Let the self-pity begin

Be gentle with me, Faithful, for I am feeling well fragile today innit. If my eyes were plugholes, the tears would burbling up through the U-bend and heading for daylight.

The almost-four-month boyban has been amazing in illustrating that I was pretty much obsessively judging my success as a woman on whether or not a man was telling me I was attractive and good company. With dating forbidden and no flirtatious emails to distract me, I can clearly see the error of my way: I was doggedly pursuing a goal, thinking it would bring me a sense of self/satisfaction/fulfillment, when in fact we all know that getting a boyfriend is not really the answer to any of the above - and if it is, it shouldn't be. So it's been good, I've got a new sense of perspective and I am sincerely glad of that.

However, it probably won't surprise many of you clever readers that, if you take away someone's raison d'etre (however unhealthy it was) without lining up anything else to replace it, an existential crisis is fairly inevitable. And so, ta da, here I am, no career to speak of, no babies, in a society where having one or the other is pretty much essential if you're going to have any sense of self-worth. Oh, and I'm an atheist, so the world's best psychological crutch isn't an option for me either. You're left with a verbose hedonist with no sense of purpose, just night after night of pleasant, middle-class pasttimes. I am one big fat hobby.

In the meantime, Grania has spent the last several months dedicating almost all her time to preparing for some of the toughest exams I've ever known, learning a zillion planning laws and documenting her every waking action, turning down countless fun events to pursue her goal. And Sarah's been promoted, and Sara's started a new role helping people, and Kate is bursting with job satisfaction, and Olivia's been promoted and got pregnant again, and Mills has had her second child, and Lucy's dealing with her existing two, and Em and Erf are on honeymoon, and Marina, Justin and Lucy G are changing the media world, and Lilly's going freelance, and Charlie's had Gabriel, and Nick's doing his writing course and an internship while being Deputy Editor, and Georgie's directing, and Hatta and Astrid are engaged, and two other friends are trying for babies but it's all hush hush, and Don's making a feature film, and Ed's having intimate dinners at The Wolsey with A listers.

And I know, I know, everyone can take this kind of highlights-only snapshot of their friends, filtering out the quotidian, ignoring the fact that everyone has down days and everyone panics, but it's human nature to compare ourselves to our peers.

I can only see three ways to cope with this kind of barrage of achievement:
1. Persuade myself that I'm still valid, but in some different way. I am finding this difficult.
2. Find new meaning elsewhere under some previously unturned rock.
3. Accept, as my mother suggested, that my time will come, and right now just "bob along" (her words).

I love my mother so much it hurts, but 3. makes me feel like self-harming. It is excellent, measured advice and I desperately wish I could take it; being carried along like a brightly-coloured rubber duckie in a burbling countryside stream, letting the current take me where it will, well, it'd no doubt be good for me, relinquishing control, enjoying the view, but... well, I can't help but feel that time is running out. Not to have kids, necessarily. But to do something. I'm 33. I'm never going to be any younger than I am now, or have any fewer responsibilities. I was already feeling like I was a bit of a wasted opportunity. Then I watched Jamie's American Food Revolution.

That guy, annoying though his perpetual "bruvva"s unquestionably are, is an extraordinary and inspiring force for good. He's married with three kids, and he clearly loves his family dearly, but he has realised that he has a position in society that can change a lot of people's lives for the better. He has a clear mission - to encourage people to eat more healthily; to make cooking from scratch appear easy enough that people turn to it instead of ordering a pizza; and, ultimately, to save lives. It's an amazing goal, and he's already pretty damn rich, owning assets worth tens of millions - but he's still pursuing his mission, heading out to spend three months in Los Angeles early next year to film a second series of his Emmy Award-winning show. He is attacked and ridiculed wherever he goes, but he doggedly continues, spending precious time away from his loved ones, because he believes in what he's doing, and because he is sure that he can make a difference.

I am jealous of his mission. I want one.

And then, as a nailgun in the face to any specks of optimism I'd salvaged, last night, Luke and I saw The Social Network. Bloody hell, where do these people get their drive from? Their certainty that their ideas are valid? Their optimism and confidence, that sense of entitlement, that if they think it's a good idea, it obviously is? The determination to stop gassing about it and actually sit down and fucking do it? I just whitter on, it'd be nice to do this, that'd be brilliant, but I never commit, I'm terrified of failure, and moreover I fear the claustrophobia of being trapped. What if my idea was good? Then I'd have to do it and I'd miss out on doing other stuff. Plus I'm already really tired.

