't materialise. And now, thanks to the 'luxury' of home-ownership, I will now never be able to afford a holiday again. OK, I am complaining. Just pigeonhole me next to those people who preface every single remark they make with 'I'm not being funny, but...' and then continue to say something that is so mundane that all living organisms for miles around pass out through passive boredom.

Don't get me wrong, there is much to celebrate in my existence. Ooh blimey, the trading floor is getting shouty, what's going on? [Cranes neck] None the wiser. Will check the Guardian online. Nope, still nothing on the news sites. [Minutes later, Twix in hand] OK, I just asked Joe who kindly explained that some monthly Industry/Manufacturing number has just been released in the States and it's massively massively lower than predicted. All the graphs on his screens looked like cliff edges. Clearly the US is in an even bigger financial mess than expected. Will this impact on Super Tuesday? Or my mortgage repayments? Apparently this number came out an hour earlier than expected because it was going to be leaked - so you're getting this hot off the press. Maybe I'll be made redundant and then I can sneak in a quick holiday before I have to face up to penury.

Feeling snoozy

After a heady few days, I was so excited I couldn't sleep last night and ended up writing on my other blog until the wee hours. Then I had very weird dreams about being kissed by my boss and then doing a runner from work and spending the afternoon shopping in a huge mall that had the exact same layout as the house we all stayed in during our first year at boarding school. This morning I thought I might be legally entitled to stay in bed until the second equinox, such was the height of my exhaustion levels. Somehow I managed to drag myself vertical and made it into work, where the minutes ticked by and my exuberance faded until finally it was time for the gym and then choir. Now I am back in bed, a shadow of my former self, not low but not high and looking forward to a full night's sleep. My only pre-slumber quandary is whether or not to indulge in the 'handy' lunchbox-sized packet of oat biscuits in my handbag, given that I've already brushed my teeth. Leaving the Egyptian cotton and padding downstairs to rebrush is utterly out of the question, so it's either going to bed hungry or going to bed with crumb-mouth. Choices, choices.

Feeling groovy

After a tough week, my perkiness levels were fully replenished last night with a spectacular meal at the impeccable L'Atelier de Joel Robuchon in Covent Garden, where I was lucky enough to be treated to the unforgettable tasting menu and accompanying wines by a young man. Now, obviously, I'm not particularly fussed whether he keeps in touch because I am extremely desirable and have many hundreds of eligible bachelors queuing to take me out for similar dining experiences. Plus I am perfectly happy on my own, yadda yadda. But completely off the record, I'd quite like to see him again. To redress the financial balance, I'd offered to buy us cocktails in the upstairs bar beforehand - I had one called a Peach Bison which I ordered partially because the name made me laugh, but apparently it's pronounced Bee-son, not Buy-son, which wasn't nearly so funny. Our drinks were served on black napkins and a red rose petal. Nice.

Today I woke up with a spring in my step and bounced off for a run down by the river where I managed to jog continuously for almost 45 minutes. This was momentous. Then I went into town and was worthy, and now I'm back home in bed feeling exhausted but extremely happy. Isn't it nice when you feel in need of a little pick-me-up and one comes along?

In a visual echo of this, I was on the bus earlier and spotted this jolly addition to a slightly dour message - somehow the young mother and elderly gent look slightly less disgruntled with huge smiles scratched onto their otherwise blank visages although their demonic eyes are a little threatening. I do love the ankle detail on the lady too - some sort of pixie boot perhaps? Or maybe an electronic tag from a recent stint in the clink. Shame that the toddler's smaller face was too tiny for detail - instead the child has been scarred/bisected for eternity, a helpless victim of modern graffiti. Having had two glasses of wine in the pub this evening, I was feeling a bit blurry and possibly weirded out the two other passengers by singing along to the Alto 2 part of Frank Martin's Mass a little louder than I should have done. Now I'm off to sleep - it may only be 10.40pm but I think I could sleep for several decades; there's lots to do tomorrow and a bumper episode of American Idol to watch so I need to be perfectly fresh for that. A bientot.

DIY Day 5: Retail therapy

As the trite fridge magnet says, when the going gets tough, the tough go shopping. Having had about enough of painting and admin and phonecalls and delivery men for one lifetime, today I went to Homebase to buy a sink. In order to fit in with my builder's schedule, I need to find my bathroom sink in the next week to ten days. Of the three or four I found in Homebase that I liked, the quickest they could get me one was in 4-6 weeks. So I sighed, picked up some extra paint, bought some smoke alarms and a doormat and a light for my kitchen and went on my merry way. This afternoon I went to Habitat where I found a fantastic mirror for above my fireplace and some picture frames. Much more fun than shouting down the phone at the Sky installation 'team'.

Plus, when you're decorating at home, you don't get to witness the Great British Public's unique sense of humour, amply demonstrated this morning in the Signs and Lettering aisle at Homebase: