Whatever next

The problem with doing something as accidentally funny as sending your boss to a strip club is that nothing else seems worth writing about. Also I have undergone a substantial, Nietzsche-driven epiphany over the past few weeks, and have become unimaginably calm about existence, which means that my usual ability to ramble on for thirty eight paragraphs detailing my intense self-loathing has evaporated. I'd explain what's changed although I think it might ruin it. Plus I don't think I can say it better than Gary Cox, and wholeheartedly recommend his concise, funny, life-changing book to anyone with a vague interest in a) facing up to reality and b) managing to be pretty happy while accepting the inherent absurdities. Am now whipping through the Pulitzer Prize-winning The Denial of Death by Ernest Becker, which is so good that I regularly start underlining a pertinent phrase and then, ten lines later, realise I should probably stop if I don't want to be drawing disappointingly wonky lines in black biro over the entire book. And, while the contents are amazing, there is also the added bonus that getting out an oversized cream-coloured tome emblazoned with The Denial of Death while standing on a packed Northern Line train - well, it does give one a bit of a frisson.

So yeah, I'm actually kind of happy. I'm in my own little world but it's the best one I've got. I've been off anti-depressants for several months, I've been through a (minor) break-up without completely breaking down, and following a period of intense vulnerability, I'm now in the process of winding up my therapy. It's been almost exactly a year since I started with my current lady and the journey's been extraordinary (for me), painful (for me, my parents and my friends) and worthwhile. I could obviously find many hours of stuff to blather on to her about each week from now until the end of time, but there's something in me that wants to go it alone for a bit. I guess I feel like it's now a luxury rather than a requirement, and besides, it'll be nice to save the money (read: buy more neon vest tops). I'm positive I'll be back at some point but right now, I'm counting down to Glasto and looking forward to life being a bit simpler for a while.

However, when you take into account the fact that I don't really have much to say about the inside of my head any more and that, post-AV referendum, my interest in politics has fallen like Cheryl Cole out of Air Force One (assuming of course that the Americans had strapped loads of those scuba diving weights onto Cheryl as otherwise she'd just waft gently down to earth like a sycamore seed), then you might begin to wonder (as I have) what in the name of all that is irrelevant or self-absorbed I will find to write about ever again. I know that issues like the NHS and the schools system are still vital, but somehow it's hard to care since the way that parties get elected is so very different to the way they have to govern, and such a small percentage of the country has the power to change anything. It's like getting emotionally involved with a heroin addict - you always end up getting hurt. We get the politicians we deserve, and I think I'm going through a period of educated stropping.

So I'm spending my time not reading the papers, not thinking about myself in particular, not worrying about very much at all, just getting things organised, hoping the sun keeps shining, trying not to eat pizza more than once a day, telling myself that my ganglion operation tomorrow will be fine and wondering whether asking if I can watch is a good idea. It's been inside my hand for so long, though - who can blame me for being curious about its extraction? I think it will be smooth and white, like a baby quail's egg. Ew. The amuse bouche from hell: ganglions with mustard salt.

On that delightful suggestion, I'll let you get on. Not sure when I'll be typing again, or what I will think of to write about given that my two main muses have left me, but perhaps I'll think of something and will be able to dictate to a minion. Alternatively if there's a topic you feel I should be addressing, inspiration is always welcome. Happy Wednesday.

On your masks

I am not a Buddhist, nor do I aspire to be one, but this article by the Dalai Lama is one of the simplest, warmest, most encouraging messages I've read in a long time. On this day, allegedly the most miserable of the year (nice to get it over with so quickly), I heartily recommend reading it if you can make time.

I, of course, am already fully signed up to its messages, and it is perhaps for that reason that, as I strode through the clattering rain on my way to work this morning, I felt positively buoyant. I had a really lovely weekend. This would normally be where I'd list all my engagements in a nonchalant manner, achievements masquerading as activities, trying to persuade myself (and maybe even you) that I am worthy. But that's the Old Jane. This weekend, I'm happy to tell anyone who cares that I didn't do very much at all. I was meant to go out on Friday night, but I didn't. I'd never intended to go out on Saturday night, and I stuck to that plan. And although I went round to my friends' house for a delicious Sunday lunch, I was back at home by 6pm for a third consecutive evening with myself. It was wonderful OH MY GOD IF THAT MAN SITTING NEAR ME DOESN'T STOP CLEARING HIS THROAT IN THAT UNBEARABLE FASHION I WILL HAVE TO RIP OUT HIS LARYNX. See. I told you I was zen.

I'll admit, I did have one task booked for the weekend, and it was a blinder - on Saturday morning at 10:30am I was in Brick Lane for a one day Introduction to Sewing Machine Skills course and I totally loved it. I made a skirt! Not a REAL skirt, it actually fit round one of my thighs, but it had seams, and a hem, and a waistband, and a CONCEALED ZIP. I am like Kirstie Allsop but without her bank balance or her penchant for Smythson. From now on I will be making cushion covers like there's no tomorrow. If you are my friend, you may as well accept now that your birthday present will be square and squashy; if you have a fabric or pattern preference, I take requests. I am like a wedding DJ, only with soft furnishings instead of records.

But that was it. Sewing, admin, reading (I finished Hearts & Minds by Amanda Craig which was impressive but occasionally fairly unconvincing), eating, jogging - oh my god, jogging! Nike+ have released a new version of their app that works with GPS. It also syncs with Facebook, so if you choose to do so, you can tell your friends that you've started your run, and then if they 'like' that status while you're out, you get a motivational cheer in your headphones. How amazing is that?! Someone liked my status, but not til I got back, so I missed the cheer. :( I still ran though, for the first time since I hurt my leg and yelped like a beaten Labrador last year, so I'm pleased with myself.

