Michael Jackson lied: you ARE alone

Happy Christmas, one and all. Sorry I'm late. It's been a strange few days and I am now trying to help my parents use their three-year-old vinyl-to-mp3 USB turntable, unopened until today, but the software that came with it is so appalling that I challenge its designer to use it without wanting to drag the stylus over his own retina after a handful of seconds. As a sample of the aforementioned crapness, how's this: it installs a handy shortcut icon on your desktop but will double clicking it open the programme? No it will not. How about right clicking and selecting 'Open'? No. How to open the programme? It is impossible - unless you uninstall it and reinstall it from the CD-Rom. Then it works. Oh how handy. I am now listening to Judy Collins' Greatest Hits through the tinny bass-free computer speakers for approx. the sixth time as it has taken several attempts to know if we're recording successfully. My mum is doing sudoku on a sofa a few feet away and keeps absent-mindedly breaking into a tremulous warble before abandoning it, saying, 'Oh, this used to be one of my favourites.'

My latest attempt to record Side B started crackling wildly so I stopped the recording after forty minutes, only to find that there was no record of it on their PC. I have now given up, something I don't find easy but which must be done in order to preserve the functional state of my parents' laptop - the alternative is putting it on the floor and then repeatedly jumping up and down on it in my Fitflop boots until it admits, out loud, that it is at least six thousand times less user-friendly than a Mac.

Vinyl-ripping aside, I have now reached the long-longed-for stage of Winterval where my duties are over. On Christmas Eve the three of us went to the Albert Hall for a carol concert, where we were joined by two of my parents' friends who I've not met before. Seven people came for lunch on the Day Itself, making ten in total. Then yesterday we went to a pub on the river to meet another (much larger) family and then walked back to their house for lunch. It's all been lovely and festive and fun and there have been many laughs, particularly from my dad's ecstatic and near-constant use of his new Britain's Got Talent judges' buzzer, but there's always a sense of relief when all the socialising is over and you know you can don your jeans and your unflattering jumper and not be polite to anyone for the next hundred hours.

But every year, the euphoria fades after around nine minutes and I am soon left feeling listless, yet with a list of things to do and a hangover. This year's list includes a) teaching myself how to transfer vinyl to my parents' PC, a fairly bearable task that pales into heaven beside task b), teaching my parents how to transfer vinyl to their PC, which may as well be labelled Inevitable Armageddon. Since I haven't yet managed to complete stage a), I've been spared stage b), but still feel like I've let the side down. Countless others complaining about the shit software online won't console my parents, who've been gestating this project excitedly for a long time, desperately keen to ditch the records to create valuable storage space for their burgeoning collection of old bedside lamps, blankets and Eighties skiwear. I had also allocated these days to: writing, learning how to use my sewing machine, practicing my ukulele and clearing out my Gmail inbox - a selection of chores that wouldn't be misery-inducing, except that my parents are constantly boiling, fanning themselves dramatically and opening the back door to encourage a through draft, so today I have been wearing Rudolph socks, fur-lined boots, jeans, a long-sleeved T-shirt, cashmere jumper, scarf, beret and fleece, but have still been freezing since dawn and am unable to do anything except lie around under a blanket and moan gently. I mooted returning to my flat but I think my mother is disappointed. I'd be happy to stay longer except I don't really want to.

Like I say, it's been a strange few days. I love Christmas and on the surface, Winterval 2010 has been splendid, but recent changes within have meant that I'm definitely more aware than I used to be of my solitude - and by that I mean that separateness that exists whether you're with close friends in a crowded room or on your own in an empty flat, a fact that wouldn't be changed by the addition of a boyfriend, twins or a short-haired Dachshund. In the past, I've distracted myself with going out, planning future evenings out, chatting on the phone to people about times I've gone out in the past and times I am planning to go out in the future, writing about going out, fancying boys, or telling myself that I wouldn't be alone forever. Now something massive has shifted and I've accepted that my old denial wasn't getting me anywhere. In some ways, we're all on our own - married with babies or not - and I have to like it or lump it rather than search endlessly for distractions. Such a Copernican shift, intangible though it is, is proving a little tricky. Ideally, I'd learn how to see our psychological isolation as a good thing rather than as ultimate proof that life is a crock. Somehow I have to come to terms with it rather than feeling that I'm being massively negative and buzzkillish - but in this, I don't think I'm alone: I can't imagine that I'm the only person who views the fact of their own psychological solitude with a sense of shame, and the fact of others' with pity. Right now, it seems to me cruel that we are genetically social creatures, and that the furtherance of our species relies on us being physically and emotionally connected at the deepest level, but that, from the moment our existence begins to the moment it ends, we are the only people in our heads and will forever be the only person who lives our life. Hunter S. Thompson had sensible things to say on the subject (below) - I just hope I get there soonish. Maybe Christmas isn't the easiest time to learn:

"We are all alone, born alone, die alone, and - in spite of True Romance magazines - we shall all someday look back on our lives and see that, in spite of our company, we were alone the whole way. I do not say lonely - at least, not all the time - but essentially, and finally, alone. This is what makes your self-respect so important, and I don't see how you can respect yourself if you must look in the hearts and minds of others for your happiness."

Drulog

That is my new name for drunken blogging. Maybe it's already got a name. In which case feel free to tell me what it is.

I have been out for my work Christmas lunch. I was leading in the After Eights Wiggle game, at 18.9 seconds, but then Jackie beat me comfortably and I felt chastened until I remembered it meant she had to wear the Santa hat but it suited her really well anyway so I didn't feel happier for long.

