Inspiral Post-It

I REALLY don't want to go on about this much more, believe me, but please allow me to pass on something I found helpful on Saturday - I was sitting opposite a Jungian psychotherapist at Nessa's party, and once I'd established that he really was asking me about my therapy rather than being bored to death of having to listen to someone else talk about themselves on his night off and not pay him, I was just briefly bemoaning the fact that I felt like I had dealt with some of this stuff a few weeks ago and was just whacking into the same branches over and over again. And his analogy was as follows:

Imagine a piece of paper rolled up to resemble an ice cream cone. Something like this will do:

This cone represents the therapeutic journey. The inside of the cone is divided into vertical segments, like this:


Hm. It appears I used a different filter on Instagram for that photo. Oh well. Anyway. Each one of the vertical lines represents one of the important pillars of your life - parents, friends, love, money, career, shelter etc. etc. You start at the top of the cone, and you progress down through the cone in a circular motion, like a coin in one of those supermarket swirly charity box things. And as you roll down the inside of the cone, you hit the lines over and over again. The number of times you hit each line depends on the steepness of the gradiant that you spiral down the cone, but you're pretty much guaranteed to hit them more than once. And of course, as you get to the centre of the cone, rolling full pelt towards the chocolate at the bottom of the Cornetto, the gaps between the times you hit each line get smaller.

"So what happens when you get to the bottom?" I asked Yoda, breathlessly. He said nothing, but unrolled the paper and smiled at me.


I nodded like I understood, thinking that the flattened piece of paper looked like peace, but then I wondered if I'd had too much prosecco.

Anyway. It's 17:05 so I am sitting at my desk and I don't have to, which makes me feel like I am wasting my life in an inexcusable fashion. I'm off to frolic in this blissfully cold winter sunshine and bemoan the fact that my new wool dress which hugged me like a sexy wool glove this morning has now bagged out and is about as flattering as a shroud. I think I might send it back. Exciting times...

Indecent exposure

"Ummm, Janey..." said Emily, while a few of us were seated around Kate's kitchen table last night, "are you... wearing hotpants?" I winced and nodded slowly.
"I think I might be, yes," I said.

I had already been told that they looked great by Kate and Joanna, but that is not the point. Yesterday morning, I examined myself in my bedroom mirror. "I do not need to worry," I thought. "These shorts are suitable for work - they are grey wool shorts and I am wearing them over opaque black tights with high heels and a black round-neck jumper. I look preppy and efficient." Then I arrived at work and took off my coat. As is so often the case, the lighting and atmosphere in my bedroom had been somewhat different to the vibe in my office. I had a moment of Damascene clarity. I was at work. Wearing hotpants. Grey hotpants.

I was in a quandary: should I admit my fashion crisis, or attempt to persuade everyone that my choice was fine by pretending everything was exactly normal and that coming to work out of the blue wearing a pair of microshorts was a perfectly laudable decision to make on a Thursday? I considered going to the shops and buying an alternative garment for my lower half, but as soon as anyone had seen me in the shorts, this option was rendered impossible, as the logical conclusion anyone would draw having seen me change from the shorts into an alternative would be: her bum was too big for her shorts and they ripped. I had to stay in them, and I had to act confident.

I resolved to move around as little as possible, and keep my beshorted legs under my desk, so it was then inevitable that I was asked to run more errands than I'd ever been asked to run before. I was sent back and forth to the vending area, to the post tray, to get things signed, a never-ending stream of reasons meant that I had to stand up continually and show people more of my thighs than anyone would ever choose to see. Two or three people visibly double-took when I walked by them, and I can assure you, it was at my audacity, not my legs. When you are used to someone dressing relatively normally and then they turn up to work wearing an outfit that would not look out of place on Rihanna at the Manchester GMEx, it can be a bit shocking.

Today I am wearing a demure polo-necked dress that comes down to below my knees. I feel safer. As, I'm sure, do my colleagues, who don't have to fear a flash of my cellulite every time they look up from their spreadsheets. Lesson well and truly learned.

Comedown

You know how, when you haven’t been to the gym for a while, and you are absolutely dreading it, and then you finally drag yourself down there and resentfully, furiously get changed and then flap your big feet into the room, and stand there looking at all the fit people and you mentally shake yourself and say, ‘COME ON, I CAN DO THIS,’ and you clamber onto the treadmill or the step machine or whatever, and off you go, and then, to your profound surprise, you find that in fact it wasn’t nearly as hard as you were expecting, that actually, it was positively easy, and you conclude that clearly you are not as unfit as you’d feared, not even close, and that it is now apparent that you are just one of those very fortunate people who has a high level of latent fitness, who can lie around eating and boozing for weeks on end and then just decide on a whim to run a half marathon and find it irritatingly easy, and you leave the gym with a bounce in your step, and then a day or so later, you’re feeling optimistic and almost perky about going again, just like any latently fit person would do, because it won't be any problem for you, and you go and get changed and jump onto the treadmill, and set off full pelt, iPod blaring, only immediately it’s like trying to sprint through the sea, and your face goes red and the sweat starts pouring and some good Samaritan comes over to help you off because it is obvious to all and sundry that you are but moments from death, and you can't understand how you've gone from latently fit to dangerously unhealthy in less than 48 hours, and then reluctantly you have to admit to yourself that maybe what you called 'latent fitness' was, in fact, your body finding something so unfamiliar that it doesn't know how to respond in any helpful way, and it just bounds on happily, unprepared for any consequences, and that the second time around it knows what to expect, and makes it immediately obvious that a-ha, I've been here before and I know about this, and please stop as a matter of urgency because this is not actually something I am comfortable doing due to the fac that it may well lead to my imminent death? Well, it is very lucky that you know about that, because it is a metaphor for what I feel like to be at work today.

Having been, AND I QUOTE, “thrilled” to be back at my desk not 24 hours ago, sprightly, efficient, and uncharacteristically smiling, I now feel as though my eyes have been sluiced with nail varnish remover and my posture stool, far from feeling pleasingly challenging, is now rock hard against the flesh of my buttocks. Gasp. Maybe I have lost too much weight and am now at risk of posterior bruising. I will just check. No, that’s not it.