This morning I got up early and did thirty minutes of Pump with Davina McCall. Then I was afflicted by the occasional, unexpected but always-paralysing condition, 'I can't decide what to wear' and then the tubes were a nightmare but I am now reading Nothing To Envy, a report about real lives in North Korea and it is FASCINATING so I was thrilled when the train stopped in the tunnel. I'm going to leave work shortly because I initiated a large group gathering for this evening, and off-handedly suggested the theme of 'masks' and then forgot to bring my cardboard Gordon Brown one that I had leftover from last year's election party, so now I've got quite excited about going to Angel's in Covent Garden before they close at 5.30pm and getting a ridiculously big feathery one, or maybe a catwoman one, even though I am pretty much certain that no one else will have remembered their masks either so basically I'll be in a Green Park pub on a Monday wearing an elaborate facial accessory while everyone else just looks damp and miserable. But still. A theme's a theme.

Catwoman: "White Russian. No ice. No vodka. Hold the Kahlua." Purr.

'Sup

Hmmm, odd. Don't know what happened there. One minute you couldn't shut me up, the next I totally lose interest. Not that my life's dried up, by any means. Edited highlights of the last few days include:

• Saturday's trip to the ukulele hootenanny, including a run-in with mad Paul who muttered something under his breath about me and, when I asked him to clarify, said, "Nothing, nothing," in a way that meant, "I dream of your death."
• My first ever collection from Freecycle - I have donated many items in the past but never gained anything. What was the object that was so desirable for me that I got up and left my house especially to pick it up from a house under five minutes' walk away? A pair of bowling shoes. Yup. I have enough cupboard space to squeeze in another couple of matchboxes, and I collect free bowling shoes, despite the fact that a) every bowling lane offers shoe hire included in the price; b) that I bowl less than once every two years on average; and c) I am literally crap at it so turning up with my own shoes will be a bit like taking driving lessons in a Mercedes Gullwing. Madness.
• With meditation becoming ever trickier at work, I discovered our office prayer room and have tentatively walked back and forth to it, past the HR department, hating the fact that they all think I am now a Christian or something. Urgh. The prayer room itself is said to be 'laid out in an appropriate way'. I had imagined perhaps some chairs, a little altar, and space for prayer mats. Instead it's just an empty room with a whiteboard on one wall, upon which an arrow, drawn in green pen, indicates the direction of Mecca. In a corner are three or four prayer mats folded into quarters, but they haven't moved since I've been in there. It's definitely a Muslim prayer room, not a multi-faith area. And I'd definitely feel like quite a dick if anyone walked in and caught me sitting on the carpet concentrating on relaxing my neck and shoulders. Beats trying to get zen while sitting next to a shrapnel pooer, though.
• I've read two brilliant books: And When Did You Last See Your Father? and George Orwell's essay collection, Books vs. Cigarettes, a small but immaculate selection of thoughts, ranging from reading to press freedom to school recollections and the snobbishness inherent in children. Both highly recommended.
• I saw a film, Sweet Smell of Success, which was good but not brilliant. I don't get why people fancied Tony Curtis. I think he looks like a waxwork.

That's all for now.

Also:

Props to the ever-reliable NewsArse! for this pert summary of the problem with the Tories' pathetic schools policy:

I’ll run the best school ever - until my child leaves, confirm parents
Parents across the country have reacted positively to the Government’s plans to let them run their own schools, claiming they will run the best school this country has ever seen, right up until the point that their child leaves, when they will probably lose interest. Felicity Downing, a parent keen on the scheme said, “Yes, I will dedicate my life to making this new school the very beacon of educational excellence, right up until my Sophie gets her GCSEs. Then I’ll obviously want to sell off the land in the hope of saving about £20 on my council tax bill.”

But just to even things out with a bit of anti-LibDem material, I have just finished The Leopard by Tomasi di Lampedusa, a fantastic novel that I bought because I found out it is Nick Clegg's favourite book. The writing is unquestionably brilliant throughout and I haven't underlined so many beautifully-observed phrases since I read What A Carve Up!, but this passage about the qualities necessary to govern, in particular, made me smile:

"...what would the Senate do with me, an inexperienced legislator who lacks the faculty of self-deception, essential requisite for anyone wanting to guide others. We of our generation must draw aside and watch the capers and somersaults of the young around this ornate catafalque. Now you need young men, bright young men, with minds asking 'how' rather than 'why', and who are good at masking, at belnding I should say, their obvious personal interests with vague public ideals."

Cleggshell.

Problems? Yep. Solutions? Not so much.

FFS. The news in this country may be one of the most free on the planet, and I do count us lucky, but seriously, when The Guardian editor picks this as a recommendation, I do despair. Seriously? This is what is important right now? Which decade healthy, happy, becoupled women should choose to get up the duff? ARGH.

I'm emailing a guy at the moment who's an education journalist and briefly hinted at my feelings of depression re. the academies situation. He said he'd always assumed the Tories would get in, so he's been thinking of it as a depressing reality for months now - but he agreed that it is an appalling idea. This from someone who comments on education policy for his full-time job.

And now I'm reading a book - a brilliant book, mind - about South Africa, called Ways of Staying by Kevin Bloom, a Jewish South African whose liberal nature struggles to come to terms with the murder of his cousin. I didn't understand the title at first, but turns out it's about how to remain in a country when, all around, there are so many signs that you should leave. The writer is enviably observant, putting in crisp details about, for example, interviewees' hand gestures and plate management, all of which paints an extraordinarily vivid picture. The country's certainly beautiful, and certainly interesting, but... I'm getting the picture that it's a dark, bloody mess. We're discussing it next week at book club, and with several members of our group connected personally to SA, I fear it may be a fairly feisty evening. I will take my mace.