What has been good is that I have been doing a lot of THINKING oh yes, that is obviously what I don't do enough of no but seriously, I have been thinking, because last night I was meant to go out with my ukulele posse, and I got home after work and I sat on the sofa and I was like, OK, I should go, this is the third night in a row that I've had plans, don't cancel these, and then I was like, but you don't HAVE to do anything. No one freaking CARES if you go, don't flatter yourself love. And I realised that something massive had shifted within me, and really, genuinely, I no longer feel like a failure. I do still feel sad about things. But feeling sad and not a failure is a million billion times better than feeling sad and feeling like it is totally your fault. So in some ways I feel way better than I used to. But undeniably I am still not feeling ideal. And I think the thing is, that I used to know what to do, because I had a mantra which was 'Do whatever would be most impressive to the people you want to impress' but now I know that, with the greatest respect, no one actually gives a FLYING FUCK what I do. So when your main motivation is taken away from you, you're left with just doing things because you actually want to do them, which may be, like, second nature to most of you, but for me it's totally new. So I was sitting on my sofa last night, thinking 'What do I actually WANT to do?' And there was a choice between sitting on the sofa, or going to play ukulele with my lovely ukey friends. And I sat there dithering and dithering more. I quite wanted to play festive music and socialise, I thought - but I also didn't want to get fat, and socialising equals boozing and possible mince pies. Plus I was genuinely tired. But for god's sake, Janey, I thought. It's Christmas. Stop being dull. Stand up. So I stood up and I got all dressed up - I put on a saucy black wool dress and high heels and did my make up and got my uke in its case and went and looked in the mirror one last time and thought that maybe I looked fat, and then I told myself off for being a superficial dickhead, and put my coat on, and then I felt tired and I sat on the sofa and then I thought 'God it would be nice to stay here tonight,' and so I did. I took my coat off, switched my fairy lights back on, breathed in a mince pie and stayed at home for the night.

And part of me thinks I was being really boring, but then since NO ONE CARES it doesn't matter, does it. And I think it's just going to take me a while to realise that I don't have to impress anyone ever again and that my existence is justified by the fact that I exist, and that is IT. I don't have to do anything else. I CAN do other things. But I don't HAVE to. It's liberating, honestly. And yes, it is all ridiculous.

I'm getting there, team. Big festive hugs from Me, while wearing velour, from the cushion-filled sofa, with O Come All Ye Faithful playing, written in the glow of fairy lights, knowing that there's a prescription for more drugs waiting for me at the doctor's. Mwah.

I was bored and sang a song

Santa Baby by Lost Looking For Fish

Six lessons and carols

Gosh it's been a long time since I wrote anything approaching a 'normal' blog entry, where 'normal' = general recap of the life I've been living outside my head, unburdened by mammoth discussions concerning my very mental state. Maybe it's time for a brief summary of things I've done and things I've learned as a consequence, NOT that everything in life has to be justified by also being a learning experience but that's a habit it'll take a while to shake.

So last Monday I had a top-up laser appointment at 5.30pm, which isn't nearly as exciting as it might appear to my male readers, although it does involve me lying nearly naked on a bed while another woman points a gun-shaped item at my nether regions while I writhe and moan, but honestly, it's not remotely sexual, I swear. I did learn that laser, pure laser, is much better than the stuff I used to have, which is called IPL (unknown TLA). IPL involves ultrasound gel and you come out all red and blotchy plus your skin is left all tacky from the gel, and it hurts like nothing I've ever experienced. Pure laser involves no gel and almost painless. Why would any salon buy an IPL machine when they could have a laser machine? Because one costs £15k and the other costs £55k. So that's fairly conclusive.

Then I went to choir and against my better judgment we went to the pub and I got home late. On Tuesday I met Em and we did a quick bit of shopping and then went for a drink and I battled with what to have in order to maintain my current dieting status (lesson: M&S nut snack pot should be illegal, and certainly marketing it as a healthy item is in violation of several trades descriptions acts, unless eating a handful of nuts and consuming approximately the same amount of calories as there are in a McDonald's Happy Meal is healthy), and then we went to Georgie's for the Christmas session of our book club, where we laughed a lot and played a hideous version of Secret Santa where the first person picks from the pile of presents and opens one, then the second person can either steal that one or pick another at random from the pile. Then the third person can steal either of the first two's, and so on. It's about as brutal as gift giving gets - particularly if some people are happy to steal while others feel uncomfortable with the concept. I came away with lovely white wool bedsocks from Accessorise: they weren't quite a white porcelain dish with rabbit figurine from Anthropologie, but could definitely have been worse. (Lesson: Prisoners' Dilemma - play hardball).

Then on Wednesday I went out with Grania for a catch up and we celebrated the fact that she is a brainbox and passed her fiendishly difficult exams, while many of her peers did not. (Lesson: she is cleverer than she thinks). Thursday we had a choir concert and I had too much to drink and took a duvet day on Friday, which I spent lying around until the afternoon when I got up and got ready for my ukulele Christmas party, an evening which began fairly sedately, continued at a noisy pub down the road until 12ish, then moved to a dive bar until 3 or 4ish, then moved via Boris Bike back home, holding hands as we cycled along in the bus lane, and ended up passed out, fully clothed, in bed after too much vodka. (Lesson: alcohol is amazingly fun but not in the long run. Actually, that can hardly be called a new lesson. What did I really learn...? I can stay up later if I drink spirits rather than wine. Useful.)

Saturday was a write-off - I was too tired even to watch The X Factor final, fell asleep on the sofa, failed to make soup and got a bit cross with myself for being unproductive. Sunday dawned clear and bright: I made the soup, tidied bits of the flat and was all ready to leave on time for the 3pm rehearsal when I applied my make up a little too enthusiastically and knocked my nearly-new glass bottle of foundation all over my black bathroom tiled floor, where it shattered dramatically, splattering its contents all over the floor, the side of the bath, the side of the sink, my brown suede boot, my tights, my dress, the shower curtain and the bin. Predicting that I might well return home, after the concert, slightly under the influence and perhaps needing to relieve myself as a matter of relative urgency, I thought that leaving my bathroom floor covered with shards of thick glass and Estee Lauder Double Wear was probably not the best idea. I thus hurried to pick up all the fragments I could see and then tried to mop up the foundation. It was not a success. In a crazed rush, I sprayed ready-mixed Tesco mopping solution all over the floor and went off to the concert, desperately hoping that my floor wasn't porous and that I wouldn't return to a streaky beige tile effect in the centre of my bathroom. (Lesson: haste makes absurdly inconvenient, expensive, tardiness-inducing waste.)

