lower case update

ok well it was briefly quite fun being injured but i am v bored of it now. i cant write without looking like i am six and holding my crayon in a fist. i cant hold my book open on the tube. i start writing text messages and by the time i've finished them the recipient has died. it takes me fifteen minutes to put my bra on, a process that now involves yelping. doing up trousers is too irritating to attempt. typing seems briefly ok if i hold veeeeeeery very still but then suddenly i'll over-extend and i'll pull my stitches and it brings tears to my eyes.

still, on the upside, apparently even with my swollen hand covered in iodine, bandaged, bruised and hangng limply from a sling, my father said that visually it is a massive improvement from what was there before, so monstrous was my half-grape-sized ganglion. its unconditional love like that which is really something special, i think. young parents take note. love you daddy. for better or worse, the offending object has now been removed, along with a previously undiscovered metacarpal boss, which sounds like a leader of the fish mafia, but is in fact a bit of unnecessary bone that the nice doctor also planed off while he was digging around in there. the bullish, michael-winner-style anaesthetist wouldn't allow me to have a local anaesthetic because apparently i might flinch inadvertently, which was a disappointment, and in my pre-op excitement i forgot to ask for my presentation pot, but apparently i may be left with a scar so i will still have a souvenir and can tell people i was injured while doing something unspeakably cool like stage-diving at lollapalooza, rather than having cosmetic surgery on an unwanted cyst.

stitches are coming out on friday, all being well. i imagine iwill have a few sense of humour failures between now and then, but the whole living-with-only-one-hand-and-not-the-hand-you-write-with thing has been educational i suppose, and it's nice to have a break from the old routine. i did wonder whether my job satisfaction was at a worrying nadir when i realised i'd actually prefer to have an operation than go in to work last thursday, but i compared notes with kate who said that variety is all-important and that much as she loves her job, she was still looking forward to this wednesday's fire training with some degree of excitement.

i have much to say on several topics but nothing that cant wait until my touch typing is back to 100wpm. your patience will be rewarded at an unspecified future date.

Breaking news: I am mental

Well, my therapist certainly earned her £45 yesterday, although I suppose it's possible that I was just being brilliantly insightful. Whatever the cause, I don't really care - it was an excellent session and I feel like a new woman, my mood not even dented by a fairly unsettling hangover.

We picked up where we'd left off, with me unable to love someone if their love is consistent. Why can't I respect someone who just straightforward loves me? Because it feels too easy, thickie - you're not even testing me! I'm used to jumping through hoops for love, having to be on top form at all times, having to excel, and then you come along and love me without challenging me, without pushing me to my limits? Well, pah to that. OBViously your standards are rock bottom, my friend, and you're just a teeny bit desperate. Because if you were worthy of my respect, if you really were a valuable human being, you wouldn't just love me so easily. You would have to test me, hard, to see if I was worth your time. High quality people don't give their love to just anyone, you know. The creme de la creme will challenge my loyalty, challenge my commitment. Can I bear it when their attention comes in fits and starts? Of course I can! Will I buy them amazing presents to persuade them that I'm worth their continued affection? Yes, yes I will. How about putting up with it when they don't keep their promises? Fine with me! It just means I have to work harder, which in turn means you'll really love me, and you'll see that I really love you too! Pant, pant!

I'm fully aware how excruciating this sounds. But jeez Louise, it explains so much. Not only does it justify some of my less equal platonic friend choices over the years, and the fact that I've consistently fallen crazy in love for guys who've only given me glimmers of inconsistent, patchy interest, but it also explains why, once I've won a guy over and we've become boyfriend and girlfriend, I have then become so critical of them - partly because I lose respect for them because they seem to be loving me UNcritically, but also because I'm showing them that I love them the only way I know how: by challenging them, testing the level of their love for me and giving them the opportunity to up their game and shine to the max. "You think you love me?" I'm saying. "I've jumped through hoops for you, so you know I'm amazing. But how do I make sure you're high quality goods too? Don't think you can sit on your laurels now, young man. You have to prove it, prove it, prove it. Look! I made you this unbeLIEVably romantic dinner! I bought you this absurdly thoughtful gift! I painted your portrait! I printed out all our emails and got them bound into a hardback book! Top that, motherfucker! Can't? Then I'll highlight your inadequacies until you want to rip out my tongue and feed it to squirrels." So they eventually dump me, and finally I get that yearned-for taste of them not wanting me, so I suddenly decide that they ARE good enough, after all. Cue me begging them to take me back, them refusing, and me spending the next several months thinking the one who got away was The One Who Got Away while my parents and friends sit around going, "But you found him really annoying!"