I think maybe yesterday I was delirious from lack of sleep, whereas today I have lost the delirium and am merely utterly exhausted. And guess what I have to do tonight? Go to the THEATRE. Yes. I must sit in a dark, warm room watching people talk about serious things. I will be asleep before they set foot onto the stage. Help. Oooh but what is that I see on the horizon? Double gasp! It is the man from the loading bay bringing me A BOX OF NEW CLOTHES FROM ASOS. I could not be more excited than if I was 11 and he was bringing me a note from the head saying my mum had called and that I need to leave early, and I already know that she is getting me out of school because we are secretly going to meet Joey MacIntyre from New Kids on the Block. Right, I’m off to the loo to try everything on. Oooh AND my boss is simultaneously putting on his jacket which means he will leave… yes, he’s leaving, which means I can be ages trying things on and NO ONE WILL KNOW. Except you, but you won’t tell anyone, will you. Will you? Hmmmm. Maybe I will wait until after the clothes-trying-on session to post this, to cover my back. Yes, I think that is sensible.

OK, I'm back, and I've tried everything on and I am keeping one blouse, one pair of shorts and one pair of leggings. I am sending back four jumpers, one dress and an alternative pair of shorts. Non-existent God bless ASOS for doing free next day delivery if you spend over £100 and free returns, and not minding that I totally take advantage and order pretty much anything I like just to bump my small order up over £100 so that I get it the next day. I'm now even more shattered following the adrenaline frenzy of trying on new things. Consume sleep consume sleep consume sleep die.

The past and the future are illusions. The only thing that is real is the I, and the now.

Warning: continued introspection

I'm still thinking.

Feeling much better though, which is good. Or maybe it's bad, if you don't like me and want me to suffer. Everything's subjective.

I'm now wondering something that I used to wonder a lot when it came to boyfriends, and which I'm now wondering about just in terms of life. Are you ready? This is it:

How much is enough?

In relationships, sometimes boys would drive me mad. And I'd say to myself, 'Stop criticising them. You're never going to meet anyone who never annoys you - some degree of compromise is always necessary.' And then I'd think 'But how do I know whether I'm making the right amount of compromise, or whether I'm just ignoring the evidence and staying with the wrong person?' My argument was that, if you compromised on everything, you could persuade yourself that you were lucky to be with a vomit-covered tramp. So where should one draw the line? How could one know if one was being too critical, or whether one just wasn't suited to the boy in question? Eventually, in every case, we broke up, and I look back now and, without exception, it was absolutely right that we did.

And now I'm thinking about me in my life, and how much is enough. We all have flaws and character traits we don't like in ourselves. Some people are intolerant, or prejudiced, or hot-headed, or stubborn, or lazy, or prone to fat. I am several of the above - and I am also (as previously discussed) hungry for praise and recognition. I need more recognition than the average person. This is annoying, as it means I don't generally remain happy without lots of praise for very long, which makes me overly-reliant on third parties and means that doing regular things like having a normal job and normal friends isn't enough for me, and I need more stimulation and more applause, so I write about my normal life in a blog and still crave more readers.

Now, I have a choice. I can either put this need down as a failing, and try very hard to learn to be content with the norm and stop striving for further recognition, or I can just say 'Oh well, that's the way I am, I'm a show pony,' and just go with it, push myself to be recognised and grow comfortable with that part of my character - hopefully while keeping an eye on it so that it doesn't get too out of hand.

The important thing at the moment is that I start to respect myself, as I am right now.

Meh. I'm boring myself now. Anyone who's still reading, well done to you, you're made of kinder stuff than I am.

I weighed myself on Sunday. I am basically a million stone. So I took advantage of the clocks going back and the associated jetlag to get up earlier on Monday morning, do my meditation and go for a run. And then today I meditated and did yoga. And tomorrow I will run again. It is all going terribly well and I was so smug with myself that yesterday evening I bought myself a reward jumper, which I'm wearing today. My legs still look like rolled up duvets but I think that the jumper briefly distracts the viewer from my lower half. So that's also good. Unless you don't like me, in which case you should ignore my talk of my nice jumper and just focus on the bit about my legs. Also, you might enjoy finding out that yesterday evening, despite there being nothing I could think of that was wrong, I still walked through town, new jumper in hand, feeling like sobbing. It's a funny old world.

Bad investment

Hmm, I thought to myself when I saw this photo (among others) on a newsletter that arrived in my email inbox a short while ago. That is a nice vest. It has straps that are at once thin, yet also thick enough to give some definition to my possibly on the broad side shoulders. It is low cut, but not trampy. And it has buttons, that can be unbuttoned to enhance cleavage on a trampy day or, perhaps, a tanned and toned naval region. Maybe I'll buy one, I thought. I clicked the link to the website and then realised abruptly that I was about as likely to buy this vest as I am to give birth to a set of Royal Doulton china, soup tureen first. The vest, the flimsy, basically just a vest vest, is FIFTY FOUR POUNDS AND NINETY FIVE PENCE. Basically, it is £55. Which is more than half a hundred pounds. Half a hundred POUNDS. Other things I could buy for £55 include (but are not limited to): fifty five vests from Primark (admittedly not with button enhancements); five thousand five hundred Kola Woppas; 6.918 Fiorentinas from Pizza Express (that is nearly seven whole delicious pizzas); forty six Soreen Malt Loaves; or a flight from London Stansted to SPAIN OR TURKEY for £45.99, leaving me with nine pounds to spend in the airport in Accessorize, perhaps on one or two REASONABLY PRICED VESTS.

What could possibly be Chinti and Ripoff's justification for charging this surely record-beating price? Is the vest woven from platinum by winged, singing elves under the light of the August moon? Does it guarantee weight-loss for every wearer? Are they offering a 'Buy one, get 40 free?' plan? A complimentary Johnny Depp with each purchase? No. It is organic. Which is good and everything, but... That appears to be it.

The website says: "Our Button Through Vest [NB capitalisation to lend it an air of sounding like this is special and/or exciting] [NB also that I initially fell for that] is made from 100% organic cotton rib. This garment is longer in length with a relaxed fit and [wait for it] has NUT BUTTONS [author's capitals] which are environmentally friendly. The fabric is the ultimate in soft cotton. Great as a standalone and layering piece." Piece. Standalone. FFS. And nut buttons! I ask you. I will accept that, conceptually, they do sound quite sweet - as though they have been handmade by a team of squirrels - but really. Am I meant to start getting paranoid about the fact that my buttons, my normal, plastic buttons, are ecologically unsound? Because if Chinti and Bellend really think that that is how I should be spending my time, then they can take their nut buttons and shove them.