The concert went well, I felt truly supported by my wonderful family and friends, read my poem and a handsome hipster composer asked to collaborate with me in the new year. We all went to the pub, I ate mince pies, drank white wine and felt a lot of love. After closing time I took the bus home, found dried foundation all over my floor, pine-scented cleaning solution nowhere to be seen, either absorbed or evaporated, and realised something would have to be done before I could wee. I spent the thirty minutes around midnight in my stilletos and one-shoulder black dress, mopping hard with only partial success. Stupid stuff wears off my face after about six seconds in a gentle breeze but can you wipe it off tiles after a night on them? I certainly can't.

Em came over last night for dinner, we looked at photos and discussed ill-advised flirtations. Now I'm exhausted with 100 things to do at home, presents to wrap, admin to sort out, baths to clean, last week's Apprentice to watch, and I'm out the next two nights so I really should get an early one tonight, and what about my bank balance?, but what I'd really like is to get up the energy to go and see Pete's band play in Hoxton as I know it'd be a lovely festive evening. Muster muster muster. Droop. Snore.

Only 362 days to Christmas!

I can’t really explain why it’s taken me so long to write this because I have been doing NOTHING, but as my most privileged friends will attest, the less you have to do, the longer it takes. So the last you heard, I think, it was Christmas Eve Eve and I was about to go and eat. I did, it was freaking delicious, and there began an intense period of gorging that, as yet, is about 53% complete. I had steak at my work lunch that was mouthwatering, with béarnaise sauce and a delicious sweet pea, baby onion, spinach and lardon mélange that was almost the highlight. We played shag, marry or cliff and consequences and it was every bit as funny as last year and I count myself very lucky when it comes to my office existence.

That evening, I went back to my parents’ house and, if I’m totally honest, the next few days are a haze of gluttony, as an invisible conveyor belt (aka: my hand) carried an omniprocess of delicacies over my ever-excitable tastebuds: copious piles of Nigella’s ham in Coca-Cola, turkey, smoked salmon, delicious gastropub lasagne, mince pies, amaretto biscuits, peanut brittle, granary toast with salted butter, soup, homemade Christmas cookies, parsnips, salad, garlic bread, onion rings, Sultana Bran, Bollinger, white wine, red wine, Diet Coke and beer. In the brief pauses while I was chewing, I opened amazing presents including my much-hoped-for ukulele (but a far nicer one than I’d imagined) and a tube of Elizabeth Arden Eight Hour Cream. Delighted. There were emotional times with my family as well, of course, but in a shock development, my mother has decreed that I am not to write about them any more. Her rationale is as follows: if I am too honest about them, someone might think that my dad is a racist and want to stab him, and, as my mother put it, ‘They can find out who you are from your blog, find out where your parents live, and come around and kill him in the street. It’s that simple,’ she said, as if finding their address from my anonymous blog requires a similar level of skill to urinating. After the tension that arose over the programming of mum’s Christmas pedometer, I didn’t want to involve either of us in a complex technological explanation of a) how difficult it would be to determine my father’s identity, let alone b) quite how bored and/or misguided someone would have to be to choose him, above all the other mentalists on the internet, to assassinate. So I nodded meekly and promised not to discuss them again. We’ll see how long that lasts…

I do love Christmas but, like a late-night meal in Chinatown, the moment it’s over, you suddenly see what you look like in the hideous fluorescent lighting, realize your foundation is not worth the pump dispenser from which it emerges, accept that you will need to run, fast, for seven consecutive hours to burn off the meal you would have swapped your grandmother for moments earlier, and concede that it is time to go home. I was all up for the festivities, but the moment the presents were unwrapped and the taste of mince pies became commonplace, I was desperate to get back to my nest and recuperate tout seule. I am a creature of habit, it turns out, and fun though Scrabble and beginners’ ukulele undeniably is, I miss being master of my domain. I’m 32, after all, and being an only child in my parents’ house, still unmarried, still childless, while they are getting on with their semi-retirement, feels slightly regressive. So yesterday I went home and cleaned and now I am on the Piccadilly Line to Heathrow Terminal 4, en route to Prague, for a minibreak about which I am so excited I may rupture something. Apparently we have free wifi in the hotel so I’ll post this when I arrive. In the meantime, I hope all my Faithful and any LLFF fair-weather friends have had a joyous Christmas. Love to you all.

Visions of sugar plums... and the rest

Yesterday morning I woke up all troubled, having dreamed that I was babysitting a baby belonging to my friend Eva (who doesn't currently have a baby) and that, aged about four months old, it suddenly started being able to talk quite articulately, and within about six minutes, was chatting away with me merrily as if it were a well-educated grown-up. I found the whole thing quite disconcerting and was phoning Eva saying 'Your baby is a freak!' but she was at a wedding and didn't pick up. Then this morning I woke up having been running through a forest with some friends, feeling happy, but with the vague sensation that something sinister was going on around us, and I bounced and bounced and took off, and looked down, and everywhere, as far as my eyes could see, there were rows and rows of army vehicles and it was patently obvious that we were about to go into the most massive land war my lifetime had ever witnessed, and I was boinging around in the car park. I had to get out but I couldn't and I knew I'd be implicated. It was freaking terrifying.

Meanwhile, in reality, I'm having a lovely time with my family, doing crosswords, eating mince pies, listening to carols and screeching descants. My dad is trying to make me accept that I/we am/are better than other people, and that Tiger is a better cat than Dennis, while I'm resolutely insisting that all men, women and cats are created equal and that, while I may be better than you at knowing the lyrics to songs by T'Pau, I am certainly worse at other things, and any advantage I have is purely chance and to do with my good fortune and doesn't give me the right to look down on anyone else, and goodness isn't it lucky that my dad only has one child because he'd have a favourite before you could say 'I love them all the same' and the other one would be scarred for life. Unlike me. [NB I love my dad. Although we were discussing only a couple of hours ago how I will get my ultimate revenge when I read his eulogy. I think we have rather dark humour in our family. Apologies if it disturbs]. Concurrently, my mum is telling us both not to eat our food too quickly at lunch tomorrow and shushing us for complaining about the extract from A Christmas Carol that is read Every Freaking Year at the Christmas Eve concert at the Albert Hall. In summary, it's all just as it was last year, just as it should be, and my cup runneth over with happiness, love and gratitude.