What a fucking nightmare. Still, at least I now have a comprehensive answer to anyone who shakes their head, looking mystified, and says, "I just don't understand why you're still single!" I don't respect anyone who goes out with me, but on the rare occasions that someone slips through the net, I put them through an insanely rigorous, constant and unending series of tests, 'generously' allowing them occasion after occasion so that they can prove their worth every single day we're together, and then, when they inevitably fail, I criticise them to the point of mutual madness, until they end it, when I suddenly grovel at them to take me back.

Then, as if that wasn't enough to send me barking for The Priory, I realised that my love for mySELF is hot and cold, too. Sometimes I think I'm great - usually when I've got visible evidence that some current target thinks I'm cool. Then, just when I'm getting comfortable, the target loses interest, I realise I'm actually a fraud and a failure, I go off myself and plunge into depression. My self-esteem is totally conditional on my passing all my own tests, one of which is to be loved by someone, but that someone has to love me in a conditional way, otherwise I won't respect them.

If that's not a complex little web of insanity, I don't know what is. But frankly, it feels great to have got it out in the open, to see what we're working with. On the downside, I can't see how I'm going to stop doing any of this. And right now, as my therapist identified last night, I'm going through a very angry stage. Anyone who is breezing through life being uncomplicated is making me very annoyed indeed, because I feel like it's very unfair that I should be the way I am. But hey, que sera sera; at least now I understand it, I have a chance of breaking the habits of a lifetime. And the sun's shining.

Plus, I am fairly certain that I'm better off than Ruby Wax, in pretty much every way other than financial. After my landmark therapy sesh, I then went for an hour long drink in Borough Market with Emily, a schoolfriend I've not seen for over fifteen years. Well, honestly, we weren't friends at school. We discussed it last night, and I said I'd been thinking about it, and I reckoned the reason we weren't friends was because we both felt unpopular, and both responded in similarly annoying ways: by trying REALLY REALLY HARD to be popular. Which, as we both know now, is not the best way to make friends. Anyway, it was supremely lovely to add some wine to the water under the bridge and, once again, I gave thanks for the internet and social media for bringing yet another wonderful, feisty, intelligent and entertaining person into my life.

Sorry, that doesn't explain the Ruby Wax comment. After seeing Emily, I then rushed over to the Mernier Chocolate Factory to meet lovely Laura and her amazing friend James for a quick drink and a bite to eat before a performance of Ruby's current show, Losing It. I was just tucking into my chicken breast (skin on) and potato croquette, when Laura paused mid-sentence. "It's Palomino Faith," she whispered, only later realising that Paloma was not named after a blond-maned pony. I whipped round, and saw the back of her ginger beehive. Thrilling celebrity spot, we thought. Moments later, James spluttered into his cheese and grapes. "Ohmygod, what's her name?!" he hissed. "She was like Jane MacDonald, but less famous, and she won Strictly Come Dancing or something and, and, SHE USED TO BE IN BROOKSIDE!" Eventually, someone other than me put the clues together and worked out that D-list, red-faced lass, Claire Sweeney, was eating a few tables away. We were awash with excitement. Two famous people in one evening! Never mind that most normal people would never have heard of either of them. We were feeling very glittery.

Then in walked Joanna Lumley. James began to froth.
"This is too much!" he said. "I cannot cope with this level of excitement." Laura was rocking gently in the corner. I used to work for a pop magazine so cannot act excited around famous people without feeling like I will get fired. Then I spied my friend Damian. He walked over to our table, followed by his wife. "How did you get tickets for this?" he asked with a tone of slight surprise. "I know the right people," I said, coyly, neglecting to mention that we had just bought them, online, a few weeks ago, like any normal person would go about getting tickets for any normal event. Clearly, though, we had picked an interesting night. It was the Gala performance, for Comic Relief, and about five minutes before curtain up, the floodgates opened. You couldn't swing a copy of Hello! magazine without hitting someone whose face you recognised but whose name you couldn't quite remember. Between us, we identified Zoe Wannamaker, Nick from The Apprentice, Jo Brand, Harry Shearer, Harry Enfield and someone called Oliver Something.