Fifty four ninety five.

Clegg-up

Anyone talking about a LibDem government is a lot more naive than I am, but I won't deny that it is fun to be a fan of the yellows today. Clegg's support has certainly rocketed up following last night's live TV debate - but only a sixth of the population watched it, and of them, only about half say they would vote for him in the election. It's hardly the sensation that it seems in this morning's media - but there's no doubt it was a great night for British politics.

I watched the first hour of the debate intently on my laptop between midnight and 1am, and watched the final thirty minutes somewhat less intently immediately after that. My hastily typed notes bring it all flooding back... It never fails to amaze me how rubbish Brown is on camera. Cameron talks clearly but still reminds me of the inflatable reserve pilot in Airplane; if we popped him, he'd crumple. I tried to concentrate on what he was saying but I was a bit the worse for wear after a raucous night at KaraUke (yup. Karaoke. Ukuleles. Amazing.) and I involuntarily started to glaze over whenever he was speaking. The only thing that woke me up was his repeated use of the bizarre, two syllable "prop'ly", which initially grated and then started to make me giggle compulsively. He mentioned meeting a "black man" as though this was some ground-breaking act of tolerance: the nation winced. The only time I warmed to him was when I noticed he is left handed, an extraordinarily insignificant fact that made me squeal with excitement. It won't make me switch my political allegiance, though. He really did seem like such a lightweight. Attacking Brown should have been complete child's play - even the least aggressive Tory could plausibly argue that we are in a far worse financial state than any other leading economy, and that it's all Gordo's fault. Whether those accusations are true or not is up to Brown to defend - but surely Cameron missed a sitting duck there. A duck who lives in a duckhouse paid on expenses. Paddling near a moat, cleaned on expenses. Then again, Cameron probably didn't go into the debate intending to kick off a nuclear cold/boiling hot war with China... A quote from my notes: "Isthe most important job of the cuntry to protect and defend uK - 'when we don't know what's got to happen with iran, we don't know what's going to happen with china...?' ARGH."

Immediately after the live debate had ended, probably around the time I was on stage with Chris and Lucille singing Tiffany's I Think We're Alone Now, my other friend Chris sent me a text that read: 'Brown = Retard', and having watched the programme, I'd agree that he completely lost me. He tried really hard to use hard facts - but, as the book I'm reading now is pointing out superbly, facts and truth don't win - stories do. I wrote in my notes "oh poor gordon. it's an absolute car crash. every idea he comes out with is like 'why aren't you already doing this NOW?' they should have had a new leader." His response to the expenses scandal seemed genuinely humble - but his claim to be all up for Parliamentary reform drew derisive laughter from both Cameron and Clegg - the former rightly asking why he promises to do it now, having had 13 years, while the latter was visibly frustrated given that both main parties have voted against his reform suggestions in the recent past.

Unlike Cameron and Brown, however, Clegg was believable. He used smart analogies on tricky subjects, straightening out the debate on capping immigration by saying it would make the football transfer market difficult, and relating well to the audience, at one point saying to a questioner something along the lines of, "I know you're not allowed to ask supplementary questions, but nod if you like what I'm saying." It was a brilliant tactic to get people physically onside and showed a real comfort with talking to real people that I didn't see from either of the other two. He also was the only one to mention the metaphorical and literal bombshell that is Trident and its £100 billion price tag - you knows it makes sense. On the downside, like Cameron and Brown, he was fairly insufferable with his pally pally first names every six seconds, falling over himself to thank Jacqueline, Alan and Joel personally for their startlingly brilliant questions on the NHS, education and defence etc. etc. vom. etc.

Overall, I couldn't fail to be impressed that all three of them came out without weeping - I can't think of many modern situations that could be more intensely pressurising than a ninety minute, uninterrupted, live, national debate with two formidable opponents, and I spotted the autocue at one point - no scrolling script of course, just a huge timer counting down the number of seconds they had left to speak. Cameron rounded up with the terrifying mental image of him "being behind you" like a terrifying right wing pantomime villain or a gay car in the car/garage analogy, after which I kind of missed whatever the other two said. ITV's Alistair someone, the presenter, was laughably bad: an unusually tricky combination of camp, patronising, thick and bossy. I'm glad I watched to the end, however, as the hand shaking competition that went on as the credits rolled was hi-freaking-larious - Brown clearly broke rules to step forward and start mingling with the audience in the front row, while Clegg and Cameron stood uncertainly on the stage, wanting to get their skin touching moment in but knowing they'd agreed not to. Eventually they conferred and scuttled off the steps together, so suddenly, all three leaders were shaking pretty much every hand within reaching distance. It was a frenzy of "Love me! Love me!" to a previously-stifled audience who seemed thrilled to be allowed to do something other than hold very still. It looked like a political version of an impromptu a-Ha concert, with Clegg as Morton, Cameron as Mags and Brown as Pal. [Insert your own pun about the sun always shining on TV here]. [Or would one about hunting high and low be more appropriate?].

Anyway. Happy weekends one and all. I'm off with my PMT and my hangover to the gym, followed by a night out on the tiles with Grania where we've set ourselves wardrobe homework: neither of us is allowed to wear anything that the other has seen before. I am wearing several items that are quite odd on their own, but when teamed together are nothing short of fashion suicide. I'm going to look like I've picked my outfit for a bet. And my odds are not great.

Sex, cars, clothes and self-hatred

Just before the long weekend, I was having an interesting email discussion with a guy in my office about fast cars. He casually mentioned that driving his was better than sex. I said he's obviously not doing it right. He said he is doing it right, but that the thrill of driving the car beats sex every time. I asked him to choose: either a) your choice of incredible car for the rest of your life, but only bad sex or b) fantastic sex with your dream woman and a lifetime behind the wheel of a Ford Focus or similar. He said he would choose a) without hesitation. I found this extraordinary and shallow, and slightly went off him (platonically speaking).

Later that evening, I was talking about clothes with my friend Alex, and we both agreed that we have a slight problem with how much we love buying new items. And quietly, in the rear left corner of my brain, an alarm bell rang. I relayed my conversation re. bad sex vs. fast cars to Alex, and we replaced the car with clothes, i.e. a) fantastic clothes and bad sex for the rest of your life, or b) fantastic sex but terrible clothes. This time the choice was unapologetic and instantaneous. There is no way in heaven and earth that I could only wear rank clothes for the rest of my life - at least, not living in society as I know it. Bad, three minute sex would be a delight if it meant I was guaranteed to have a permanently great wardrobe. I grudgingly have to accept that the guy at work isn't as wrong as I'd thought.