So I do bob along, but resentfully, doing nothing except inhaling as much of this beautiful city as I can take in, and waiting for my Facebook, my Food Revolution, to hit me square between the eyes so that I can start work. Problem is, I know that that's not how reality works. Meaning is often only visible in retrospect. Life missions aren't always obvious at the time. They creep up. They need leaps of faith. They need hard work over long periods of time. They need blind commitment. And they don't always end in positive results. I'm categorically rubbish at dealing with every single one of those things. Need someone with a short attention span who'll tackle a high-profile project, complete it to her own absurdly high standards in two weeks and then, with a rush of 'problem solved' satisfaction, move on in a flurry, never to give it another instant's thought? I'm your gal. Need consistent, shire horse effort over years to lovingly create something that lasts, often for little reward, someone who doesn't let failure get her down, who doesn't crave recognition? Move right along. Nothing to see here.

That book you think I should write? Two years on one project that will be criticised by strangers? Not my idea of fun. The presenting work I could maybe do? I look too fat on camera and I stop being funny because I get too nervous. Politics? MPs have to work too hard and they get criticised. Lobbyist could be good but I can never find an issue that sustains my interest more than any other. I'm not academic or enough of a brown-noser to get into a thinktank or any massive corporation. I hate sucking up to people. I hate toeing the party line. But then I got extremely depressed when I was freelance: irregular hours, irregular funds, irregular job satisfaction, having to be pathetically grateful for every commission and never knowing if the next paycheque would be the last. And with a mortgage to pay, I can't afford to be skint. I want regular hours, recognition for hard work, a sense that I'm contributing to a greater good, a salary that will cover my pension (thanks for the terror lesson, mum), and my evenings and weekends free for wine. It's the blight of an only child: I'm not sufficiently gifted to excel, but I'm too full of myself to bear being average. And I am appalling at compromise.

Don't worry, my weekly therapy session is in under an hour. I'm sure absolutely everything will be solved then.

I Didn't Die On Wednesday Either

I've been having a lot of very interesting talks recently. It's been a fascinating couple of weeks and actually, I think it's healthy to go through these career crises every now and then. It's made me remember how lucky I am and how much I've got.

I'm not going to stop writing. But, on the basis of the conversations I've had, I don't think I'm going to plough a huge amount of effort into doing it as my full-time job. I think I'd rather do something else. I mean, sure, there are many people the world over who I'd give my right arm to interview. And many fascinating stories I'd love to tell. But getting a secure job doing that - I'm just not sure that's possible. And I know I need security. Much as I'd love to be one of those fly-by-the-seat-of-their-pants gals who doesn't know where the next ten quid is coming from, I'm just not that person. I've got gig tickets to afford, and mortgage interest to pay off. The people I know who have that kind of lifestyle are either independently wealthy or happy being skint and insecure. Clearly I'm neither.

So, if writing's out as a career (unless anyone has some specific suggestions as to how I can make that work), then it's got to be something else. I've got an idea and it's going to require some sacrifices. But all in good time. There's no rush. I'm happy enough right now. I do need to start saving as whatever I do next will involve a paycut. In the meantime, I'll be right here, plugging away and enjoying myself as much possible.

Last night I went to KaraUke at Bloomsbury Lanes. No one else wanted to bowl, so Grania and had a lane to ourselves, an unusual opportunity to focus on our technique and become Good At Bowling. We improved significantly but didn't quite reach that elusive goal of being officially, empirically Good. Then we talked to Chris and his friends, drank wine, and got up on stage to sing The Shoop Shoop Song in front of a band of ukuleles to a surprisingly enthusiastic crowd dancing below us. It was a good night. I also saw Sara for an early evening pub visit. We had a lovely time and a tramp told the table next to us a joke. Q: Why couldn't the drummer get into his house? A: Because of his high hat. I got 20p out to give to him but he didn't come back to us, so then I gave it to a different tramp who was trying to sell us the Big Issue. He didn't tell us a joke but he did look like he might drop dead any minute. Hopefully he spent the 20p on some nourishing fruit and vegetables.

Bonne weekend, Faithful. Jusqu'a lundi.