Keeping cool, we moved through to the bar. I had to pinch James who was identifying people too loudly, and then I left the two of them and went to get drinks. As I reached the front of the queue, I turned to see Ronnie Wood behind me. This was someone genuinely quite cool, but also unquestionably a dick and a womaniser, so I maintained my glacial air of "Do I look bothered?" As I walked back to my friends with our beverages, however, Laura was holding something approaching what Rodney Yee calls Powerful Pose, knees bent, arms tensed, eyes slightly bulging. "RONNIE WOOD IS HERE," she bellowed. "I know," I said, passing her a glass of house white. "RONNIE WOOD!" she repeated, as he stood an inch away, wearing a bizarre Inca-themed jacket.

We took our seats, and Ruby began her show, which told the story of her descent into depression and her experience of living with the illness. The audience were agog, laughing uproariously when expected to do so, and sitting in horrified silence as Ruby described stuff that sounded perfectly normal to me, like not leaving the house for days on end. She is still heavily reliant on medication and says she hasn't had enough therapy. That's when I realised I wsa better off than her. So that was something. In the second half Q&A, an audience member thanked her for being brave enough to speak out, and I realised then what a generational gap there is - that while a large chunk of my peers are openly in therapy and on medication, where we all know several depressives and it's just, sadly, a common fact of in all our lives - for many of those in their fifties and sixties, it's still a taboo subject, still something that's not taken seriously. Basically, our parents should go, but for us, it was all a bit old hat. Afterwards, we muscled into the aftershow party, ate canapés, drank prosecco and dissected the validity of racist comedy. I tottered home, spoke to Grania for way longer than intended, and seconds later my alarm went off.

Which brings me to the end of today's episode of LLFF. I have had a lovely day, a fast run this morning, a delicious and highly enjoyable lunch with my wonderful dad in the heart of the City where he ruffled my feathers about Thatcher ("But how can you criticise her?") and the Middle East ("They're all morons") while simultaneously being completely hilarious and utterly charming. Winner. I'm off to uke band practice in an hour, then home for some TV and meditation. I'm still not sure why I feel quite so lifted having identified myself as Definitely So Mental As To Be Surely Beyond Hope, but I do. Long may it continue. Love love love to you all xx

Six degrees of inadequacy

Last night I went to the theatre to see Six Degrees of Separation. Worried that I always hate everything I see at The Old Vic, I had bought £10 restricted view bench seats in the gods, and was thrilled on arrival to hear the best words in the world, 'Madam, you've been upgraded', and was presented with two seats in the middle of the stalls, simultaneously a joy and a sure sign of a struggling production. The play's concept is well-known (especially to those of us who've already seen the film) but I can't really see the justification for putting on a new version. Despite the interesting premise, it's not saying anything new, the concepts are either cliched or dated, and the acting wasn't as good as it could have been. I actually missed Will Smith. That said, for £10 I'm not complaining. Well, I am, but not to the extent that I regret going. I'd only have done something else and then moaned about that. And going to see a bad play is still a fun night out for me, perverse though that may be.

I just phoned my parents. One of them picked up, fumbled with the receiver for, I'm not joking, about 25 seconds, like some sort of feeble geriatric, which would be OK if they were seriously old but they're not. In the background I could hear the lunchtime news talking about Afghanistan. "Morons?" I was barking into the receiver. They couldn't hear me. I hung up. Now their line is engaged. I think this is the shape of things to come. I phoned my mum's mobile to tell her, but obviously, being over 60, she only has a mobile for emergencies and it is thus COMPLETELY USELESS to anyone else. I got her voicemail but didn't leave a message as I know from past experience that she doesn't know how to pick them up. I've now emailed her. She may find the message in a few hours. Not that it's really that much of a disaster that I can't speak to my parents this second, but I am bored and want to complain about that to someone who will give me sympathy. Thinking about it, my mum is probably not the best person to try. Leave the phone off the hook, you cavemen. See if I care.