I've had a lovely four day break - repainted my bedroom, reorganised things in an impressive fashion, single-handedly rehung my mammoth bookshelf, ate three times my own bodyweight over Saturday eve and Sunday when I was staying with my parents', and watched the Coen brothers' A Simple Man at The Roxy last night. It was goodish. Today was back to business as usual. After a couple of stops on the tube, I was standing in the middle corridor of the carriage with a row of seated people facing me on either side. Directly to my right was a small, wizened old lady with a prominent nose, wearing a headscarf and dull, practical clothes without ornament. Her chestnut skin was weatherbeaten to a matt eggshell finish and when the train was stationary I could actually hear her epidermis crying out for Oil of Olay. She looked like a National Geographic portrait of an Afghan war widow, utterly out of place on the tube. I was trying to figure out if I could take her photograph without causing a ruckus, but then I noticed her flicking something rhythmically in her hand. I looked closer. She appeared to be holding a small metal counting device, which, I believe, is called a 'clicker'. Every two or three seconds, she clicked it. I didn't know if she was conducting an experiment or whether she was suffering from unusually regular palsy. Then I thought it: perhaps it's a bomb detonator. I swore violently at myself. I hated myself fully. My cheeks flooded with angry blush. A little old lady looks out of place on the tube, and you think she might be a wannabe mass murderer? God I hate the media for infecting me with such far-fetched bollocks, and my own tendency towards narrow-mindedness for not fighting the infection hard enough. If I can't even stamp it out in my own mind, what hope do we have? Yuck, yuck and yuck.

Tube hook-up

Despite being the World's Illest Person, I went out last night, because I thought I might go insane if I didn't. Unexpectedly, however, almost my favourite part of the evening happened before I even reached my destination. I was leaving a packed tube at Angel and even given my svelte, streamlined silhouette, I had to work quite hard to force my way through the carriage. As I stepped down onto the platform, I felt a strange tightening sensation around my neck. I looked down. Brilliantly, a thread of my hot pink, chunky-knit snood had become caught in the zip of a woman's coat who was remaining on board the train. There was a bright loop of wool, approximately two feet in length, connecting the two of us and I can tell you for nothing that she was not at all happy about it. I started giggling compulsively as she tried to unhook me, the doors threatening to shut at any moment. I ran through my options and realised that, in the event of all separation attempts failing, I would have to jettison the snood. The thought of it dangling from the train as it pulled away made me laugh even more. Meanwhile, the coat lady was still having a massive sense of humour failure, huffing to a point where I thought she might combust, so I reached in and took over, and miraculously, just as the doors started beeping, I freed myself. It was a fashion miracle. I skipped down the platform enjoying my emancipation, briefly forgetting that I am going through minor hell at the moment, what with the illness and other assorted trials and tribulations.

Then I spent an hour in my favourite secret cafe, drinking tea and reading Prospect, before schlepping through the driving rain to Le Mercury where I met Sara and Grania, who broke down my aggressively defensive mood, got me drunk and made me laugh. Then we went to the South East heats of the 2010 beatboxing contest and the same motherfucking compere was there as last time, just as fat and unpleasant and wearing some absurd houndstooth checked muu-muu, from what I could determine. After the winner had been announced, he told us all to "go to the bar and get some fucking drinks down you so you won't notice when I feel you up later." Charmed, I'm sure.

Talking shop

God I love clothes. I know, I know, appearances can be deceiving, beauty is only skin deep, it's not what's on the outside that matters yadda yadda. But let's face it, all those yawnsome platitudes were just made up so that mothers would have something to say to their fat teenage daughters. The truth is, we are judged on our appearance, and we judge others on theirs - and we make those judgements because, nine times out of ten, they're accurate. If we were consistently wrong, we'd soon learn, and adjust our prejudices accordingly.

Looks matter. Maybe they shouldn't, but they do. Last night I went to Westfield and watched a selection of the most boringly, uniformly dressed teenage girls traipse around Topshop and H&M, buying armfuls of clothes that looked identical to the ones that they were already wearing. There is a scene in the film Clueless where Cher is walking along the corridor talking to Dionne on her mobile phone, and after about ten seconds, Dionne joins her, walking in the same direction, and they hang up without drawing breath, and I remember watching that, slack-jawed, in the nineties, thinking how fun it looked to be that connected, that technologically savvy. Yesterday in Westfield, the teenagers didn't even appear to hang up when they were together. It's as though mobile phones are a cooler way of communicating than actual face-to-face, so they just never hang up. The benefit for the outsider is that they talk much more loudly into their phones than they would to each other, so the full inanity of their babble is revealed. And I suddenly realised that the horror of having children isn't the sleepless nights or the terrible twos, or the toddler tantrums or panicking about primary schools. It's the fact that, without fail, every single teenager in the world is an Absolute, Unmitigating Dick. I definitely was. How do parents humour these morons, who can't speak without splattering their sentences with 'like' and 'y'know', and who couldn't formulate an interesting or unusual phrase if you offered them VIP passes to Glastonbury, unsupervised? I can't imagine not killing them. Matricide beckons. And that's when pregnancy's still a far-off semi-thought. God I hope I never need to adopt - the agency would have a field day. For their reference: that was a joke. I promise I will never murder my children, adopted or otherwise. Although that whole euthanasia thing is interesting, with that BBC presenter killing his lover back in the day. I'm with The Graun on that one - it's all well and good supporting Right To Die etc., but not helpful doing it without proper legal strictures in place.

Aaaaaaaaaanyway. So then I stood, jaw still slack, outside Abercrombie, where there was a cordoned-off queue and a doorman, operating a one-in-one-out policy. I assumed there must be some sort of special event on. But no. These people were queuing to get into the shop. That's it. Queuing to shop. Even for a born consumer such as myself, this was shocking, and I felt a sudden urge to get all revolutionary on their asses, knock down the barricade and drag them all into M&S shouting 'There are ALTERNATIVES! And in other shops, the sizing isn't so OUTRAGEOUS that a NORMAL PERSON has to wear an XXXL!' But I didn't.