My fictional husband is going to cheat on me. Africa's crumbling. The global economy's a disaster. China's human rights are appalling. The middle east is as corrupt as it's possible to be. Pakistan is bubbling. Iran has The Bomb and isn't scared to use it. The UK is moving into a new era of educational segregation. There is awful stuff happening in Jamaica. And I still firmly believe that all we can do is work to collapse the gap between rich and poor. Poverty in itself does not drive people to violence and other crimes. Inequality does. I read about South Africa and feel sick to think of all us Western tourists driving from airconned hotel to fenced-in restaurant when there's so much darkness and hatred a stone's throw away. But it's here too. The violence is not as bad, thankfully, but the envy, the anger is here too. The difference is, we haven't been colonised recently. Not since the Romans.

But am I working to collapse the inequality gap? Erm. No. Far, far from it. And instead of confronting this, I wiggle my big beak further down into the sand and enjoy the feelings of the hot grains moving in between the feathers on my neck and head.

Anyway. So the macro state of affairs is all a bit depressing. In happier (micro) news, from inside the Bubble of Denial... I learned how to play Don't You Want Me by The Human League at ukulele class last night, my mail-order tent arrived and Glasto is less than four weeks away. Phew.

Dreams can come true (just hopefully not these ones)

Waking up early on a weekend morning and knowing I can go back to sleep is one of my favourite things in all the world. However, for complex reasons that I'll happily bore you with another time, I believe that when I am a bit stressed in real life, my dreams become more stressful as a result. This morning was a case in point. This is a very brief sample of what was running through my REM-riddled mind at around 10am today: Scene 1 - Meet up with a schoolfriend of yore in some random bed showroom in a suburban town in France, end up going back to a motel and having vivid, graphic, lesbian sex - it is my first time with another girl but not hers and I am rubbish. She gets annoyed, reasonably. Scene 2 - I am with a guy. We're in the back of a pickup truck with rucksacks, I think we've just been to a festival. It is night time and very warm, and I'm wearing very dirty clothes. We are hitching a ride with two huge black men who are playing loud garage music and we are both laughing although I know he is uncomfortable so I have butterflies. We are dropped off in a strange town at a swanky hotel, and taken through to our ground floor rooms which have French windows that open on to a private beach and a huge lake. The boy cuts his hand badly on something and I go out into the town and try to find plasters, but I don't speak the language and I have to ask a policeman. He takes me into a toy shop and then a restaurant where the manager gets some plasters out of a first aid kit. I go back to the hotel, put the plaster on the cut and we leave. We go on, with our rucksacks, to a huge house that I think is a family home of his. Everyone in there knows him, but none of them know me. I feel deeply ill-at-ease. He goes upstairs for some reason and a moment later I hear him wailing like a child. I go up and a kid who is, I think, his cousin has thrown water all over him, and he is in another room crying, really screaming. The young cousin takes the over-reaction in his stride and says he's always like that. I try to comfort my wet friend but he pushes me away. Scene 3 - Cut to south west London and the place where I grew up. I am going for a run in the park and I'm carrying my laptop, for some stupid reason. I see my godparents and I don't want to talk to them because I'm feeling ugly, so I pull my hat down over my forehead and pick up the pace. Eventually I get to my destination, my parents' house, although it's not my parents' house really. I go in, run a bath and get in, still holding my laptop, and I try to get my hair wet and hold my laptop above the water with my feet, but I come up from under the water and I see that I didn't hold my feet high enough and the computer has been submerged. I leave it open in an upside-down V on the bathmat. I hear my parents coming in through the front door. I wake up.

It's little wonder I'm always exhausted, is it? Although going out late and drinking lots of wine probably has something to do with it. I looked in my handbag this morning and found a copy of a book called That's Our Baby! by Pamela Browning, which I stole from the pub I was in last night as I thought it was such a hideous affront to women and fiction that I couldn't bear the idea that anyone else would ever read it. I am going to put it in the recycling bin. The blurb on the back reads as follows:

"Unsuspecting Daddy! Sam Harbeck needed his best friend's widow to give him back what was his - the rights to the deposit he'd made to a sperm bank. He'd come to Alaska to get her signature on the release. But he was too late: Kelly Anderson was already pregnant... with his child!

Sam expected a fight from the ever-wilful Kelly, but he didn't anticipate his own overwhelming desire for her... or the emotions her impending motherhood evoked in him. Being snowbound together only intensified his need for this woman. Could he have arrived just in time to be a father to their baby?"

It's not often that words fail me. But those ones did.

Never forgotten

Today's LLFF is brought to you by escapism. I have spent the past 36 hours in a slight haze, but managed to get through yesterday thanks to a backlog of episodes of American Idol, including a gripping Hollywood Week four-part bonanza. And today, despite mental and physical illness, I battled in to work and found my Amazon order had arrived, containing several exciting books (including our next Book Club book and these letters which I can't WAIT to devour) and a new yoga DVD. But the undoubted highlight was volumes 1 and 2 of the Take That hardbacks.

Take That formed in 1990, but I wouldn't have called myself a fan until 1991, when I was 14. It was a slightly tricky time for me: I wasn't doing that well at school, I didn't feel like I had any talent at sport, I was OK at singing and acting but definitely in the B team... I had minimal identity and, as an only child used to walking around my home with a metaphorical spotlight following me, this lack of Ready Brek glow did not sit comfortably. Pop music and American TV gave me something to obsess over - my unbending love of these unknown purveyors of bad songs and bad acting made me feel different. Of course, I didn't think that Take That would find me special. But at school and back in the pub at home, the level of my obsession did make me stand out. Entire friendships were formed on the basis of love for pop culture, friendships with people I still dearly love today (hi Alex!). Good times.