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.

Bliss? I think not.

Yes, yes, I know. I should just drop it. If I was mature, I'd let it go. But I'm a 32 year old only child, and further to my mother calling me ignorant, my father has now - without directly jumping on the 'my daughter is a moron' bandwagon - kindly pointed out that it is "possible to be both intelligent and ignorant".

Now. Back up there, Sparky. I'm pretty sure I'm right here, but I'll just check on the off-chance... no, I'm right. Ignorance, as defined on The Internet, is "the state or fact of being ignorant; lack of knowledge, learning, information, etc." I think it's fair to say that the Venn diagrams of ignorance and intelligence don't seem to have much intersection. I suspect my father would say, therefore, that it is possible for one to be intelligent in one field , e.g. about pop music of the late Eighties and early Nineties, while being ignorant in another, e.g. the Conservative party or the value of living in Putney. And maybe he's right. But I think it's fair to say that I've done enough research on both Putney and the Tories to know that I'm not going to change my mind about them in a hurry. And I know that the opinions I hold on both subjects are not unusual.

So - my mother thinks I'm wrong about Cameron, and wrong about Clapham. And I think I'm right. And we both think we are intelligent beings, and that the other one is fundamentally wrong. And we can't both be right - the Conservative party is either going to make Britain great again, or it's not; and Clapham is either populated by blinkered idiots or rammed full of Lovely Young Men I Should Be Marrying. So if we can't both be right, at least one of us must be wrong. But of course, ultimately there is no such thing as objective truth: our own truths are created by the unique circumstances of our surroundings. Anyone, therefore, who tries to impose their own truth on another is fighting a losing battle. My mother is right to like Clapham, and I am right to dislike it. Our decisions are the best decisions for us.

Still, it's hard to be called ignorant, especially by a parent, especially as an only child. Even if that child is in her thirties. I've put a lot of work into the conclusions I've drawn, from my atheism to the dress cut that best flatters my figure, to which boy to kiss, which party to vote for, which bus to take, and which borough of London to live in. I've made my choices for logical reasons. They suit me. My parents have made their choices too, and I may think they're wrong, but - crucially - I don't think they're ignorant. Believe it or not, I am of the live-and-let-live persuasion. My parents have drawn the same conclusions as most of the parents I know. They've made up their minds and they're sticking to them. And that's good - parents should be stuck in their ways. Contrary to what I wanted when I was 14, trendy parents who wear skinny jeans and smoke are actually not that desirable. Give me my mum's tapered trousers and my dad's 'I wear a tie while mowing the lawn' austerity any day. I love them as they are - but if they even hint that I'm ignorant again, I'll do a Macaulay Culkin and divorce them, and the only thing they'll know about me is what they read on this blog. See how they like them apples.

Right. I'm off to the theatre to watch 190 minutes of Brecht. Pray for me.

A surprise, a bandage and another close encounter

Last night I arrived back home just before midnight, having consumed a bit of wine but not enough to blur my judgment or my vision. I put my key in the lock, turned it, and opened the door a few inches. Immediately, with the certainty that one has when one is the only person who is ever in one's house, I knew that something was awry. My doormat had moved.

I was absolutely sure that I hadn't moved it as my OCD would prevent me from leaving the house without it in position. So the first explanation offered to me by my brain was that someone with a key or a skeleton copy had entered my flat, moved my doormat and then relocked the door. I was unclear which side of the door they now were on. With caution and my heart performing a lively celidh, I opened my front door a few inches further. Ahead of me was a dark and unfamiliar shadow. I prepared to yell. And then I laughed. Because it was a bay tree.

The donor was my lovely dad who, knowing I was hankering after one, had been in the vicinity of my flat, found a healthy looking specimen at the garden centre, driven it over, let himself in with his key and left it in the middle of my hall, positioned on the doormat so as not to soil my carpet with... soil. It was an adorable surprise, and a perfect one. It might not have been so perfect if I'd died of shock, or given it a rusty mawashi geri (aka a vigorous roundhouse kick from my karate days) - but fortunately, things worked out as planned. It's nice when that happens, isn't it.