Then I went to dinner at Grania's for seriously delicious chicken stew and buttery cabbage and then pancakes, and the clothes discussion continued. I think I slightly freaked out this guy called Jim with the extent of my self-imposed rules for shopping, in that, when considering a new purchase, I will break down the item's price by estimated number of times it will be worn, and thus calculate if it's worth it. For example, I find a new belt that costs £15. I decide I will wear it approximately ten times in the next year. Thus I will be paying £1.50 a time to wear it. For £1.50, I would hope the belt would add a fair bit of value to my outfit - it wouldn't have to be the feature piece, but it certainly couldn't go unnoticed. If I decide that £1.50 is a fair price for each of the belt's outings, I will buy it. Jim's rules were different, as he doesn't buy clothes unless he has run out of something, which is a concept of purchasing that is laughably distant for me. Running out of anything... Nope. Not going to happen. Possibly tights, but that's it. I explained that my tenuous defence for my clothes addiction comes from the fact that, in my early twenties, I was really quite overweight, and the novelty of being able to fit into something, let alone actually look good, is still so fresh that whenever I try something and like it, a panic overwhelms me and I worry that, if I don't buy this garment, right here, right now, I'll regret it forever. Admittedly, I have been fitting in to high street stores for several years now, and I'll be the first to agree that argument doesn't quite stand up any longer, but it's my story and I'm sticking to it.

God I'm hungover. Can you tell? I can't seem to shut up, and nothing I write is of any real interest. Ukulele tonight. Hair of the dog may be necessary.

Barbour black sheep

I read this article today about the renaissance of poshness in British society. To nutshellise, it claims that 'normal' people are dressing like posh people by wearing Barbours, which proves that being posh isn't seen as such an awful thing as it used to be. Weirdly, I agree with the conclusion, but not the hypothesis. I do feel that the upper classes, plummy accents and country pursuits are sneered at less now than they were two decades ago, and I concur with the journalist who suggested that this shift has happened because Thatcher seems a long time ago, and the new enemies are bankers and global corporations, not colonial landowners. The toffs aren't the ones ruining the UK any more, so it's OK to like them. I see the logic in this argument, but I think it's bollocks. Ultimately, massive capitalist and corporate greed is more dangerous and damaging than a yearning for some sort of golden era of pre-war clarity where everyone knew their place. But they both suck. And being governed by a pack of Old Etonians might seem reassuringly familiar in this time of uncertainty, but not all that is familiar is good.

And anyway, I don't think the hipsters who are wearing Barbour jackets want to look posh. The people buying them are in their early twenties and have lived under a Labour government for most of their lives - they can't remember why everyone used to hate the upper classes. Even if they have a vague understanding of the concepts of class wars, snobbery and social immobility, they care more about looking different and ironic than politically active. In the nineties, Burberry was subversive for a bit, sported by Kate Moss, but then it filtered down to Oasis and the Appletons and, almost overnight, became a uniform for aspirational working classes. Then it disappeared out of the public eye altogether. Now it's back, the telltale tartan is used discretely if at all, and the brand is quietly unaffordable once again. These things move in entirely predictable waves.

Whatever happens, even if Barbour-wearing becomes compulsory for anyone under 35, this is one bandwagon I won't be joining. In the days of yore, during my bowl-haircut, alabaster-pale, pony-crazed early teen years, before I fell in love with Joey MacIntyre from New Kids On The Block, I had a waxed jacket, and although I concede its waterproofing abilities, I detested its singular smell and the fact that it was uniquely useless at keeping me warm. It was like wearing a dark, condensation-filled army tent, smelling of dogs, discomfort and heart-rending homesickness, and I hated it. The trendy Hoxtonites can sport 'em all they like, but as the snow falls in London, you'll see me snuggled up in my M&S coat and my H&M fake fur bonnet, looking something like a cross between an elf and a panda, and happy as a clam.

Surface tension

Last night I went to see Martha Wainwright sing songs by Edith Piaf at the Barbican. I've been a fan of Martha for a few years, having discovered her through my love of her brother, Rufus. Like her brother, she is classically trained, Canadian and pretty much bilingual. She's also had a pretty rocky time of it, albeit in a fairly privileged way, and where Rufus is openly gay and has written a lot about that, Martha is straight but has struggled with relationships, writing songs like Bloody Motherfucking Asshole and I Know You're Married But I've Got Feelings Too. I think she is clever and hilarious and in possession of an incredibly strong and sensual voice; I was extremely excited about last night.

And then she walked on stage, and I gasped: she was pregnant. Very pregnant. Last I'd heard, she was singing about being a mistress, and now she was having someone's baby and wearing a wedding ring. I was thrilled for her, genuinely thrilled, but then, through all the beautiful Piaf songs, I couldn't stop thinking about it. I wanted to focus on the music, I wanted her pregnancy and marriage to be irrelevant, but the mental image I'd had of her had always been of a battler, and now she was happy. I think I'd feel the same if I'd seen Gordon Brown with a suntan or Jesus doing a 100m sprint - it was incongrous and, shame on me, I found it distracting. Her clothes got me as well. Her leggings in the first half were too tight, her top was unflattering. And after the interval, she came back on stage wearing a black silk dress over a strapless bra that squashed her boobs into a flat plank, making them look like a little shelf. The dress needed to be ironed and the hem was irregular but not in a way that made me think it was a deliberate design choice.

And so this gorgeous, hair-raisingly beautiful music is being performed by fantastically talented singers and players, including a seriously hot pianist, and all I can think about is the fact that Martha's going to have a baby but her bra is a disaster, and whether they have ironing facilities in the dressing rooms at the Barbican. What is wrong with me?! Why can't I pierce the outermost layer and get stuck in to what's really important? I'm like the worst bits of Trinny, Suzannah and a magpie, distracted by anything sparkly, or, in my case, helplessly drawn to unsightly bulges.

It doesn't matter who's talking or what extraordinary life changing information they're imparting - a stray facial hair or a sweat patch will render me entirely unable to hear anything other than the voice in my head that's going 'Should I tell them? I probably should. I'd want someone to tell me. But then, what can they do about it? Maybe I should tell that other person to tell them...' and on to infinity. Some people just don't even see these things. They are the people who walk around with unplucked eyebrows and VPLs, the hanger loops dangling out of their waistlines, labels sticking out of their neck, whose dyed hair looks perfect from the front but a wreck from the back, who are happily talking to a boy they fancy with red wine encrusted into the cracks on their lips, and they don't give a damn. They're blissfully ignorant and god they're lucky. I want to be like them. Maybe if I stopped wearing glasses I wouldn't see as many flaws, but my new frames are too cool for school. Hmmm.