I Am Not Dead

Well, obviously I might be. I might have a heart attack five minutes from now and then by the time you read this I might be out cold on my sofa. But if that happens, know that there would have been worse places to die. And at least I'm 50% in velour, so you'd know I'd been cosy in my final moments. Of course, you could be reading this blog in sixty years, by which time I will almost certainly be dead, or at least wishing I was from the safety of my padded room, and you will be looking at LLFF as a valuable historical artefact, wondering at us old fuddy-duddies who used to think that typing with fingers was normal and getting married was a sensible idea. Hmmm. If I were bored I'd analyse the fact that, when challenged to think of two things we all do now that will become outdated soon, I came up with typing and monogamy. Don't know what that says about me. But anyway, I'm not bored. Or dead. No. I am alive and semi-busy. And I've just faced up to the fact I should probably write a will at some point.

So anyway. I haven't written since last Friday, and the reason is that I have been having a meltdown. The snake has stayed away, but I have been going a bit mental in other ways. The China/sabbatical/career break thing got me thinking, and then I started thinking about my future, which is obviously never sensible at the best of times, and then I started thinking about writing as a career, and then I worked quite hard at turning the blogs I wrote when I was in Finland into an article of sorts, and then this evening I went to meet a guy I know who works at The Guardian to talk about jobs and ting. It was really helpful, in that it confirmed that I probably shouldn't go back into journalism or writing. I mean, there's writing work there. But I don't want to be freelance (the snake looooves irregular working hours, financial instability and extended periods of time spent home alone) and I don't want to write about shit the whole time.

I think it's time for something new. New new new new new. But not yet. Right now I'll just stay where I am. But one day I'll do something else.

Good. Glad we've got that sorted out then.

What I was thinking was the civil service. But then I have to take scary exams and stuff, and I tried them before and failed miserably. I know one person who passed them and countless people who failed them. Anyway. I was also thinking of property development, but that's just selfish and stupid. Plus it's freelance and financially unstable and involves extended periods of time spent alone. Stupid snake, hampering my property development possibilities.

Meh. I dunno. I'll be fine.

What else is news? On Friday night I went to Sir John Soane's Museum in Holborn, and was ashamed that I'd never been there before in my 32 years, but delighted that London really is the gift that keeps on giving, and glad that I hadn't gone until I was old enough to be truly appreciative. They were open for a special candlelit tour, complete with complimentary sparkling wine, and it was fascinating. The Hogarths were every bit as amazing as I'd hoped, and bloody Nora if that gallery isn't the coolest thing ever. I'd tell you all what I'm talking about in a bit more detail but I don't want to ruin the surprise for my mum. Sunday I went to see Showstopper! at the Udderbelly, a temporary performance space shaped like a gigantic upside-down purple cow near the London Eye. What will they think of next? The venue is great, and the show was excellent - an eighty-minute improvised musical with a fantastically funny cast that made me really annoyed that I'm not quite good enough at singing or being funny to join in. I will return and growl in quiet jealousy on at least one other night before the run ends in June. I've done other fun stuff too, but tonight I'm taking it easy, skiving off my uke class, eating Coco Pops and doing laundry. Mmmm. Coco Pops. Might be time for that second bowl.

Poor me, I've had it too easy

I've been delaying writing this because I felt like there was so much to tell. But then, as always happens, with a bit of objectivity, it becomes clear that none of the stuff I thought was important was actually very interesting at all. Nonetheless, for the sake of completeness, I'll record that, on Thursday I went to see Pixar's Up, in 3-D at the IMAX, and it really was as wonderful as everyone else has said. I have nothing to add to the thousands of other reviews, except that I want a talking dog. I cried within about three minutes of it starting and again at the end, and laughed my highly unflattering glasses off in between. Go. See. It is good. I defy you not to giggle uncontrollably at the Rotweiller.

On Friday I was all nervous because I was filming a thing for a thing. I'd spent a fair bit of time over the past week writing the thing for the thing, and I was surprised how much I enjoyed it. I love writing LLFF, but this was a bit different, there was a strict brief, and it was fun. So I went and read out the thing in front of the camera, standing on a green background, and there was a bit of laughter, which was gratifying. Then Justin and I went to Stephen Fry's book launch, and then on to a party given by the stars of the popular Channel 4 programme, Peep Show. I was so excited about this that I could barely contain myself. And I met the stars and that was fun. But what was awful was that, in addition to my friend Justin being invited to this party (as he knows one of the stars professionally), I also, unexpectedly, bumped into two other people I knew there. This was deeply depressing. It is a cool party. I know I am only one degree of separation away from the party, but that one degree is a gulf three times the size of the known universe. One of the people I knew was a guy from Uni, who now edits the Comment section of The Guardian. And the other was my friend Ben who works with Charlie Brooker. And so Charlie Brooker was there too, and Caitlin Moran, two people whose columns in national newspapers make me laugh with irritating regularity. And there I was. A PA in a bank. I USED to be an entertainment writer. And I'm sure in future I'll be something else. But right now, I'm a PA in a City bank, and when anyone asks me what job I do, I say, "I'm not telling you."