I won't deny that I was a bit mental though. In October 1991, there was a day trip from our boarding school up to Birmingham for the Clothes Show Live! experience. The idea was, we look around, get free makeovers, watch a live catwalk, and then get back in the minibus and return to Wiltshire. Upon arrival at the NEC, my friend Tina and I noticed that Radio One had a roadshow van there. Far more interested in music than clothes, I stuck around, and was soon gobsmacked to find out that Take That would be performing. Forget the models and Jeff Banks in the main arena - here was someone I'd actually heard of. Best of all, when they came on stage, no one else had a clue who these boys were - so when Tina and I were shouting at Jason and Robbie, they could actually hear us and waved. Buoyed, we ran over the edge of the stage when they'd finished performing, and screamed as they ran by. I wasn't sure what I wanted to happen, but it was unexpected to say the least when Robbie, and then Jason, gave me a wet kiss, with tongues, as they ran off towards their changing room. Extraordinary. Even funnier was that Robbie looked at Tina, who, wanting an autograph more than a snog, uttered the immortal line, 'Do you have a pen?' Strangely, he hadn't gone on stage with a biro.

Buoyed further, Tina and I followed 'the lads' to the lifts, where they went up and started shouting at us over a balcony for us to follow. We weren't allowed up in that lift, but managed to sneak up in another one with a cleaner and then spent 45 minutes with the five of them, sitting on the floor and chatting while they gave us their autographs and Howard admired the red bandana I had tied round my wrist (and consequently didn't remove for approx. the next four years). I'll never forget climbing back into the minibus at the end of the day - the other girls looked at Tina and I with shock, disbelief and scorn oozing from every pore. "You missed the CATWALK to meet TAKE THAT?!" they chorused, gobsmacked. "Yup," I said, without a trace of regret.

Five years later, I was at university when the band broke up, and I remember being late for a lecture as a result - urgent conference calls with Eva had been necessary to discuss the announcement and plan for a Take That-free future. I had seen them live five times, waited outside Capital Radio to photograph them when I should have been revising for my GCSEs, and written them countless letters (unsent) explaining why and how they should come to our school to give a unique performance and allow Howard the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to fall for me, the most wonderful, lank-haired, pasty-faced, overly-eyebrowed, awkwardly-curvy, posh-speaking girl he'd never love.

Years after that, in fact, I did finally interview Howard, in a pub in Shepherd's Bush, while he was promoting his DJ career. He was a lovely man, but intensely shy and clearly a lost soul. It's safe to say that we never were, and never will be, a match made in heaven. Still think he's fit though. Funny how life turns out.

Since they reunited, my TT obsession has been more muted. To be honest, I don't like much of their music - although I think Shine is a great track. But I do have a fondness for them that might seem absurd to someone who spent their teenage years grounded in reality. Those boys were, for me, an escape from my life. I wasn't depressed back then, but I wasn't really very happy either, and they gave me a focus and a sense of belonging to something, much as following football has given definition and community to generations of men. I don't need that now, my life is full enough and for that I'm grateful, but I spent a happy hour or two reading those books this afternoon and thinking back to those days when five men in terrible outfits could reduce me to a screaming pulp, and if my Dad forgot to video them on Top of the Pops while I was out at the pub, all hell would break loose. God I was a nightmare.

Handle with care

Today's blog is dedicated to my friend Sarah, who recommended I read The Road by Cormac McCarthy, and to whom I am eternally grateful for the experience. Bloody hell is it one heck of a blinder. I was gripped throughout, heart in throat stuff, even though not much happens in the wasteland, and I finished it on Saturday afternoon while I was at Nicole's, surrounded by countryside so wonderful it was cliched in its perfection, while four year old Alice came up to me every minute or so to ask if I would tickle her and play with the masks. In the end I had to put her in front of a DVD while I turned the final pages; huge, hot, wet tears dropping over my lower eyelid and splashing onto my jumper. What a truly original novel, inspiring, bleak and yet hopeful, forces us to be so grateful for the absurd gifts we have, beautiful, sparse prose style, literally the opposite to anything I could ever write. I absolutely freaking loved it.

My weekend at Nicole's was restoratative, replenishing my sleep supply as well as the size of my thighs. Now I am back in the smoke where I belong, and feeling quite perky having actually managed to get up when my alarm went off this morning. I did half an hour of yoga (my standing forward bend has suffered as a result of non-practice over the past week or so) and am now at my desk, counting down the minutes until I can run out of here like a greyhound out of the traps and head into town for choir practice. I'm feeling extremely perky about the next few weeks, full of beans about 2010 and the only thing that's slightly floored me is an email from Kate showing photographs of the world's most romantic marriage proposal ever, where photo one shows a very pretty girl walking along with her boyfriend on their way to Brixton tube to go to work, and then you see them looking up at the front of the Ritzy cinema, and it says both their names, and then 'The Proposal', and then the next photo she's gobsmacked, then he's down on one knee, and she's crying, and then they're hugging, and then they turn smiling to the photographer, who's the groom's brother, who's been snapping all along from across the road, and they wave, and it just blew me away. I know, I know, relationships aren't all hearts and flowers, but I'm over-emotional, Cormac's made me worried that the end of the world is nigh, and I feel like being kissed by a nice boy who doesn't namecheck Houdini in his list of romantic heroes.

Married to the city

Last night, I went on a date. On paper, it was pretty fantastic: he was handsome and funny, he asked lots of questions, laughed at my jokes, had booked a very romantic table in a really nice restaurant and insisted on picking up the tab. Also lovely is the fact that he really wants to meet up again. Not so good is the fact that I don't.