Envy

This morning a woman went past me on a bicycle. She was wearing the coolest jacket in the history of warm outerwear. It had a dark grey leather body, very soft, close-fitted in a bomber style, cropped. And then it had a large floppy wool collar, thick waistband and thick ribbed woollen sleeves, made out of black wool flecked all over with silver glittery sparkles. I was so jealous that I came to a halt and stared at her as she cycled by. I don't know what else I've thought about since but it's not much.

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.

Lust is in the air

I'm sorry I didn't write yesterday but I am reading an absolutely gripping self-help book at the moment and it is requiring me to do lots of exercises and write down my innermost thoughts and dreams etc. which couldn't be more fun as it means thinking about myself non-stop, which is a special gift of mine as you will know, but it does mean that I haven't had so much time to write about myself for your reading pleasure.

That doesn't mean I haven't been thinking about you. I had a really nice weekend, slightly too much sitting in the flat waiting for the Virgin man and the supermarket man for my liking, as I would have preferred to be out in the sun, but otherwise all good. On Saturday night I debuted a new garment: a kind of black shorts and top combo item, kind of like a sleeveless jumpsuit but without the legs. It is well cool. I wore it with opaque black tights and black stillettos and felt a bit exposed in the thigh area but, being that it is definitely better to regret something you have done than something you haven't, I am pleased that I took the gamble. Even more crazily, I went outside while wearing this outfit, to the theatre with Alix to see Spring Awakening, which was absolutely freaking brilliant, quite saucy and highly recommended. We bought cheap seats on the stage, which meant we couldn't quite pick up all the lyrics, but were surrounded by cast members and right in the action. It was a young team and they were all very talented and enthusiastic and, as I always do when I enjoy myself at any sort of performance, I felt quite irritated that I wasn't involved. Especially because there were two or three male actors who were breath-takingly handsome and who could sing, a combination I have long found so irresistable that it was extremely tricky to resist lungeing at them as they exited stage right.

Monday morning was back at work and my boss recounted an incident from his weekend. Apparently, after dinner, late on Saturday night, he went for a walk through Leicester Square, because his friend thought he should see what the real London is like. It was about 11pm and he noticed a crowd gathered outside a bar near Capital Radio. He thought maybe it was a fight, so he went over to help, and saw two girls lying on the floor, completely drunk, one topless and the other licking her nipples. "There are so many horrible people in London," he said. I felt very defensive about my city and, having never ever seen anything quite so intimate happening in the street in any of my 31 years here, did try and make the point that he'd been unlucky (or lucky, depending on whether you like that kind of thing). But I think his mind is made up. Ah well.

Right. Self-help, introspection and navel-gazing beckons. Til next time.

Two photos and a momentary revel

Oh god oh god. This photo actually brought tears to my eyes. The whole G20 summit has been absolutely gripping to follow, but as you all know too well, underneath all the attempts to be worthy and educated, I am of course just another superficial girl and despite my best attempts, I can't help myself. I have to comment. Just look at it. Have you ever seen anything so depressing? Poor, poor Sarah Brown. It is an absolute disaster. The first thing my eyes are drawn to is her pronounced womb, hugged so cruelly by the synthetic fabric of her ill-advised pencil skirt. What is she doing?! She is clearly and undeniably a pear-shape, so why on earth is she wearing something that would only be vaguely bearable on a true hourglass? Her shoulders look tiny, her waist appears only to be defined by the clinging waistband of her tights and, horror of all horrors, there is actually a visible dent in her upper thigh from the bottom of her underwear! Then there's the fact that the suit itself has never been in fashion, the buttons are slightly straining, her opaque tights aren't right for the look and her shoes make her calves look clumpy. It's just too sad. Swap the two women's outfits and things would have been far better - Sarah's womb and thigh nightmare would be completely disguised in Michelle's prom skirt, while Mrs Obama could have dazzled us with her smile and made us forgive the royal blue error beneath.

Of course, Sarah Brown is nothing to do with fashion. There's absolutely no need for her to be glamorous or cool. But you'd have thought, as the most senior wife in British politics and clearly an extremely clever, capable, nice woman in her own right, she might have asked for a tiny bit of clothes advice on this most high-profile of occasions. Next time, Mrs B, just try to go for something a little less corporate, a little more loose, make sure you buy the right size - and, for the love of god, woman, please avoid any sort of VPL.

And this is the other photo that had me squinting forward at my monitor this morning. When I imagined the G20 dinner, it wasn't anything like this. I must admit to finding the Arab wearing his headphones over his scarf childishly funny, and wondering how it is possible to relax for even a second with all those microphones, translators and aides surrounding them. The man peering over the shoulder of the far off delegate on the left seems to be at least 8 feet tall, while the young guy hugging the curtain on the right appears about to enter a new orbit of stress. I have to be honest, I preferred my vision of how the evening might look: everyone chilling out, slippers on, ties off; Angela Merkel with her hair in a topknot, wearing a facemask; the men smoking pipes, shouting out requests to the iPod controller; an arthritic spaniel wandering in and out; Jamie Oliver coming in to admit that he dropped the pasta in the sink when he was trying to strain it and everyone saying 'Oh, don't worry, it'll taste fine,' in concilliatory tones. Surely more conducive to a fun evening? But possibly not such a great environment for an evening which ultimately concluded in the announcment of a $1.1 trillion dollar cash injection. So far, the markets seem to be pleased about this, but until my house price rises, I'll be raising a cynical eyebrow and refusing to comment.