And it's so annoying, because my job has lots of perks. The salary, for one. The fact that, without it, I wouldn't have my flat, the purchase of which is probably the single most life-changing thing I've ever done. The fact that I get to arrive at 9 and leave at 5, on the dot, every single day. The fact that I never, ever think about work after 17:01. The fact that my boss is really very funny and easy to work for. And the fact that I have lots of time to trawl the internet looking for all the fun cultural stuff that I cram into my plentiful time off. Basically, my job rocks.

Except it doesn't, because it's not intellectually challenging and I'm assisting corporate greed, and there are no possibilities for promotion. And I want to be invited to the Peep Show party, not as Justin's plus one, but on my own merits. So I have to do something extraordinary. I can't just write any old book, or any old column. It has to be way more unusual, way more authoritative, way more cutting edge than even this blog. I know. And it pains me to face up to this, but I'm about as cutting edge as a sofa. My life is mainstream. I grew up in the mainstream. I loved chart pop - and still do. I like hanging out in pubs and nice restaurants. I like linen sheets and my iPhone and The X Factor. But, as I've grown older, I've also been aware of the dangers of the mainstream. My MA taught me a lot about consumerism and the way that culture can be co-opted as a means of control. There was never any danger of me turning into a genuine Marxist, but I found it interesting, and I gained an appreciation of the counter-culture. I stopped liking pop music quite so much. I bought more vintage clothing, partly because I really like it, partly because the synthetic fabrics don't require ironing, partly because I wanted to look individual, and partly because it's a way of recycling, cutting out the sweatshops. I moved out of South West London and now I go out in Hoxton with all the other hipsters, to bars that are strip joints Mon-Fri and turn into happening fifties venues at the weekends.

So far, so normal. But my problem is, most people I seem to be dancing with in Hackney are in their early 20s. They rejected the mainstream in their teens. I look at my competition on The Guardian's dating site and there are girls on there aged 23 who have a favourite South Korean film director, and list obscure Serbian photographers as among their most powerful influences. How the hell did they get to be so quirky so young? At their age, I was still going to see Britney Spears at Wembley Arena. OK, the tickets were free, but I can't deny I was excited. Always similarly gobsmacking were the number of people who were really very politically engaged when I was doing my BA. I could barely have explained what government did; they were up in London campaigning against atrocities in the third world while I was getting annoyed not to be invited to Jamie Double-Barrelled's party at Wedgie's. And of course, by the time they're my age, their tastes, their opinions are all so much more established. These are the people who are running the media and the think tanks while I'm write about make-up and boys and wishing I was less vacuous and more worthwhile without actually knowing what I can do about it. I am trying to fly the nest, I feel like I'm just about to burst out, but my little wings just aren't quite strong enough yet. If I'm very lucky, I'll be about 40% as good as Charlie Brooker by the time I die.

So what's left for me in the meantime? My old guilty pleasure: the mainstream. I could write a popular chick lit novel, surely? Or try to get a column in a major women's mag, and write about 69 Sexual Positions You NEED To Try Tonight! I could even attempt to get this blog published. But... whimper... it's not what I want to be known for. I don't WANT to be mainstream. I want to make a DIFFERENCE. Stamps foot. And that kind of middle-of-the-road activity certainly won't get me invited to the Peep Show party. So for now, I'll carry on revising, try to get as clever as possible. Maybe one day I'll have the editorial authority, the time and the talent that means I'm able to write about clever things like the recent super-injunction in a pithy, irreverant fashion. But in the meantime, you'll have to make do with me whining on about my absurdly fortunate life and telling you what films to see. Soz.

Honestly.