Despite being lots of totally ace things, he was... and I'm afraid there is no easy way of saying this... he just wasn't clever enough. Before you spit out your oatcake at my arrogance, read me out. I don't give a flying expletive where he went to university or even if he did or not, I don't care if he doesn't have two GCSEs to rub together. It's not about spelling or grammar or intellect. It doesn't matter if he spent his twenties living in a squat smoking pot and playing the bongos. What does matter is how he spends his time now. Is he reading and writing and thinking and growing? Or is he bumbling? Because if it's the latter, then I can try as hard as I like, but I guarantee I'll never fancy him.

The other day, someone asked what qualities my ideal man would have, and I repeated the line from my online profile about him being 'slightly taller, slightly cleverer and slightly quirkier than I am', and the guy I was talking to asked how I would know that he's cleverer than me. I said it comes down to whether he can beat me in an argument. If that's not possible, then the power balance is all wrong, and when the initial honeymoon period is over, I'll take him DOWN, motherfucker. Can't help it.

This guy was very kind and nice. But he doesn't read, he doesn't write, he doesn't vote and he couldn't agree that skiing is slightly elitist, justifying its prohibitive expense on the basis that it protects the environment and that it would be 'ruined' if everyone did it. This morning, he texted me saying he enjoyed the fact that I was so challenging, which, along with "I wish Sarah Palin had won" and "I prefer Strictly" is pretty much the quickest way to put me off you. Sure, it's OK for a girl to challenge a guy, but at least half of the challenging has to come from the guy. Them's the rules.

Saturday night got me worked up too. Kate and I went to the depths of Westbourne Park for Book Slam!, a monthly event that bills itself as London's first/best/only literary nightclub. I was hoping for a bit of original thought and we were both disappointed by the staggeringly conventional stand-up host, Robin Ince, and the performance poet whose name I've forgotten, neither of whom said a single thing that wasn't wholly derivative. Then there was music from a disappointing choir and a girl with a beautiful voice but sub-Alicia Keys songs who's never going to make it big. The evening's sole highlight was the fascinating Lionel Shriver, who read excerpts from two of her books and dealt with Kate's and my gushing praise with cold-faced disinterest. Normally I wouldn't dare approach someone like her at a public event, but she seemed to be hating the proceedings even more than I was, so I remain cockily hopeful that we were a welcome interruption. The evening was as suffocatingly prosaic as a BBC costume drama, and while I sat inwardly tutting throughout, I did at least feel vindicated that, while I will never feel like I truly belong among the hipsters of East London, I definitely feel more at home with a few weirdos than in the safe and sterile confines of the W postcodes.

I tell you where I was very happy indeed, however - at the Roundhouse on Friday night, watching this year's selection of cabaret by La Clique. Featuring nudity, juggling, comedy, acrobatics, crap magic, impressions and rollerskating, I laughed my tights off and would happily pay £22 to see the whole thing again tomorrow. It's on until 17 January so if anyone fancies a New Year pickmeup, give me a shout. Of course, it always helps if you're sitting there with someone fantastic, and Thom's cackles definitely kept me smiling. Throw in dinner afterwards at a delicious pub, and a couple of narrowly-avoided fights in a grotty Camden boozer, and it was pretty much my perfect night out. London: I love you.

Title suggestions welcome

Last night I went home and sat on my sofa and, for the following two hours, read What I Loved by Siri Husvedt until I came to the end. I don't think I've done that since I moved into my flat. Reading is something that I do when I've finished everything else - or when there's nothing else I can be doing i.e. on the tube. What's annoying is that it now must seem like the book I was reading was especially remarkable, but it wasn't - it was smug and self-aware and irritating. But, in much the same way that I read The Da Vinci Code in a matter of consecutive hours, I wanted to find out what happened. A gripping plot is an amazing achievement, something that manages to fight through all manner of literary irritants. Also compelling was the fact that three separate friends had told me to read the book, and warned me that it gets quite dark in its latter stages. Pulse racing and compulsively determined to 'win' in some way, I spent pretty much every page trying to pre-empt the darkness, guessing and guessing and guessing, and then I finished the book. Turns out that what I call dark is a bit darker than what they call dark. Not that I thought it was a romcom or anything, but in my head I had the dad becoming a paedophile with his best friend's underage son. That didn't happen.

I sat on my sofa for a few minutes after I'd finished the final page and tsked my way through the acknowledgements, and I think I've pretty much decided that I will never write a novel. I just don't know or care enough about any one thing to focus on it for months of my life. I love the flippancy of a blog, the immediacy and the disposability. We all change constantly; at the moment I find it hard to be committed to these entries for longer than the few seconds it takes me to write them, and I don't allow myself to come back and edit them - they are truly immediate, normally produced in around a quarter of an hour, churned out and forgotten about. I like that rush. And certainly, the idea of pulling together the first draft of a novel is electrifying in a completely different way, a marathon as opposed to a sprint, but the truth that, even if it goes brilliantly, I will still be churning out rewrites in a year's time - well, the claustrophobia is so strong I can smell it. I can't promise I'll still like my shoes tomorrow morning, nor my haircut, my job or my friends - how can I possibly guarantee that I'll still be interested in the same story in twelve months? I posted a question about book writing on Twitter and Facebook, and had a gratifying number of encouraging messages from friends, but only one from a published author, who told me not to bother. I think she's right. I'll stick to the short stuff. Can't someone just publish this blog somewhere?

Meanwhile, in Matters of the Heart, I have been emailing (amongst others) a deeply unsuitable guy over the past few days. He sent me a message on Wednesday afternoon, babbling away perfectly happily and asking a couple of questions, as you do. I logged on to the site yesterday afternoon and wrote a (brilliant) reply, and pressed send. I was then taken to an unfamiliar page with a no entry sign on it, and an error message that read 'This user has chosen to block you. Please respect their wishes.' My jaw dropped. In a moment of uncharacteristic cockiness, I immediately concluded that he must have done it in error. The guy chatters away like he's on smack, I'm pretty sure that he is a likely candidate for accidentally pressing buttons on his computer that block people on dating sites. Still, my ego wanted to know, so like any good sleuth, I asked Sara (who is also on the site, and who he hadn't yet blocked) to email him and tell him that he had accidentally blocked me. She did. He unblocked me and apologised. Now, of course, I look like I really like him, which is annoying, because I don't. But I'd rather be emailing an unsuitable smack addict than be blocked by one for no reason. So all's well that ends well.