Finally, as warned in the title of today's posting, a brief and (I hope) uncharacteristic revel. I am a very lucky bunny, but I must just quickly note, as I never have said it out loud before, that I freaking love being able to sing. Last night, three of us met at Harry's flat to rehearse for a wedding at which we're singing in a few weeks. And suddenly, the black and white notes on a page were able to bring tears to the eyes of the happy-couple-elect. It's just the most wonderful feeling, to be part of something that comes from your body alone, that can be done anywhere in the world: complete and joyous escapism, a mental and physical act that challenges and rewards. I'm not the best singer, and I tend to brush off comments about enjoying it for fear of looking uncool - but, in case I'm hit by a bus in the next 24 hours, I'd like the records to show that singing, whether in the choir or in smaller groups or even on my own, makes me very happy indeed and it's a hobby I'd recommend without hesitation. I was in fine fettle on my bus journey home, humming along to Stevie Wonder and feeling pretty self-sufficient and massively fortunate. Then I woke up this morning with the sensation that thirty or forty smallish beanbags filled with a warm, leaden gel had been placed on my skull and shoulders, and that two large thumbs were slowly and methodically attempting to push my eyeballs out through their sockets from the inside. Depression: it's a fascinating beast and for reasons of self-discovery alone, I don't regret having it but ooh, I wouldn't wish it on anyone. TGIF.

Chivalry: if it's not dead, should we kill it?

Oh, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. I went to the top of my emotional rollercoaster and then plummeted down to the nadir of the metaphorical canyon that opens up in my soul every once in a while. Then I was fine, but just really busy. And now I'm still fine and still busy, but I can't leave it any longer to write or else no one will ever click on my blog again and I will feel abandoned and the canyon will come a-calling once again.

So. There was the boy - yes, the one I was emailing last week. Things with him are now over, so I am free to write as much as I like about him without fear of retribution. He was (briefly) lovely. Very, very good looking. And quirky and interesting. And he seemed to be extremely taken by me. Despite my best efforts to remain distant and coquettish (always my strong suits), he won me round by emailing the longest, funniest messages to me on a very regular basis, and always seeming to want to spend more and more time with me whenever we met up. Which was admittedly only twice. But, you know how these things can spiral out of control. I did all I could not to get excited, but at some point on our second date, possibly shortly before he initiated planning our third, I became really quite hooked on him. And I can identify the precise moment it happened. Reader: he walked on the road side of the pavement.

I hope for your sake that that phrase means absolutely nothing to you. For the lucky uninitiated, walking on the road side of the pavement is a pathetically archaic etiquette practice, whereby men walk on the side of the pavement nearest the traffic, ostensibly to protect women from the splashes and dirt thrown up by the horses and carriages driving by. Today, it is rare that a man walks to the road side of me. My father does it. So does my friend Donald. But it is unusual. And every cell in my brain knows that that is as it should be. It is a ridiculous practice. I mean, perhaps when it is pouring with rain, maybe then, it could be justified. But really - it's outdated and anachronistic, other synonyms - and possibly degrading. Yet, oh, it made me go weak at the knees. When he later gestured towards the wall seat at our restaurant table and said 'Ladies face the room', I practically swooned.

What is it with me and manners? On paper, I know they're ridiculous. They go against my politics, my ideas of female equality and my rational brain. And, as Sarah pointed out the other day, there is even something a bit artful about those moves, as though a boy knows too much, perhaps something a bit dangerous about chivalry, a warning sign?, although I think that depends on the boy. And yet, and yet - I love it when a man carries my bag without being asked. I love being helped on with my coat. I love being given the best seat. I love having the car door opened. And I love, love, love walking on the not-road-side. It's indefensible, I know - but I think it might be something to do with the fact that I am not petite, physically or in character - when I am made to feel like a lady who is in need of protection, even it is from the invisible mud that is not splattering from the carriages that are not passing us, it fulfills some dark need in my nature to be cherished. Sad but true. Am I evil? I'm sorry.

Anyway - so he walked on the road side of the pavement, and then he let me sit with my face to the room, and then he kissed me and then I went home and then the next day he said he didn't want to see me any more. Retard.

I'm fine now, really, and I have four - count 'em! - dates on the horizon. Obviously I swore off all men after the recent rejection debacle, in order to rebuild my self-esteem on my own, but as soon as someone else asked me out, my self-esteem miraculously returned to former levels and I am now feeling chipper and robust once more. It'd be lovely if my happiness didn't depend quite so much on boys fancying me, but hey, I'm a 31 year old girl with hourglass curves and lots of lovely dresses: it'd be a shame to let this all go to waste.

Monday round-up

A very sweet anonymous poster commented that I am 'like Carrie from Sex and the City' and that I should continue writing about dating. Now, flattery will get you almost anywhere with me - but I think on this matter, it might be better to wait. I'll reminisce in a while once the dust has settled, I promise. But for now: things seem to be good.

Exciting news for me is that my parents are taking me to Paris at the beginning of December. I haven't been for five years and I can't wait. Last time I went I bought a green short sleeved jumper featuring an embroidered pair of sunglasses, and a V-neck sweater vest with knitted penguins all over it - vintage purchases I still wear and love - so hopefully this trip will be equally fruitful. I suppose we'll have to do something cultural as well, between the eating and the shopping. Things must've changed over there in the past five years though - if any loyal Faithful have any tips of Must Do tourist things, please leave a comment, bearing in mind that my parents will be present, so fetish nights and/or Full Moon party type events possibly not suitable.

Having kicked off with a rather lovely Friday night, my weekend was really quite ace. Saturday was spent mooching, hungover, with Emily, before I went to meet Joanna in Westbourne Park and talked non-stop about Friday night for about 25 minutes. Then we went to Dan and Clare's engagement party, celebrating a couple who were just destined to be together. I am extremely and genuinely delighted for them. Selfishly, I was also really glad that they had an excuse to throw a party, because it was the first time I'd seen a lot of that posse for months, and I was like a butterfly on coke, chatting to as many people as I possibly could, laughing far too loudly and struggling to check my emails on my iPhone using Fuller's wifi. Pah. Then Vanessa and I took the tube home and, during a nine minute wait on the platform at Elephant and Castle, took photographs of ourselves reflected in the perspex covering of the tube map so that we looked like a) Cabbage Patch Kids and then b) Cyclops. Our silent, hiccupping hysteria was possibly incredibly annoying for the three other people waiting forlornly on the platform.

Then on Sunday, Emily, Joanna, Kate, Ses and I went to the Robert Capa exhibition at the Barbican, which was fascinating - or at least, in the spirit of true self-obsession, I found my reaction to it fascinating, in that the exhibition of Capa's famous photographs was teamed with photographs from modern warfare in Iraq and Afghanistan, and unexpectedly, I found the recent pictures infinitely more affecting. And I much preferred the photos taken by Capa's girlfriend, which seemed to have a more personal, studied focus - not like warfare then. I did understand why Capa went for the blurred action shots, and his images of the D-Day landings were amazing - what these journalists go through is incredible - but one of the modern collections featured a wall of photos with subjects ranging from Iraqi families wearing Santa hats to brutal attacks by American soldiers - now that I write it, the contrast is possibly a bit schmaltzy but in situ it was very striking.