I'm going to tell you the truth now. No hilarious stories about blood on my leg or wee on my foot. I can write brilliantly about all the crazy antics up to which I get, and you'll think I'm truly astonishing and massively enviable and that everything is hunky dory - and in many hundreds of thousands of ways, it is: my life is brilliant. [Growl at unavoidable James Blunt quotation]. But in addition to me being extremely hunky dory, I'm also feeling a fraction pointless. I'm 32. An amazing talented and unfairly attractive girl in the year below me at school just had this fantastic article written about her in last weekend's Observer and it made me want to run out of the office, rip off my Marks & Spencers slacks and do something scandalous. But then I remembered (or rather, Kate reminded me) that I too have fun anecdotes from the past ten years, and that if one distilled them all down into a pert article, they'd look amazing as well. Plus I am very bad at being poor and I have a mortgage to pay. Obviously I don't love my job as much as Marina loves hers, but I do love the fact that my salary allows me to do fun things like go to the theatre and festivals and on holiday and out to interesting restaurants and to buy clothes from hip vintage retailers so I look like a kooky cool kid about town. In addition, I'm single, which is fine. Genuinely fine. Sure, I'd rather be Crazy In Love and be being flown to Prague and kissed inappropriately during the intervals of concerts and receive saucy text messages while I'm in work meetings, but I'd also rather be a size eight with permanently tanned skin, naturally blonde hair, no cellulite, a photographic memory, an uncanny knack with an acoustic guitar, a great pianist, songwriter and jazz singer with feet that are a size eight or smaller. I'm none of those things and that's fine. I just think that maybe I'm a bit... bored.

What I need is an adventure. It doesn't have to be long. It doesn't have to be terrifying. Something along the lines of a breath of fresh air. Some reinvigoration. I was thinking about taking a sabbatical, going to Thailand and training to become a yoga teacher but then I thought that was ridiculously selfish. I know I should probably do something that makes the world fractionally better. However, unless it is a) quite easy and b) ends up with me being thinner and browner, I just don't think I will be motivated to do it. I do want to make the world better, really I do, but just not if it's really difficult. If I'm honest, I probably won't do it if it's even just a bit tricky. It's disgraceful, and you're welcome to hate me for my intrinsic laziness, but I may as well be upfront about it now. Having been beating myself up almost non-stop for my twenties, I am so delighted with the idea of just existing happily, that my motivation to put myself out, to do things that are hard, or occasionally unpleasant, even when the goal is honourable, has almost disappeared. Added to that, my deep cynicism about politics and the media mean that fighting for change seems pretty pointless. I've been left as a selfish loafer and I don't like it - but I don't like any of the alternatives either. So, my perimeters are fixed. But perhaps all is not lost. Perhaps one can change the world between 9am and 6pm, Monday to Friday? I'll think on't and let you know.

In other news: my weekend was odd too - which is probably part of the reason why I'm feeling a bit confused now. The Glastocrush is sadly Glastover, as you may have gathered, which is all for the best, but meant that I was single on Saturday night when Ses and I went to the Michael Jackson Birthday tribute night at the Jazz Cafe. It was brilliant and I wore my white fedora and lots of fun people danced with us and a handsome man bought me a drink. Result. Then on Sunday I had a cold and was also very hungover and went to the Notting Hill Carnival. This was a terrible, terrible idea. I was single and ill and grumpy and emotional and needy and singularly unable to get drunk despite many beers consumed, wandering around streets full of deafening music and seemingly shielded from the fun by some sort of killjoy force field. I ended up having a massive row with the world's most annoying policeman, bursting into tears, stropping home early on my own, having a bath and going to bed while everyone else had a brilliant time by kissing attractive people, going to impromptu house parties and then onto raves in Shepherd's Bush where other people were inhaling laughing gas out of balloons. Maybe next year.

Also: my mouth is all cut as I had a tuna baguette for lunch. As if it wasn't bad enough to feel guilty about the fact that I've just eaten white unrefined flour, lots of mayonnaise and probably some butter (too frightened to look), and knowing that my only attempt at five a day was a few slices of cucumber, I now have to sit here in oral pain. Gah.

And finally: this is my 400th post.

Shiny happy person

When I mounted the downward escalator (not sure about mounted, but bear with me) this morning and prepared to continue my brisk descent to the tube, the man in front of me stopped abruptly and, in an unusual move, turned to face the moving handrail on the right hand side. I paused to look at him more closely and saw that he had extended his leg and was holding his battered, black, leather lace-up underneath the coarse bristles at the edge of the step, giving himself a free shoeshine. The seamlessness of his actions suggested this was a well-rehearsed routine. As a fellow follower of precision rituals, I rather admired his panache. Pleasing.