I'm off to sing beautifully and then watch 2012. Dreading it.

Just FYI

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

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

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

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

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

THE END

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

How many people are in a group?

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

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

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

I HATE Boden.

School ties

On Wednesday, eight of us were at Mills' house for book club (reading the highly recommended - I probably say that every time, but it really is - Dreams from my Father, by the POTUS) and, even by our standards, were struggling to stay on topic. About five minutes into the discussion, Charlotte had already veered off into chatting about Kerry Katona and Jordan, and try as I might to wrench her back onto the straight and narrow subject of racism and black identity, it wasn't long before we were reminiscing about our final years at school and trying to remember whose room was next to whose. Only half joking, I jumped in with both feet, saying, "Let's do a floor plan!" and was secretly thrilled when Mills leapt up as if electrocuted and rushed around supplying pens and scrap paper. Two phonecalls later (including one to a furious Kate, who couldn't have been more livid to be missing the nostalgia-fest), we had it sorted - all fifty-odd of us and which tiny rooms we'd occupied in a boarding school house in south-west England fourteen years ago. The joy we derive from reminiscing may be understandable, but it never fails to surprise me: the same stories still bring tears of helpless mirth to my eyes. No matter how many times I remember Lisa's desperate voice coming through the wall between our rooms, less than thirty minutes before our A Level religious studies exam on John's gospel, asking, "Jaaaane, what's the logos?", a question whose answer had formed the entire basis of two years' study, I still feel the giggles welling up. Shared experience: you can be a loner all you want, you can be truly independent, you can avoid any hint of neediness like the plague, you can be self-sufficient 'til the cows come home, and you won't get hurt so much, and you won't spend as much money, and you won't be so vulnerable - but I guarantee you won't piss yourself laughing so much either.

Andrew the Glastocrush has an important meeting on Monday and as a surprise, I thought I'd get him a new shirt and tie. I can write about this here without ruining the surprise since, as far as I know, he has not yet discovered LLFF. Anyway, so, earlier this afternoon I popped away from my desk and went to the local branch of a swanky shirt-and-tie sellers, and selected two possible shirts, and two possible ties. Then I ditched one of the shirts, and armed with one shirt and two ties, I walked over to a shop assistant who was helping a male customer over by the braces. "Excuse me," I asked in my most polished Helpless Female voice, "but I'd like a male opinion. My boyfriend [I think he is my boyfriend, we discussed it briefly last night, TBC etc. etc., but for reasons of clarity and simplicity I didn't feel the need to go into the complexities of are-we-aren't-we in TM Lewin] has a job interview on Monday. Which of these do you think is best?" I proffered the white shirt and the plain, sky blue tie with subtle herring-bone weave, and the plain purple silk tie in front of them. Like all right-minded people, I think I have impeccable taste, and was expecting both men to deliberate for some time, so befuddled would they be by the brilliance of my choices. So I was little short of deeply offended when they both scrunched up their eyes and sneered slightly at my selection.
"Definitely not the purple," said the assistant. The customer nodded vigorously.
"So the blue?" I asked.
"Weeeelll, it's better than the purple," he said, visibly uncomfortable.
"Where's the interview?" asked the customer. I explained. He looked more pained.
"What about something with a stripe?" he suggested.
"But isn't stripes so conservative and boring? So old school?"
"But you don't want to take any risks," said the customer.
"You're telling me that a plain blue tie is risky?" Suddenly I understood how out of their depth men feel when buying clothes for women. All my certainties evaporated. I trotted back to the tie display and selected four unbelievably boring striped ties in varying shades of inoffensive. I carried them, with the shirt, back to the assistant, who was now helping a different man.
"Please tell me that one of these is OK," I said. Immediately, he discarded two. It is inconceivable that they could have made any sort of impression. I can't even remember what colours they were, and this only happened a few minutes ago. Nonetheless, I was now left with a navy-with-white stripe and a maroon-with-white stripe. If someone had worn either of those things to meet me, I'd have wept silently in anticipation of the vacuous, characterless conversation that would inevitably follow. Clearly, however, the discussion wasn't over.
"What colour is his suit?" asked customer two, eager to get involved.
"Navy," I said.
"Well, go with the maroon then," he said, as if any other choice would make me of questionable intellect. "If you get the wrong shade of navy, it could look terrible. Maroon is less risky."
For a lot of men operating in the financial capital of Europe, if not the world, they are very risk-averse. I blame the credit crunch. Thankfully it has not yet had any impact on my own sartorial selections. Updates as they come in.

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.

Bitch club

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

Lost looking for meaning

I think it's probably completely normal to be a bit up and down. In fact, I know it is. But things do feel rather out of control at the moment. Which is zero fun. What was particularly perturbing was seeing several photos of me, taken at close range by a girl sitting directly on my left at a party last Friday night, where I appear to have no discernable jawline. My face is straight from my cheek to my neck, giving me the appearance of a few standard facial features (eyes, nose, mouth etc.) stuck on one massive jowl. A pasty Ms Potatohead, if you will. Then again, things could be worse: at least I don't have to worry about the economy. I was reading a gripping article this morning about the massive figures that are being bandied around, and found out that while a million seconds is the equivalent of 11.5 days, a trillion seconds would take us back 31,709 years to the time of the hunter-gatherers. I had no idea. I mean, why would I? But still. Puts things in perspective a bit.