Despite gallery flop, Em and I somehow found the energy to schlep over to Cheshire St for a quick trip to Beyond Retro where I found some amazing new items among the warehouse's heaving rails. Very smug. I went home, collapsed onto the sofa, watched Saturday's X Factor (gripping) and then realised that my flat was a tip and that it was being seen by someone who's never seen it before on Tuesday. Consequently, my shoe pile had to be confronted. I laid them all out for the first time and I'm ashamed to say that, in a display worthy of a modern day Imelda, the pairs covered the floor around three sides of my bed. It was extraordinary. I did a cull, and then counted what was left. And... I don't know if I can just come out and admit how many are left... but if you take the number 200 and then times it by six and then divide it by the square root of 25, and then minus the sum of 170 and 36, and then add the amount you get when you multiply 3 and 5, that's how many pairs of shoes and boots I now possess. In my defence, I suffer from an unnamed but special condition due to having size 10 feet - due to an almost total shortage of shoes in my size during my younger years, I now compulsively fall upon any footwear I find that fits me today, panicking that if I don't buy it immediately, I'll never find anything like it again. It's an addiction - don't criticise me: pity me.

Fugging funny

Recently, despite a vaguely nagging sensation that, perhaps, there may exist better uses of my time, I have become rather addicted to a US blog called Go Fug Yourself. I was not previously familiar with the word 'fug' but using my gift for language, I can hypothesise that it is a combination of an obscene swear word (one that I would never, ever use, far less hear spoken aloud by, for example, my father) and the word 'ugly'. The site reproduces paparazzi shots of celebrities and then bitches about their terrible clothing. A simple concept, granted, yet the part of me that hasn't managed to move beyond a decades-old addiction to those in the spotlight finds the writing absolutely hilarious - funny enough to get me through the nausea that always strikes when someone else's blog is unquestionably more amusing than mine and into the happy state where I can just enjoy it for what it is.

But then today something weird happened - I actually knew one of the people off whom they were slagging. Rashida Jones is a friend of a friend and although we're hardly close, it still felt a little less jolly and a lot more vitriolic when the person under fire is someone you know to be charming and kind - not to mention one of the most gorgeous girls on the planet. Admittedly, the comment about her outfit was slightly on the money - I can concede that I've have seen her wearing more wonderful items in the past - but it was a strange sensation and I'm not sure if I'll enjoy Go Fug Yourself with quite the same level of glee in the future.

Oh, who am I kidding? Read this and weep. Or this. And if you're too grown up or serious to find some amusement therein, then you are missing out on something that is extremely enjoyable, is completely fat free, costs absolutely nothing and consequently you have my most heartfelt pity.

Dress for Success

My mother does many things that grate upon my over-sensitive self, such as having regular and violent sneezing fits that last for over ten minutes while I'm trying to eat breakfast, but thankfully she has never been one of those mothers who has put pressure on me to be in a relationship. One hears these horror stories of pressurising parents who berate their offspring for their lack of long-term love, moaning about dying before the birth of their first grandchild - and continually reciting that hideous pearl of received wisdom: that one should always look one's best, 'just in case'/'because you never know who you might meet'.

I do try and look OK, but I'm certainly on the middle of the scale when it comes to making an effort with my appearance. I do my make-up on the tube every morning, starting at Euston Square and ending between Farringdon and Barbican. If I'm not going out in the evening after work, I will wear boring clothes to the office because they're warm or because they're the right colour to complete a pending darks/whites/wools wash. Don't get me wrong, I absolutely love getting dressed up and looking good - but I'm afraid that the people at work aren't enough motivation.

Yesterday, I did have a post-work engagement: another carol concert, this time for the fabulous Breast Cancer Haven charity. But after three choir concerts in four days, I was pretty certain that I wasn't trying to impress anyone in the choir and, after a good scout round at last year's concert, fairly confident that there would be no frissons with any audience members. Consequently, I left my nice choir outfits on the floor where I'd taken them off on Saturday and Sunday, and instead chose to wear my black work trousers, a passable black jumper and my grandmother's jet beads which added a festive twinkle to an otherwise bland outfit. I looked... fine.

So then we walked on stage and who should be in the front row, directly in my line of sight beyond our conductor, but Rod Stewart; his wife, the model, Penny Lancaster; Chris Tarrant; and almost most upsetting of all, Sarah Beeny. Not that I was hoping to entice any of the above, you understand - but it would have been nice to be feeling slightly more attractive than 'fine'. Fortunately, we sang beautifully: Rod even gave us a spontaneous burst of applause at more than one point and conducted the descant of Hark! The Herald Angels Sing by flapping his black scarf. Hilarious. Maybe those pushy mums have a point when it comes to looking one's best; but judging by my dull as ditchwater office attire today, which could reasonably be sported by a middle-aged American soccer mom, I haven't yet taken the lesson fully on board. The new Jane starts here: from now on, it's handbags and gladrags. I'm still doing my make-up on the tube though.

And so it begins...

Conspiracy theory of today: could it be that clothing manufacturers deliberately plaster their office garments in labels, unnecessary blanket stitching in a contrasting colour and/or spare buttons in handy miniature envelopes so that those most likely to be wearing a new suit – new employees – are likely to miss one or more of these unwanted add-ons and wander straight into an embarrassing first day office gaffe? Fortunately, thanks to my eagle eyes, I was spared such humiliation, but it did strike me as slightly absurd that I had to cut at least seven separate items off my suit jacket yesterday. And thank goodness I had the foresight to deal with this issue in advance – had I left it to my bleary-eyed self at 7am this morning after a night’s sleep that can at best be described as laughable, I have no doubt that I would have arrived at my enrolment with the back vents of my jacket still stitched, consigning me to a day of finger pointing and a lifetime of anecdotes.

Day One at the new place has been interesting and big thumbs up have been awarded a) to the private little glass-walled office which will be my daytime home for the foreseeable future; b) to the subsidised canteen which seems more than adequate; and c) to my predecessor who left a packet of Fox’s Chocolate Creams in my second drawer. Now I’m off to my book club where my main focus will be to avoid turning up to Day Two with a stinging hangover. I am not optimistic.