I found this photograph in the Guardian this morning and emailed it to Laura. We both agreed that our working lives would be significantly improved with the addition of a baby lemur, especially one who uses a wide-eyed teddy bear as a surrogate mother. I have read that pet cafes are becoming increasingly popular in urban areas of Asia - they are full of cats and other furry friends, and you pay somewhere between £5 and £10 per hour to sit and mingle with the various animals. Sounds like a bargain to me. And if the cafe could supply a few kittens and puppies, rather than cats and dogs, I think they could up their rates rather dramatically. Hmmm. I feel a career move coming on...

But seriously...

Yesterday, after a wonderfully relaxing impromptu day off spent sleeping until 1pm and then attempting to iron a shirt for the first time in my life and completely failing (although I did brilliantly with the napkins and tablecloth - and only adequately with the pillowcases that have double-thickness edges which I couldn't seem to negotiate) in front of the overhyped movie, Once, I then took the tube into Soho and met up with Paul and a friend of his, Laurie, who has just moved to London to start a new life in fashion.

She's spent two days at her job and said that she couldn't wait to get back there in the morning for Day Three. This small, innocuous claim sent me into a frenzy of jealousy. Way back in 1999, I got my first full time job as Staff Writer on a popular pop music mag and skyrocketed into orbit. My start date was meant to be Monday, 1 November but on the Thursday before, my editor phoned me and asked if I'd like to fly to LA the next day and interview S Club 7. You know when Gwyneth Paltrow found out she was first nominated for an Oscar? I was about a billion times more excited than her.

But after a couple of years in swanning around in showbiz circles, going to swanky parties, flying all over the world and chatting to anyone who was anyone in the most superficial, one-sided fashion (in that I would slip into the erroneous belief that we were having fun banter as friends but the moment I made the heinous mistake of talking about anything other than them, their eyes would glaze over with acute teenage cataracts and the conversation would grind to a halt), I had an epiphany. It was when I found out I had to do a phone interview with Britney Spears and the only time she was free to do it was at 1pm and I was really annoyed because it meant missing a fun lunch with my workmates - at that point I knew that the honeymoon was over. In years gone by, I would have eaten a tramp's vomit to have the chance to chat to Britters on the blower, but now I'd rather have a cheap lunch in a bad local eaterie than listen to her wafty pronouncements on nothing. Gradually throughout the next few months, the celeb world became less and less interesting to me and when I went freelance I found myself dreading the work over which I had once salivated.

Fast forward a couple of years and I began my Master's degree in English Literature, something I wanted to do to supplement a newfound desire to teach English full time in secondary schools - but over the course of that year, my eyes were opened in an unexpected way - thankfully nothing like that scene in a Clockwork Orange. But rather than developing a love of life and a hunger for knowledge, my cynicism, previously reserved for vacuous popstars, expanded like the plant in the Little Shop of Horrors, growing new tentacles of disdain overnight and baying for blood with terrifying volume. I learned about different political movements, wrote my dissertation on the way that culture can be (and is) manipulated by the state for its own gain, and suddenly lost faith in the purity or joy of almost everything in the modern world.

After my degree, it was almost impossible to feel optimistic about any area of life: charities were being run like businesses, supporting the evil capitalist superstructure. The national educational syllabus was determined by civil servants and simply reinforced existing stereotypes. Culture was just a tool to manipulate the masses - where government or corporate funding is key in art, how can any off-message works reach the majority? Where sales are all-important, how can subversive literature be published and distributed successfully? In fact - can subversive art that really challenges the status quo actually exist since, by definition, capitalism co-opts everything for its own gain (cf. modern art in the foyers of big banks or the adoption of punk culture by the mainstream)?

Suddenly, throwing myself into anything became an act of naivete, since spending my 9-5 in the pursuit of any one ideal seemed, well, idealistic and thus stupid. Journalism, newspapers, book writing - all lost their appeal since the newspapers, publishers and TV companies all looked like horrible corporate apparatuses full of lemmings that I wanted to avoid at all costs. Charities seemed to be adopting an "if you can't beat 'em, join 'em" attitude, courting celebrities and wealthy capitalist 'philanthropists' (see this from today's Guardian). Sure, they're doing good - but the world is fundamentally out of kilter, the rich/poor divide is growing apace and the charities aren't able to do much about it. Politics could be the place where huge changes could be made - but it's a two horse race between old nags that should be driven to the knackers' yard, where the finalists haven't been selected democratically and no one cares who wins. So I floundered, unable to find an area about which I'd felt that passion and excitement so many years ago. It's a tragedy that my thrill levels have gone downhill since I met S Club 7.