In other news, my hobble was still rather too pronounced this morning, so I was advised to visit the nurse in our office building. She examined my (now swollen) foot, diagnosed me with either a sprained or torn ligament over the cuboid bone, applied some arnica, wrapped it in a large bandage, told me to keep it elevated if possible and take 400mg of ibuprofen three times a day for the next three days. Livid. I've been waiting all my life for an excuse to remain horizontal and not exercise, and now one comes along less than three weeks before I have to run 10 kilometers. It's not that I won't be able to complete the run as I should be back on track by then, but I was hoping to up my pace a tad during training, and that now looks unlikely. Still, at least I have a dramatic-sounding excuse.

Finally, a big shout (of rage) out to the tattooed elderly gentleman on the Northern Line this evening who sat down, ate a bag of Quavers, calmly and deliberately placed the empty packet on the floor by his feet, and disembarked shortly afterwards. Every fibre in my being wanted to shout after him that he'd forgotten something as he walked off, but I couldn't get up the nerve. Perhaps I was too weak as a result of my foot injury. Once he'd gone, I admitted to myself that the charitable thing to do now would be to pick up the empty packet and throw it in a bin above ground. I was all set to carry out this selfless act when a woman took the vacated seat and put her heavy rucksack on the crisp packet, preventing me from performing my good deed. So I left having done nothing. Bloody hell, littering drives me spastic. I just finished reading a fascinating article in Prospect about how, by enforcing everything with rules, Big Government basically ensures that people develop no moral values of their own, and that if there isn't a sign or a law telling them what to do or not to do, people have no obligation to do anything. I was nodding frantically and making 'Mmm' noises when I was reading it on the way to work this morning, so wholeheartedly did I agree. I freaking wish we all had some greater sense of personal responsibility and civic pride. Maybe 2012 will start the ball rolling. We live in hope.

And on the seventh day...

Just when I thought my life couldn't get any more surreal, last night I went to The Bull's Head in Barnes with some family friends to see 'Memorable Moments of Opera and Song' performed by a collection of middle-aged individuals who call themselves Cameo Opera. Sadly this was not a mixture of classical music and Eighties pop act, Cameo, and no one was wearing a red vinyl jockstrap, but frankly, had such an event occurred, it wouldn't have seemed massively out of place.

The evening was reminiscent of a bad episode of Hi-de-Hi: quintessentially British and agonising from start to finish, with a rasping soprano whose plentiful back fat bulged over her diamante bra straps, a married/in the closet tenor and a pianist who looked like a cross between Maid Marion and a drag queen - I couldn't see the flammable warning label in her over-peroxided hair but I'm sure it must have been in there somewhere. The alto was married to the bass and clearly they were both either deaf and/or deluded as neither of them should have been allowed to sing in the shower or for their supper, let alone charge unsuspecting members of the public to hear them of a Sunday eve.

Over the next two hours, we witnessed a smattering of 'hits' from La Boheme, Don Giovanni, Fiddler on the Roof and Carmen plus an impromptu number from Phantom of the Opera that had been requested by some certifiable member of the audience during the precious interval. But, with an unrivalled four numbers in the concert programme, star piece of the evening was awarded to that most terrible of all modern musicals, Les Miserables. This segment of the concert culminated with the five singers standing in a line, belting out 'Do You Hear The People Sing?' while performing a box step move popularised by Jane Fonda workout videos. It was at this point that I started crying with laughter but I looked on incredulously as the rest of the onlookers, my own flesh and blood included, were swept along by the unbridled enthusiasm of the chorus. To my right, an enthusiastic audience member raised her fist in a gesture of revolution and punched the air in approximate time to the beating of the heart/drum. I was stunned into silence.