Happy holidays, one and all. May your liver function adequately, may the Nurofen take away the pain, may your days be merry and bright, and may all your metabolisms be high.

AWOL

It had to happen eventually, didn't it? Either my liver was going to grab some essential possessions and slink out of my slender frame, or my brain was going to call 'Time.' I think it is the latter that has happened, although it may be a combination of the two: I developed a sore throat last Thursday after my choir night out, and now appear to have two colds running concurrently, a delightful circumstance that offers me continual surprises as I never know which merry new symptom is going to hit me next. This is despite taking it relatively easy over the weekend. I had a great night out on Friday with a lot of old faces, held at a Hammersmith pub, where I felt simultaneously comfortable and strangely out of place. Before the booze kicked in we talked about new media and Twitter and politics and the Middle East, and after about 9pm we talked about kissing and flirting and, honestly, I have no idea what else. I am the Queen of Sincerity, I tell you, earnestly engaging in these chats with true interest and then sweeping down the decks moments later to make room for some other gems.

After the party, I took a minicab back to my parents, driven by a man who was, himself, the size of a taxi. It was a bit like an Escher drawing and I couldn't work out how he managed to fit inside the car's frame. The next 36 hours are a haze of Christmas familial love and involve me wearing a huge jumper, lying on the sofa listening to festive music, while my mum brings me amazing snacks and cooks beef brisket, sitting up briefly to eat lunch and dinner at the table, even standing once or twice to help put up the Christmas tree, and then sitting down again to watch Gavin & Stacey and Take That's incredible Circus tour at Wembley over the summer. God they are amazing, aren't they? What lovely young men. I'm very proud to have supported them since the start. Gary's voice is just gorgeous. Yum.

On Sunday I went to Waterloo to meet Grania and we watched In The Hood or Into The Hoods or In Da Hoodz or something, which was (as it was billed) a cool, festive, dance-off thing for teenagers, so I couldn't be legitimately disappointed, but it was all a bit Sylvia Young Theatre School and not enough genuine edge. The fact that Gra and I knew most of the music suggested it was a little more mainstream than it tried to suggest - more The X Factor does hip-hop than convincing urban grime. Fun though, with a kind of depressing undercurrent as I had to face up to the fact that, even after a thousand hours of classes, I'd still never look that good on the dancefloor. Still. I have many other special talents.

Then I went home for another early night, and my body, I think, saw me relaxing a bit more than I have of late, and sent a message to HQ that this was the start of a permanent hibernation rather than a brief hit of R&R before getting back onboard the party train to oblivion. Since the weekend, I've been in an ME-esque haze, my face contorted into a permanent yawn and my desire even to put on a bra at its lowest ebb. The concept of getting dressed up in high heels and putting on make-up makes me want to laugh very sarcastically, weep a bit, and pull the duvet up over my head. Last night I went home after work and wrapped presents in front of the TV, and even that seemed like an excruciating amount of effort. I am meant to be going to a party tonight, a lunch tomorrow and a party tomorrow evening, all of which are full of fun people, but I think my chances of making any of them are slimmer than I'll ever be. It's the kind of day when I feel like I should get high fives and back-pats for even turning up at work at all. Mmmm... massage...

There we went a-wassailing

I visited several pubs in central London last night, and without exception, they were all so full that I think I may have permanent dents in my flesh from being packed in with others in such close proximity. It's always pleasing to see so many people enjoying the city, but it's sad to think that the reason the bars are so busy at this time of year is that most of these people don't go out the rest of the time. Which is a shame. Poor them.

We were out for our choir's Christmas party, and reliving too much of it here would be foolish as only about three of my five readers will know who I'm talking about. Suffice to say that, when we'd spent many hours annoying many hundreds of innocent yuletide drinkers by singing unrequested and unclapped carols, there were five of us gigglingly walking the streets, wondering where to go now that everywhere had shut. And, always the happy hostess with the mostest, I invited these four young whippersnapping lads back to my flat, where we played a kind of uber-drinking game, the highlight of which was a round called 'Bunnies' and one where we had to play 21 using Roman numerals. Alex drew a short straw at one point and had to drink a glass half full of a beer and whiskey blend. At 3am, I was in my trainers downstairs, using a bucket of water to swill away the vomit that he had kindly directed over the balcony onto my ground floor neighbours' gate and front pathway. It was remarkably viscose. Then I put the four boys to bed and slept fitfully, dreaming that I was tidying my flat and then waking up to realise with irritation that I had to do it all again in real life.

Now I'm sitting on my sofa, fairy lights ablaze, candles glowing, Bob Dylan wafting through the airwaves, blanket over my lap. The plan was to make mince pies and go Christmas shopping but that's looking increasingly unlikely. Apologies to family and friends, I appear to be having too much fun to buy you things. I think I need a nap.

And so this is Christmas

I am still recovering from one of the happiest weekends of the recent past and the prospect of writing down the events (or, at least, those events that aren't X-rated) as they occurred seems like an unassailable incline. It is not impossible that I am still drunk from Saturday.

But the story begins on Friday afternoon, when I got changed in the loos at work into my gladrags and headed over to Clerkenwell for my friend's wedding. I sang at the service as part of a quartet, which was fun and festive, and the organist was hilariously bad, and the vicar was almost unintelligably Italian, which was fantastic, and then we went to the reception and gorged ourselves on canapes and delicious champagne, and the speeches were brilliant, and then Harry started playing the piano, and then Dom took over, and then I put my foot in it really really badly but it was funny, and then the bride and groom left in a rickshaw, and we all went for a lock-in at a pub down the road, and then had more to drink, and took bad photos, and then I started chatting to two guys in the pub, one of whom was being quite flirtatious, and later when I left I went to say goodbye to him and he said, "Bye," and I was outraged and said, "I can't believe you're not asking for my number!" and he just shrugged as if to say, "Deal with it, love." I had a brilliant time other than this incident and then went home on the nightbus to Elephant and Castle at about 3.30am, singing all the way to songs on my iPod, and woke up on Saturday morning surrounded by a champagne flute that I'd taken from the reception, an empty packet of Roast Beef Monster Munch and the wrapping from a Reese's peanut butter cup. In a moment of almost unrecognisable self-restraint, I had put the remaining two cups in the fridge, along with a Dime bar. And another packet of Monster Munch. Which I ate for breakfast, washed down with a Diet Coke. Then I went back to bed.