Talking of ridiculous figures, I was struck by this application form for the East India Club on St. James' Square, which instructs the candidate to agree that, should the Club close while he is a member, he will "contribute to the assets of the Company... a sum not exceeding 12 and a half pence." Quite extraordinary. Rest assured that, even if the club would accept women as members, I am not currently considering applying. Should this change I will alert you.

What else can I tell you? My lip is still numb but sometimes it tingles. I am taking this as a good sign. My chin is still dead to me. Weep. I love my new hairbrush. St Tropez everyday bronzing moisturiser might be quite good. If the woman who sits near my office door cackles like that again I will throw my stapler at her head. The previous sentence constitutes an official written warning and any violent acts I carry out on her from this point on should be considered legally justified. I turned my heating off prematurely last week: it's back on now. The book club book is brilliant and exceptionally humbling. I would have lain down and died on day one. I'm now on the second section, which concerns logotherapy, and have been underlining frantically on the tube. I have discovered that I live firmly within an existentialist vacuum. Which is not good. Not sure how to clamber out. Does one climb out of a vacuum? Or merely pass through? God I'm tired. Hopefully I'll turn a couple more pages and nice Dr. Frankl will reveal my personalised way to meaning, although I don't think that's quite how it works. Sigh. I'm off to the gym shortly. I ran on Monday to the new Prodigy album and I think that the feisty BPM must have made me up my pace as I cut about four minutes off my normal time. Songs aren't much cop in the most part, sadly. I tell you who is good, though, and that's Pete(r) Doherty - his new solo album is great. And I heard the most heartbreaking song from Paul Weller's new album when I was in a shop in Spitalfields yesterday. Must remember to try and find that on iTunes.

Right, that's enough rambling for one Wednesday. I'm off to see babies this evening so must conserve my energy. Laters.

End of the pretence

I may have fooled you, and from time to time, I may even have fooled myself. But sadly, the truth has come up with a pot of hot wax, poured it over my head and ripped it off without any regard for my desire to remain hairy of scalp. I have, I'm afraid, received yet more conclusive evidence that I am Officially Old. A few weeks ago, someone I respect told me quite firmly that I should read The End of the Affair by Graham Greene. Eager to please, I purchased a minty-green Penguin classic copy and began to plough through the pages. I found it exceptionally well-written and easy to read, melancholy and atmospheric and, overall, it is fair to say that I was thoroughly enjoying the experience (as much as is possible with such a profoundly depressing story). Around half way into the novel, I had a very feint sense that I may have seen a film of the book. A particular scene seemed slightly familiar, but I was certain that the pages either side were virgin territory, so I moved on quickly and thought no more of it.

Until a couple of days ago, that is, when I was lying on my sofa, feeling sorry for myself and staring absent-mindedly at the opposite wall, and my eyes alighted upon a particular book on my shelf. Immediately, I flushed with shame as I knew precisely what it was: my original Vintage Classic copy of The End of the Affair. Gingerly, I stood up, crossed the room and easily opened the slightly dog-eared cover. Tragically, there was no denying that it had been read, and by me - looking at some of the sentences and phrases I'd underlined, I was clearly in my Obsessed With Jonathan Coe's What A Carve Up! phase, which was around the time I was finishing at university. Yes, less than a decade ago, I'd read the book. Properly, from cover to cover. I'd made notes. I'd appreciated it. And then I had, almost entirely, forgotten it.

What was particularly curious for me was that there were two passages that I had highlighted as being particularly resonant in both copies. So from the late nineties to the late noughties, between my early twenties and my early thirties, the things that strike me as cool haven't changed much. I don't know if that's reassuring or depressing.

Either way, I have achieved a new milestone: I have read and digested an entire book without realising I had read it before. I am old. My memory sucks. But hey, on the upside, I don't need to buy any more reading matter - I can just start again on the stuff I've already got. It's greener and it'll save me money. Every penny counts and all that. Sigh.

Celebrate good times, come on

So the big news is that this is LLFF's 300th posting. Yup. In the 25 months since I started this blog, I've recorded random, disconnected stuff precisely 300 times. I've been unemployed, I've been busy, I've been bored, I've had two boyfriends and two break-ups, been on holiday to Dubrovnik and the States and Paris, work trips to Amsterdam and New York, minibreaks to Cambridge and Brighton, Bath, Northern Ireland, Devon, Penzance, York, Riga, Edinburgh and Suffolk, and walked from the source of the Thames in Gloucestershire to Oxford. I've seen Mark Ronson and Alistair Campbell, Tony Benn and Rufus Wainwright, The Clientele, Ray LaMontagne, Camera Obscura, Amy Winehouse and a zillion others at Live Earth and Live Eight. I've learned a fair bit about wine tasting and house buying, banking and varicose veins, and a little bit about men and exercise.

I took a look at the tags I've given posts over the years, and I guess it's quite telling. Books, my father, food, friends and the media have all had nine entries. Commuting, geekery, relationships and money are joint with ten. Alcohol, self-obsession, movies and property all scored 11. Music and choir are fittingly joint at 12, along with travel. Boredom and TV are tied together with 13 entries apiece. Office life, a phenomenon which still feels unusual, is alone with 14 entries. Celebrities and London, both subjects close to my heart, have 15 each. DIY sits alone with 16, politics with 19, and my bête-noir, public transport, has 20. Fat and jobs have 21 entries each. The internet has 22. Then things jump forward with my oh-so-common tag, Jane=idiot, having 28 posts, men with 31 and modern life with 35.

So here's to LLFF - written by a man-obsessed, yo-yo dieting mentalist who cares more about DIY than alcohol, more about the internet than money and more about public transport than music. Or maybe that's just what strikes me as interesting at the time.