Another particularly special moment was when the peroxide pianist heaved herself out from behind her instrument and announced that she was going to play a number on her own. She was, she claimed, a classically trained pianist (if by classical she meant 'press the pedal on the first beat of every bar and play everything at top volume' then fair enough, but otherwise I might dispute her claim) but apparently what she "really loves doing" is taking pop songs and "classicalising them". At this point I was considering suicide but was reluctant to offend my lovely godparents who had paid for the tickets. Instead, I listened to the semi-skilled rotunda bludgeon her way through an appalling medley of schmaltz that would have been laughable if it hadn't been so excruciating. No unbearable stone was left unturned; we had the classical version of 'Everything I Do (I Do It For You)', 'My Heart Will Go On' and 'I Just Called To Say I Love You' and finished off with a boogie-woogie selection of Beatles' hits. You couldn't make it up.

As if that weren't enough excitement, an obese audience member almost died from a cough-induced aneurysm in the second row and my dad was invited up on stage to join in with the chorus of A Policeman's Lot from The Pirates of Penzance. Although the music would have been lucky to be described as eighth rate, there's no doubt that I found the evening entertaining - for all the wrong reasons. The Barnes audience, fuelled by Heineken and Merlot, were less cynical, giving a standing ovation and cheering for encores. It's not the first time that I've felt distanced from the majority and I'm sure it won't be the last, but as Sunday evening fodder goes, it's certainly up there with the strangest. 'Memorable Moments' is about right.

Let the games stop

In a recent post, I referred to the fact that, when the competitive streaks were handed out, I didn't get the standard ration. As is so often the case, on the winning front, I am a bit different. I really, really don't like competition. I hate losing a lot. But, unusually, I am also uncomfortable with winning, feeling an intense empathy for the inevitable losing side.

A few years ago, I decided that, intellectually speaking, I was lacking: I did not know how to play chess. Shortly afterwards, Father Christmas rectified my lack of chess set and kindly supplied the Usborne guide to the basics. Like a good girl, I read the book from cover to cover several times before attempting a game but finally, after a few days' diligent study, I felt ready to commence my chess career.

And who better to play against than my boyfriend at the time, Henry, then an intelligent, political twentysomething who would guide me through the initial stages with the love and healthy firmness that I needed.

We set up the board. Already my heart was at MDMA-esque levels, fluttering in my throat and making it hard to concentrate. What if I beat my boyfriend? That would be awful, throwing too much open to question. And worse: what if I lost? The humiliation, the self-flagellation that would follow would be horrific. Even if I won, I would lose. The self-inflicted pressure throughout the game rendered it entirely unfun and, when I won, I felt the predicted guilt and confusion. I hate bad losers a lot but I detest bad winners. Even Henman's restrained fist shake makes me squirm. I refused to gloat. And, knowing how little I'd enjoyed myself, I haven't played chess since.

Beating my last ex, Simon, at badminton was always equally confusing. Something about an intrinsically unsporty girl beating a boy in a game involving a racquet made me feel ashamed and a bit wrong. These days I tend to steer clear of things that involve winning or losing - not because I don't have a competitive streak but rather because my competitive drive is so intense, my hatred of both winning and losing so fierce that, even as a spectator, it makes it difficult for me to enjoy any sort of game at all. And, consistent to the last, that includes pheasant.

An unexpected letter

Dear Miss M,

Thank you for your letter. I was very sorry that your father had hurt his tooth on a stone found in his Tesco Sultanas. I know how upsetting this must have been.

I'd like to assure you that we take health and well being of our customers very seriously. We've procedures in place to prevent anything getting into our products that shouldn't be there. I don't know why this happened, however, I've now told our suppliers about this.

I'm very sorry this has happened and have enclosed a £20.00 Tesco Moneycard with my compliments.

Thank you for letting us know about this.

Yours sincerely,
Elaine Macdonald

My father says he is disappointed by Tesco's offering but I have pointed out that if he'd really wanted several hundred pounds, he should have written the complaint letter himself.

My reaction upon reading the missive was to feel intense guilt and pity for Elaine. Then I remembered that I spent yesterday morning telephoning a European Hilton, where my boss had recently stayed, and asking the housekeeping department whether they had found a protein shake in the minibar which had been accidentally left there. I felt exceptionally lucky to be able to approach this situation with the superior experience I have gained through both of my degrees. Miraculously, when I phoned back Pilar from the housekeeping department a few hours later, I found that they had indeed managed to retrieve the shake and that they are keeping it cool until my boss next returns to the hotel. When I reflect on this and the other crucial events that make up my day, suddenly Elaine and I don't seem so many worlds apart.