Saturday afternoon I got up and went to choir practice, and then we did our concert and the church was rammed and I read my poem and it was really fun (although my mum later said that she'd spent most of it panicking that I was going to be struck by heaven-sent lightning while I was up in the pulpit), and after we'd finished singing, my boss started the standing ovation, and everyone was on a massive high, and we went to the pub afterwards and I had such wonderful friends there, people from school, people from uni, people from my first job, and people from the last few years. There was so much love in the room and I felt extremely lucky indeed. At 11.30 the pub shut and we tripped into Soho to meet a few other choirboys who had gone to Sketch, which I'd heard of but hadn't been to before. There was a queue outside and Grania and I got a bit lairy and barged to the front and demanded to be let in and they (sensibly) refused, and then we called our friend and asked him to come and get us, and they sent a different guy who is a member and the doorman was livid as he'd thought we were just chancers (as we had also believed) and he had to let us in and I felt like Madonna. So then we went to this ridiculous room at the back with the bar sunken into a pit in the centre and the space-age seats around looking like something out of a Star Trek strip joint. It was bloody brilliant and we all had a ridiculously fun time and were the last people to leave at around 4am, and I had to be told more than once that I wasn't allowed to leave carrying my glass of white wine, and Grania and I shared what was left, gulping it down as if the gallons of alcohol we'd already consumed were not sufficient. Then I went home and the next bit is embargoed but god it is quite literally one of the funniest things that has ever happened to me and when I deem the moment right to reveal all, I guarantee it will have been worth the wait.

And then it was Sunday and I was a bit over-emotional having had no sleep and no vegetables or fruit since Friday, so all I did was compound things by eating pasta with pesto, hot dogs and fun size Crunchie bars out of the fridge. It turns out they're not so fun on their own, and, like kittens, are demonstrably better the more you have. I watched The X Factor final, got annoyed with the Great British Public for forgetting that this shouldn't just be a singing competition, but rather a contest to find someone who can actually contribute to the body of pop music that is churned out every year by doing something slightly unusual and fresh and original, and Joe, the winner, is no more likely to release a cutting edge record than I am to be described as demure. Grrrrr. But god it was a fun weekend. I went to bed at midnight, having become trapped in a void syncing my iPhone, a task I only ever seem to start when I am so tired that I've started hallucinating. This morning I woke up at 7.15am to do yoga and accidentally switched my alarm off rather than pressing snooze. I didn't get into work until 10.30. Oops. Off to the Private Eye Christmas Quiz at the National now. I think I might need illegal substances to maintain consciousness.

O Come, All Ye Unfaithful

The nights darken early, the shoppers are spending
On presents and mince pies, their waistlines expanding.
It's Advent again and the streets are a-heaving,
Full of shoppers seduced by PR people thieving.
"Buy this for your boyfriend," advertisements toll,
"and he just might not ditch you for Ms Cheryl Cole."

At last, it's arrived, the one time of year
When we don't have to spend every second in fear
Of intense global warming, it just isn't festive:
Waste goes with Christmas like cheese and digestive.
We swaddle our gifts in thick paper and ribbons
Not giving a thought to the extinction of gibbons.

It's my annual highlight, my favourite season
Be happy and kind or it's basically treason.
Each eve a new party, a new chance to kiss
Under poisonous berries, a sure sign that this
Is most likely not the best plan on the planet;
Mistletoe's deadly - we should probably ban it.

For gluttons like me it's a joyous occasion,
"Can I still get those jeans on?" is my only equation.
We gorge ourselves crazy on hot turkey dinner,
And the number one song by the X Factor winner.
Time spent with family is precious and rare,
I'm annually grateful it's not Albert Square.

Oh it's all just too perfect, I love all the lights
And the snuggling of couples in frost-laden nights.
We buy gifts to say to our loved ones, "I thank you,
I'll always support you, I will never blank you."
Presents and food, magic carols in the air,
What could be the cause of this splendid affair?

And here lies the rub, here I hit a glass ceiling.
I completely love Christmas, it's really appealing,
But I'm attending a party I shouldn't be at
Because I'm not a Christian, I can't wear that hat.
I'm just not a believer of this gobbledygook,
And I'm not friends with Rowan or Pope Ben on Facebook.

That Jesus was born two millennia ago
I'll agree that it happened, historically so.
That he lived and did great works, I reckon that's true,
"Do unto others as you'd like them to do to you"
It's a great rule of thumb, but as for the resurrection
I just can't see it happening, like a Hillary election.

I'm an atheist, see, I believe not in gods,
And I know Occam's razor would push me the odds,
But for most of the year I'm happily profane
Till the bells start a-jingling and the songs play again;
I can't resist joining each year's festive shimmy
But if Jesus is nice then I think he'll forgive me.

I hate all hypocrisy, really I do,
But Christmas is too good to keep just for you.
I could call it 'Winterval' but who would I fool?
It's Christmas I love and it's Christmas that's cool.
I don't buy the whole thing but this much is true
It's a magical time, I'll give you your due.

So for one day a year I jump on the bandwagon,
And a story as likely as Puff: Magic Dragon
Becomes glorious truth, both wondrous and humbling,
And we all celebrate our humanity's fumbling.
We're doing our best, equatorial and polar,
But still, Santa is trademarked by - yes - Coca Cola.

The Christmas machine is a cynical thing,
So let us reclaim it and mean what we sing:
'Tis truly the season for all to be jolly
So help those who need it, lend a stranger your brolly.
Don't let yourself be blinded by consumerist baloney
But Saint Nick, please remember, I'd still like a pony.