Anyway, apologies to Tabitha and others for the most recent delay - I was busy and then I became traumatically ill (read: have a cold). Last Wednesday was our book club Christmas party - we'd read Portrait of a Marriage which was fascinating, but unfortunately we were all far too distracted by each other and the Secret Santa that we found very little time to discuss the book as clearly presents and gossip are far more important than intellectual discussion. I went out on Friday night too, to a party full of people I met on an online forum for London lovers, which was crazy and odd and fascinating. I had a delicious portion of microwaved apple and blackberry crumble, which probably shouldn't have been a highlight and perhaps suggests more about my evening than it should. Annoyingly, I caught a cough from some generous individual along the way, as I awoke spluttering on Saturday morning, just a few small hours before our choir's sell-out Christmas extravaganza in Mayfair. Fortunately, the symptoms stayed in check thanks to a few spoonfuls of Benylin (I tried sugar and it did nothing. Practically perfect in every way? Ha! Mary Poppins was just a feeder) and the concert went really well.

Afterwards, the aching and the sweating started in earnest, so rather boringly I ditched the jam-packed pub and headed home with Ed to watch the X Factor final. As with all reality shows, which reliably become less interesting the closer they get to the last moments, it was a fairly unexciting night, the highlight of which was Beyonce's performance of Listen with Alexandra, a moment that felt briefly goosebump-inducing - or perhaps that was just my fever. Hilariously, my V+ timer had issues and the recording cut out in the pause between Dermot saying 'And the winner is...' and making the announcement but I managed to witness the winner's hysteria in full the following morning and cringed into a bent-neck, full-body wince at the full extent of the sobbing and breathlessness. I wish it wouldn't mean so much to them, I really do. Sigh.

Yesterday I lay around with Ed watching TV, making CDs and eating on a continuous sweet/savoury loop, missing out on two very fun-sounding parties in an effort to shake off the bug and not infect anyone else. Now it's Monday evening and I've watched the gripping Sicko by Michael Moore, thanked my lucky stars (again) that I don't live in America, laughed a LOT at Bush having shoes thrown at him in Iraq, sighed at reading about all the midnight laws he's sneaking through before Obama's inauguration, winced to see that Hugh Jackman will be hosting the Oscars, and am now semi-comatose on the sofa after wolfing a gargantuan Thai takeaway in front of University Challenge, barking out the answers I knew through mouthfuls of tempura and noodles. There's another busy week ahead so I'm hoping my batteries will feel semi-charged by tomorrow morning.

So, this is me, 300 entries old, still largely lost, still occasionally looking for fish, but mostly very happy about it, wishing you all excellent health and hoping that you stick with me for the next century. It's going to be great.

Curses

I've just heard that the choice for this year's X Factor winner's victory song - the one all three finalists have to sing in the last show before the victor is decided, the song that will then sail to Christmas number one and break all sorts of UK chart records - is Leonard Cohen's Hallelujah, a near-perfect record that I first heard sung by Jeff Buckley. In fact, forget 'near-perfect', it IS perfect. The song's only flaw is that it ends. What were the producers thinking? It was painful enough when Hallelujah was covered by Buckley's close friend, Rufus Wainwright, who I normally love - but the idea of some squeaky teen belting it out is absolutely appalling. Diana has already yodelled her way through it once this series, but just thinking of Alexandra singing it a la Whitney Houston makes my teeth feel like they are going to spontaneously jump out of my mouth. As my friend Donald said, it'll be like watching someone smash a stained glass window.

It's weird and I'm aware that I'm probably (yes, not for the first time) being vaguely hypocritical. After all, I love the song and I love The X Factor: surely I should be pleased? But I have always been selfish and childishly possessive about music, squirrelling away the songs I love, becoming annoyed or angered when they become popular, whether it's just amongst my friends or among the populus at large. There are few things more infuriating than hearing the middle eight of a tune I adore being played as background music to Goal of the Month on Match of the Day, or noticing that the catchy intro from a much-loved album track is accompanying an ident on Channel 5 (looks with resigned disappointment at Boy Least Likely To, while understanding the appeal of fat cheques). I don't know why I want to keep something as wonderful as a magical song to myself; I guess it's some desire to be special, to have a secret from the others - but it's wrong and, although I'm apologetic, I doubt I'll change.

On another note, I am reading a book about meditation and inner peace at the moment, and it said that as we walk along, we should imagine our feet are kissing the earth. I liked that. That, I will share.

Hair today...?

So I think I may be hungover again. There's something about book club that makes me suck up wine like a knackered camel at an oasis. I don't think I actually drank that much last night but certainly my contributions to our long-awaited conversation about Alistair Campbell's gripping Blair diaries were less meaningful and succinct than I had anticipated. Shame.

I was also distracted by Charlotte's blissful 15 month old daughter, Emily, who had a cold which was brilliant as it meant she couldn't sleep and was allowed to come back downstairs after dinner to entertain us all (and distract us from Alistair). She sat on Charlotte's lap, facing out and staring at us with mesmerising eyes the size of tennis balls, and we played her new favourite game, Hey Pesto, which involved putting her toy rabbit in an empty cardboard brownie box, methodically shutting the lid, then opening the lid and taking out the rabbit. We did this perhaps thirty five times and then we played pass the spoon. Don't ask.

I am panicking because I think the Republicans are going to win the election in the States, thanks to Sarah 'Vlad the Im' Palin. Obama's not helping by calling her a pig though.

And now it's Thursday. This week has flown by in a flurry of social engagements and vanity. After a tricky day yesterday, I tried to alter my hair this morning by blow drying it while hanging my head upside down - I thought this might add some kookiness and 'lift' but instead it looks like I've rubbed it all over with gorse. I may have to start wearing more hats until it grows. Or perhaps I should settle this once and for all and go for a skinhead. Thoughts welcome...