Low ebb

It is no secret that I'm a fraction under-stimulated at work. But last night, when my parents asked me to write a letter for them during my inevitable downtime, I knew I'd reached new lows. In my heart of hearts, I hoped that today would throw up some kind of distraction and that I would be too busy to sink to this - but no. It's not even lunchtime and I have already had so little to do that the parental chore was unavoidable. I hope you, The Faithful, will feel my pain:

Tesco Customer Service
PO Box 73
Baird Avenue
Dryburgh Industrial Estate
Dundee
DD1 9NF

16 October 2007

Dear Sir / Madam,

Please find enclosed an empty packet of Tesco sultanas and the rock / pebble that my father found within it last night. Sadly he did not spot the offending pebble on its way to his mouth, but only became aware of its presence among the sultanas when he crunched down on it, very nearly breaking one or more of his teeth.

In your defence, the offending stone does very closely resemble a sultana in appearance – but rest assured, in texture and solidity, the two items are most certainly poles apart.

As you will understand, this was an unpleasant moment for my father and he is keen that your system of sultana collection is perhaps revisited so that this situation will be less likely to occur in future.

In the meantime, I’m sure you will understand if we are slightly reticent to purchase sultanas, or indeed any other dried fruit produce, from Tesco’s in the near future.

Kind regards...
Enc.

Rise and whine

I am not thought of as a morning person. In fact, at the pop magazine where I used to work, my dark moods pre-lunch were of some amusement to the other employees who used to direct imbecilic pre-teen work experience people to my desk, telling them that I would be able to help answer their inane questions.

Now that I am a City high-flier (and I mean that in its loosest sense: I am writing this while on a conference call and thus can't claim to be concentrating quite as hard as I should on the international discussion echoing round my office), I have to be across town by 8:30am which necessitates leaving the house at around 07:35. Not so long ago, if some fool had told me I would be arising at 06:45 every weekday I’d have laughed in their face and then burst into tears of panic in case they turned out to be correct. But I’ve been following that exact routine, five days a week, since the beginning of March and, nearly seven months later, I think I’m finally getting into the swing of it.

Only yesterday I was having a heartfelt discussion over my Oatibix (disappointing) with my parents about the presenters on BBC Breakfast. My father is always full of hatred for Sian, who he claims cuts a pathetic figure. He particularly hates it when she says ‘Ooh, I could never afford that!’ after some new gadget is mentioned on air. However, he conceded that he would rather be stuck in a lift with Sian than Vanessa Feltz. He even had a problem with BBC London’s newsreader, Louisa Preston, because she allegedly says her own name in an annoying way and looks ‘too perfect’. He is mourning the loss of Emily Maitlis who has moved from London to Newsnight, although I am simultaneously mourning her arrival on Newsnight since her interviewing technique seems to revolve around her barking inappropriate questions and then saying, ‘Mmmm… Mmmm’ in a terse and efficient fashion while clearly not listening to her victim’s answer. Despite berating my father for feeling passionate hatred for complete strangers, I will admit that I have found internal rage towards Emily bubbling up in the past, but at dinner last night, a BBC source assured me that she was very nice. So for now I will quash my internal rage, but Emily, if you’re reading, please try a fraction harder to listen to your subject and formulate your next question on that basis rather than relying on whatever the producer’s shouting into your ear. Also: wear less foundation.

Giant Redwood shock

I have an earache today which is weird. But probably not as weird as the word ‘earache’. Like a second hand Scrabble set or Carol Vorderman after a big night out, it seems to be missing a few consonants.

What else is news? I had tacos for dinner last night. I seem to be alive. I have a busy weekend coming up, including the party for my parents’ 40th wedding anniversary. I have my health. People seem to be obsessed with whether or not A Levels have become easier, which they patently have – end of discussion. And staggeringly, as I was brushing my teeth this morning at approximately 07:12, John Redwood said some things on Radio 4 with which I agreed. His words made me confront the possibility that – egad! – I might be compelled to vote Conservative at the next election.