The real meaning of Christmas

As any singer will tell you, Christmas isn't about celebrating the birth of the saviour x many millennia ago, it is about singing carols in four or eight part harmony and then drinking wine to celebrate. I am enjoying singing so much at the moment that I wasn't even the most vocal complainer when we rehearsed a single piece for over an hour last night. And tonight is the third of our four carol concerts. I am VERY EXCITED, not just because we get to sing wonderful festive music and make people feel joyous, but also because there is a celebrity reader on the programme and although I have it on reliable authority that he is an absolute unmitigating idiot in real life, and married with children, I fancy him like mad (or at least I do in the TV programme that I've seen him in) and although I will try not to stare up at him with visible beams of hopeless love streaming out from my eyes while he is doing his reading, I think I will fail miserably. Ah well. A lovely boy with a flat cap emailed me today so I am feeling perky on the romance front.

Of course, the other thing that Christmas is about, apart from singing, is presents. And the problem with Christmas shopping is that I just find more and more things that I want to buy for myself. I was incredibly close to spending £190 on a Pakistani quilt on a US online store at about 09:08 this morning, having clicked there from a site where I was looking for presents for my mother. I am yet to buy a single gift for anyone. Unimpressive. I imagine that most only children revel at Christmastime, only having to buy presents for their parents, but present-buying is literally my favourite thing to do in the world ever and I am award-winningly brilliant at it, so not having anyone else to buy for other than two adults who routinely take back every single thing they are given by the other at Christmas is a bit like being a world class opera singer and living in a prison where the inmates are, without exception, deaf. Consequently, whenever I get a boyfriend I shower them with incredible gifts that I've been seen in shops previously and filed under 'brilliant gift idea for fictional boyfriend'. Then I sit back and wait to be showered in a similar fashion, but end up having to cry with gratitude when he books tickets for the cinema. Life is so unfair. I asked my father what he wants, and he said 'Nothing' and then requested that I don't spend any money on him. It's impossible that we are related. I mean, obviously I don't NEED anything. I am so far from needing things that I could lock down into some nuclear bunker for around ten years without repeating an outfit. But once I've seen the Pakistani quilt, it is all I can think about. My bedroom suddenly looks barren without it and I will toss and turn restlessly until it lies atop my duvet, adding a £190 sheen to my previously stark and boring (read: cluttered and frantic) sleeping set-up. Hmmm.

No title forthcoming part 342

Last night could have been bad. We were singing at our first carol concert of the year, in a huge London church. One of the readings was a comedic poem about Father Christmas getting drunk. It was read by a lovely-seeming man standing high above us in the pulpit, who put a lot of feeling into the words while we sat on chairs on the well-lit stage below, looking up at him. And then the story reached its present-delivery stage, and the reader said a line that was, at best, brave. "Santa emptied his sack," he told us, without a glimmer of awareness that this might be a risky statement. Immediately, my throat clenched and I knew from the silence around me that several other people had been stricken. Slowly, I turned to my right and saw a wide-eyed Ed in the row behind staring round in disbelief, convinced as I was that there would surely be an outburst. Rob was looking down at his music but his grin indicated that he too was struggling not to erupt. I knew that any noise I made would be lethal. Trying to let the laugh out slowly, I exhaled through my nose, but the contractions of my giggling abdomen forced the air out in short bursts. And then - horrors - an audible murmer, the tiniest of hums, emerged. I knew this would be death for my fellow laughers, but I also knew that looking at them would be fatal. I bit my lip and thought about a kitten massacre. Very slowly, my heart rate returned to normal and finally I knew I was safe. After the concert, we poured out of the church and roared with relief, safe to rejoice in the double-entendre, and I was proud that I had managed to keep it together. We had sung well in places but my abiding memory of the evening will be that moment.

About 14 years ago, when I was in the school choir, we were told to learn a very long song with several verses in Latin. Before our debut performance at a nearby old people's home, few of us had managed to get the words off by heart, and decided that we would cut out the photocopied lyrics and hide them in our hands - eight or so squares each, a verse on each square, turning them surreptitiously during each chorus. Our choir master wasn't having any of this, though. Furious when he realised what was going on, he tapped the hands of the guilty very firmly during a verse, and one by one, snowflakes of illicit paper fluttered to our feet as we were forced to make up a Latin carol in front of a room full of elderly locals who were probably wishing we were singing It's A Long Way To Tipperary.

Some things never change, and that makes me extremely happy. I love singing in choir, but I love the opportunity it gives us all to indulge our naughty sides. I'm one of life's goody-goodies. I hate being told off. But I also can't resist a good laugh. Ultimately, if you stand up in public and read words aloud that conjur a mental image of a masturbating Santa, people will giggle. They'll know that it's naughty, they'll try and contain it, but the laughter is inevitable. And that is exactly as it should be.

Three things I can tell you:

1. This short clip of giant jellyfish near Japan is a bit freaky and a bit beautiful. I think I'd find it less scary if the theme tune to The Flintstones or Baby Elephant Walk by Henry Mancini was playing instead. Maybe the filmmakers can consider that for next time.

2. I bought too much mincemeat, but it doesn't go off until 2011 so hopefully I'll force down all the mince pies by then. I principally told that story (if it can be described as such) so that you'd be impressed by my Nigella-esque skills, but then I feel I should also admit that I bought frozen shortcrust pastry, so basically all that remains for me to do is roll, cut and use a spoon. And it would have been cheaper to buy them. In an attempt to claw this back from being both tragic, wasteful and pointless, I have this instant decided that my pies will have festive drawings pricked on them with a skewer. I will supply a photograph when I make them. Which will probably be in around February.

3. I have submitted my Christmas list and am now experiencing my annual panic that I will think of something ESSENTIAL and it will be too late. The fact that I am old enough to buy it for myself is, of course, a logical beta blocker, but the post-list-submission jitters are beyond my control. As usual, to give the elves some flexibility, I have thoughtfully requested more than I am likely to receive; however, due to space limitations at my flat, I have finally stopped asking for a pony. My top two hopefuls are this and a pineapple-shaped ukulele. Santa, if you're reading, I have been a good girl, probably one of the best there's ever been, so do the right thing and reward me with the material possessions I so desperately need. Thank you.