I can’t believe I’ve just admitted that in writing. It’s really very unlikely, I promise. And it would be only as a reflection of the current political state in the UK – not as a reflection of my deeply-held beliefs in a fairer society for all. If none of the parties seem to be offering this, I may as well go for the one who’s going to save me money, no? It’s absolutely and undeniably selfish – but I have no faith in the Labour party and my ex-faves, the LibDems, simply aren’t up to scratch right now. Sorry Ming, you’d make a wonderful grandfather, but as leader of the LibDems I rate you as C for Could Do Better. Still, a lot can change between now and the next General Election. Hopefully an attractive alternative will present itself. But I can’t think that it would be wise to hold my breath.

Me as a Tory voter? Now that would be an anniversary present my father would really adore.

Out of the frying pan...

Advantages for a daughter living at her parents' house: Last week, while I was at work, my dad heard a loud crash outside the house. He went into the street to find a man lifting my Vespa from its position lying on the ground, where he had knocked it over having reversed into it in his car. The man appeared to be happy to leave without paying for any damage, even though there were several scrapes and a big dent on the right hand side, and one of the mirrors had broken off. Thankfully, my ever-scrupulous father was able to take the man's details and he has now had to agree to pay for the damage. Had I been living alone, there would have been no-one to scamper out and identify the perpitrator: he would almost certainly have driven off and I'd have had to pay for the repairs myself.

Disadvantages for a father whose daughter lives in his house: My father deserves several hundred brownie points as a reward for his serendipitous act. Instead, this afternoon he accidentally reversed into my Vespa in the opposite direction and there are now further scratches and dents on the left hand side. Since it is arguable that, had I not been living at home, my Vespa would most likely have been parked elsewhere, this may contribute to the Get Her Out campaign. Which is unfortunate.

Now That's What I Call Pointless...

There is a cat that lives a few doors down from us. He is rather unusual and thus I have been unable to provide an accurate supporting illustration: suffice to say he looks somewhat like the feline on the left, but is not stuffed with kapok. His fur is sleek, thick, lustrous and a rich silver with black stripes: a miniature snow tiger pacing the streets of suburban London.

My father, always keen on anything that appears to be expensive or exclusive, immediately developed a fondness for this new creature, and can often be spotted engaging in lengthy monologues with him outside our house, monologues mostly consisting of my dad crooning "Aren't you beautiful?" to a mutely adoring audience of one. What the cat lacks in verbosity, however, he makes up for in gung ho confidence. He bounds up to greet total strangers with a fickle friendliness better suited to an under-fed labrador; he jumps over the fence into our garden and sits on the shed roof, looking into our house as if wondering what these strange people are doing on his land; he runs in through the front door if we hold it open too long and - my mother suspects - comes in through our cat door at night to snoop around.

So while my father - further won over by the cat's perceived 'gusto' and/or 'oomph' - continues to speak out in support of the striped cat, my mother and I have decided that he is a cocky nuisance who may, we hypothesize, even be terrorizing our own cats so that they are unable to feel rulers of their own roost.

Consequently, when I was walking down my road this morning and spotted the beast sitting squarely in the middle of the pavement waiting to be admired, I purposefully strode past without giving him a second glance. As I looked back at him (a fatal error in my attempt to persuade the cat that I hadn't noticed him, I now realise), I even allowed myself to think that he appeared somewhat put out and confused that a passer-by had failed to acknowledge his perfection.

However, as I let myself back in to the house, I had to concede that, in reality, my snub was perhaps a little pointless. At base, I was bullying a cat, employing juvenile psychological tactics usually only engaged in a primary school playground. Much as we might anthropomorphosise our pets, freezing them out through emotional warfare probably won't have much of an impact. Although my mother and I have persuaded ourselves otherwise, the cat in question probably doesn't have an ego any more than my own cats understand our logic when we tell them off for sharpening their claws on the sofa, but laugh when they sit in cardboard boxes. I grew out of dressing up our family pets in my dolls' bonnets and cardigans when I was four and my cat, George, wet the bed while 'sleeping' in my toy cot - but it seems that, even aged 29, valuable lessons about domestic animals are still mine for the taking.