The geese are getting fat

Ooh, I know what I forgot to record. And it's momentous, truly massive news: I have booked my ticket to Glastonbury 2009 and every time I think about it, I am hit by a brief but violently whirring influx of butterflies. I have been wanting and intending to go to Glastonbury since I was about 20, and I have never had the money or the companion or the free time or the nerve all at once. And suddenly, I realised that if I wasn't careful, I would be a 45 year old ex-music-obsessive who has never attended the greatest music festival in my home country, possibly the world. Sure: it'll be muddy and rainy and cold and miserable, and there will be horrible queues and terrible food and loos like cesspits, and all my stuff will get nicked and someone will be sick down my back and I'll get separated from my friends and my tent will be moved in the middle of the day when I'm nowhere near it, so that when I stumble back late at night / early in the morning, I can't find it, and I'll end up crying and sleeping around some weird Druid's campfire but I can't flipping wait. I've heard that Elbow are playing, which is good enough in itself - but rumour has it that the reformed Blur are headlining, which would be the best thing ever, with the possible exception of the news that Bruce Springsteen may also be on the bill. I know it's madness, I know I'll hate every second, but I want to go and I won't be beaten. I can always come home.

My week thus far has been dominated by my physical weaknesses. From Monday to this morning, I have had a fairly horrific cold, involving sweating and coughing and aching ribs etc. I was so ill that I left one of our work Christmas lunches yesterday without even seeing, let alone eating, the pudding that I'd already paid for, effectively turning down free food, something I don't think I've ever done before. I'm still feeling a bit confused about that. Anyway, as one condition improved, another developed, and I am now healthy of throat but in agony of jaw, as my lower left wisdom tooth has decided that now is a good time for its annual growth spurt. This usually lasts for around a week and involves a lot of hot, pulsating gum sensations, with me rubbing my cheek a lot in a bid for sympathy, applying oil of cloves to the painful area and then retching as some of it sneaks down my throat. Revolting.

I was meant to be out tonight at a speed dating event that was being filmed for the pilot of a new TV show - my friend from choir was coordinating it for the production company and roped me in, but then told me today that their computers had been wiped out by a virus, she'd lost almost everyone's details and she suspected that tonight's gathering might not be the hotbed of male talent she had initially promised. Instead, I finished my Christmas shopping, came home, donned my festive velour (a red nightdress covered in white snowflakes), put the iPod on Christmassy shuffle, ate a lot of chocolate and then began a marathon gift wrapping session accompanied by a couple of glasses of white wine. It was all very civilised and I am now exhausted. Tomorrow evening I have a date with a guy who had to leave his sister's wedding because he thought he was dying of SARS. He is absolutely extraordinary and I can't wait to meet him. Full report back in due course. Now I'm going to top up my glass, watch last night's Desperate Housewives and go to bed. Couldn't be happier.

Never forget

From time to time, I send myself emails. I do this, not in order to boost my inbox count and self-confidence, but to remind myself of certain things that I deem important.

Today, unusually, I sent myself two emails. The first was a selection of quotations, copied from a thread on the Guardian's Comment is Free board, concerning the importance of personal freedom and the self-serving hypocrisy of Big Government. You can read them here:

"If you are not free to choose wrongly and irresponsibly, you are not free at all." Jacob Hornberger

"The urge to save humanity is almost always a false front for the urge to rule." H.L. Mencken

"It is not the business of government to make men virtuous or religious, or to preserve the fool from the consequences of his own folly. Government should be repressive no further than is necessary to secure liberty by protecting the equal rights of each from aggression on the part of others, and the moment governmental prohibitions extend beyond this line they are in danger of defeating the very ends they are intended to serve." Henry George

"Of all tyrannies, a tyranny exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their own conscience." C. S. Lewis

"There's no way to rule innocent men. The only power any government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren't enough criminals, one makes them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible to live without breaking laws." Ayn Rand

"It is not the responsibility of the government or the legal system to protect a citizen from himself." Justice Casey Percell

"The human race divides politically into those who want people to be controlled and those who have no such desire." Robert A. Heinlein

The other email I sent myself was to remind me to put this on my Christmas list. Pity those who feel the need to be consistently highbrow.

Festive love

Happy Christmas, one and all, from your beloved Lost Looking For Fish. I must admit that I feel particularly lost today but, in fairness, the vast majority of the day has been extremely positive. In the gift department I did especially well, receiving many practical items including a mattress topper, an iron and charity ironing board cover, a Habitat lamp and some new mascara. I have eaten exceptionally, drunk even better, laughed heartily, played some seasonal family games and am now lying in my armchair watching Casino Royale on Sky. Perfect. I do not require tomorrow for boxing of any kind so assume I will be able to write in more depth at some point in the next 24 hours.

Happy holidays

This weekend has passed by in a bit of a blur, and I am inordinately glad that I do not have to return to work this side of 2008. I have managed to eat and drink a fair amount in the past few days and I now feel confident that my stomach will be fully limbered up by Tuesday, allowing for maximum gluttony while it is considered socially legitimate to eat until one is unable to do much except massage one's own intestine in the hope of facilitating digestion. Personally, I find that sitting at a slight left or right incline can inexplicably expedite this process, though I am sure that medical professionals would scoff at such pseudo-quackery.

Today was both enjoyable and efficient, one of the best day combinations currently on offer. I met up with Katherine in Hammersmith where we performed possibly the most adroit last minute Christmas shopping ever attempted, making it through Primark, Habitat, M&S and WH Smith's in just under two hours, followed by a delicious lunch and our reward of Pinot Grigio. My only minor hiccup had occurred in Smith's. I had selected my desired item in under a minute and then sped-walked to the queue, only to find it snaking through the magazine racks into the middle distance somewhere north of Lancaster. The till-workers seemed insufficient in number and, with the awaiting Katherine adding to my impatience, I made the decision to search out an alternative queue. I found the DVD tills at the same time as three other customers and although I made it clear I wanted us to unite in a 'first come, first served' fashion, a lady in a red coat decided to plump for the 'two tills, two queues' method - one which I detest. I detested it even more when the man in front of me revealed his haul with what I believe was a touch of vindictive glee - he was purchasing at least 37 DVDs, each of which required the well-meaning staff member to burrow into the filing cabinet behind him, find the correct disk and place it in the case before scanning it. I am not normally a queue-mover, on the whole preferring to stick these things out, but immediately I knew there was no competition and I reluctantly took my place behind the redcoat who was oozing sympathy like pus. She then realised that she had forgotten High School Musical 2 and rushed off to find it, bleating apologies with all the sincerity of a hairdresser with ADHD. Sadly the till-man wouldn't serve me in the interim so I sat there thinking about The Power of Now and hoping that steam wasn't actually coming out of my nostrils. Props go to Katherine for only phoning me once to ask politely how I was doing. I could easily have learned Cantonese while she'd been waiting for me, so her calm demeanour was impressive.

This evening I have been feeling very festive in new Primark lounge trousers (£4) and sheepskin slippers. Having derided our requests to play games, my father was unable to resist the clatter of the Boggle cubes and the three of us spent an animated 45 minutes playing a new version of the game, with added old age. This involved my mother reading out the list of words she'd found, around half of which were actually on the board. Of those that were valid, she would generally have written about three of them down more than once. When she realised her score was low, she would then pretend to be searching her piece of paper for more words, while frantically scanning the letters on the board to find last minute options. Dad, meanwhile, attempted to pass 'moppet' and 'doper' off as genuine words. And I won. Tomorrow I will wrap presents, go for a walk and peel many root vegetables. La vita é bella.

The geese are getting fat

In keeping with seasonal expectations, it's been pretty busy in my vicinity of late. Thursday night was my office Christmas party, and I must say how refreshing it was that my first experience of this type of event managed to live up to every single generalisation and stereotype that I had ever imagined. There were drunk people making a fool of themselves by tripping up the stairs (incl. me at approx 10pm); a fair few people wandering around the large venue having lost their friends (me at approx 11pm) and inebriated people trapping innocent victims in feisty embraces and trying to persuade them that a quick kiss would not turn into office gossip (me in the role of 'victim', shortly before my departure at around 1am). The food was disappointing, the music was mediocre and the skiing game with which I became obsessed after an early victory left one with polystyrene bean-bag balls in many private areas which were difficult to extract while retaining feminine mystique. It was fun.

On Friday I was feeling somewhat the worse for wear and was substantially slower as a result. I ate enough carbohydrates to fuel a marathon runner but did less cardio than a fat man in a coma - and when I left the office building my hangover meant that I became extremely irritable very quickly when my card wouldn't let me through the security barriers. I swiped it repeatedly to no avail and then felt suitably idiotic when I looked down at my hand and realised that my card had fallen out of its holster and I was rubbing an empty plastic case over the reader.

The highlight of Saturday was bowling and karaoke with my choir friends, particularly the latter. Karaoke is fun anyway, but when it's done truly unashamedly with eight part harmonies and comedy voices, it's seriously fantastic. I did manage to get a little carried away at a few points but thankfully I wasn't the only one who threw themselves into the part with gusto. This festive shenanigan was followed by delicious food and then the X Factor final - probably not many people's Saturday of choice but it hit the spot for me.

Today I have been efficient and happy - I have been for a run for the past two mornings which has sent my smugometer off the scale and ensured that I could lay into the roast chicken and bread sauce with a touch less guilt. My irritation levels did veer towards the russet/crimson zone earlier this afternoon, however, when my father showed me an article in the Sunday Telegraph which reported that a scientific advisor to the Labour government has said that women should stop fancying men with fast cars if they want to help the environment. Allow me to clarify: the purchase of a fast car by a man is the fault of women and nothing to do with the man at all. Consequently, any contribution to global warming made by male-purchased sports cars is not the responsibility of their owners. Rather, a man's innate (and thus uncontrollable) desire to impress us girls is the defining factor in 100% of car purchases, testosterone dragging them helplessly towards higher fuel consumption. OK. On behalf of all women, I'll accept the blame for the global warming arising from men's car purchases if men will concede that, by fancying us when we dress nicely, they are thus entirely responsible for child labour by 'making' us purchase clothes which could be from unethical sources. Scoff. I don't remember such a pathetic denial of the consequences of one's own actions since fat people started suing McDonald's, and anyone who agrees with the report's writer should be forced to do something really unpleasant that would enlighten them to the true stupidity of their perspective. Perhaps they might have to make some efforts to educate themselves to a minimal standard - something akin to the level of liberal sensitivity of the average Swedish eight-year-old should do the trick. And of course, they should never be allowed to view the Telegraph as a news source again.

Kernels Actually

It being Advent, I've ordered rather a large number of things online over the past few days. Most of them I had planned carefully in advance - but this evening, as I sat on my own in front of programmes about repellent teenagers and their worse parents, I ordered something rather odd. Bitter apricot kernels, to be precise. Apparently there is a tribe in, I believe, South America, that have apricot kernels (something that are not in Western diets much these days) as a staple part of their daily intake - and they never get cancer. So I've ordered a big bag off the internet, and I'm going to eat twelve a day. Kernels, that is - not big bags. In fact, if anyone sees me eating more than twelve, they should stop me, because they contain a small amount of cyanide.

My favourite bit about the entire ordering process was the site's inspired name: kernelpower.co.uk. I'm not sure the website's creator was intending to make subliminial references to the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and their UK number one hit of July 1990, Turtle Power, by Partners in Kryme, but that's exactly what I thought of the moment I saw the web address. And is that such a bad thing? Sure, anti-cancer products aren't usually branded alongside cult-turned-mainstream comic adaptations, but who's to say it isn't a genius marketing ploy? Frankly, it may well have increased her click-to-purchase ratios. Speaking only for myself, I think the site name had approximately 76% influence on my decision to spend - the remaining 24% was to do with the allegedly life-saving properties of her products. I award zero percent to the site's design, which was, frankly, laughable.

I've just finished watching Love Actually on iTV. I think it is a very bad film, the movie equivalent of a Pepperoni Feast, but this is definitely the third, and possibly the fourth time I have watched it. There's nothing intrinsically wrong or evil about unoriginal, unchallenging, unprovoking films - it's just deeply disappointing for me when I like them. Heck, I even got goosebumps towards the end. Will my cultural hypocrisy never end? Don't answer that.