Now I work in the City, an area with which I feel no connection whatsoever. Being a child of the capitalist situation myself, I took the job to enable myself to buy a flat, and I make no apologies for that although there is a part of me that thinks I should set up a commune. And there's no doubt that if I am still working in finance in a few years, it will make me sad. Naive or not, I just feel like there must be something out there in which I can believe, a cause untainted by modern bullshit - but then, if it exists within the modern world, by definition it must have been sucked into the system itself. Maybe the only option is to operate knowingly and resignedly within the structure, either following Laurie's lead and revelling in an industry, like fashion, that never claims to be anything other than completely vacuous - or doing one's best to change things from the inside. But where? And who can you trust? For fascinating conspiracy theories, you don't have to look far... And I'm still reeling from the Prince Harry media blackout.

Anyway, this is all FAR too stern for my liking. I'm sure we'd all be far more comfortable if I started venting about the fact that I carefully put my theatre tickets for tonight into my book and then sensibly left my book on my bed - so now I must sprint home after work, grab the book (which really is hopefully on my bed but definitely might not be) and then rush to the theatre for the pre-show discussion. It will all be really sweaty and stressful and I'm livid about the whole thing. But what does it matter? It's all capitalist bollocks anyway.

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.

238 down, 762 to go...

Stephen King advises aspiring authors to churn out a bare minimum of 1000 words a day. He recommends doing the churning in the morning - Stephen's personal preferred timeslot is between 8-12. Sounds like a delightful plan and all well and good if you have a wealthy spouse, a bulging trust fund or enough money from your previous 35 books to support you. For the rest of us, it's more of a challenge to find a time when creativity, inspiration and availability coincide.

Personally, my job is currently breaking previous records when it comes to resources drained. Due to complete under-stimulation, standing up to get a plastic cup of water has become a feat requiring staggering strength and resiliance. Refilling the printer is a task so insurmountable that it demands the mental equivalent of a six-man team, oxygen masks and, perhaps, some huskies. Thus I find myself having to write at a time when a) it appears that nothing funny or of note has happened to me for several lifetimes and b) even if it had, the energy and inspiration needed to remark upon it online seems as out of reach as the Man Booker.

Still, I force myself to try, create something mediocre at best on the questionable principle that something is better than nothing, and move on to the next part of my eternal day. Even thinking about bird nappies isn't cheering me up. Mondays suck.

Holiday Innterment

Simon and I arrived back from Montenegro on Thursday night, leaving behind us the blisteringly hot sun that had doggedly refused to shine for four of the previous days and trying not to be too bitter. Friday was a day of washing and frantic administration. On Saturday we drove to Suffolk for Bee's wedding to James - it was beautiful and moving and reggae fuelled and we all had a wonderful time. Yesterday was Sunday - Simon and I left Suffolk in the morning, drove the three hours back to London, had a quick lunch and then I dusted off my passport after three days of unuse and headed off to Heathrow for my flight to Amsterdam.

Now I'm here in Ijmuiden, twenty minutes south of the Dutch capital, trapped in a Holiday Inn with twenty other people from the international offices of the company for which I labour. There are delegates from almost ten countries including Budapest, Poland and Russia but thankfully they are all practically fluent in English so even though I am the only native speaker of our entire group, I don't have to put in nearly so much effort to be understood. We are 'trained' from 8.30am until 6.00pm every day, Monday to Wednesday, with all our meals, breakfast, lunch and dinner taken in the hotel restaurant with the other course participants. Pretty full on. I've never been to Amsterdam and the fact that it is hovering in the near distance, less than half an hour away, is somewhat frustrating, but I've got as much chance of seeing the sights as I have of being mistaken for Paris Hilton.

Ijmuiden (pronouned I'm-ow-den) is a disappointing consolation: the view left from my balcony is fairly attractive, yachts in a packed harbour and the distant sea, thus:
But turn to the right and you'll find several steel plants belching 'steam' (allegedly) and a bizarre network of industrial cranes and a smattering of surely pointless wind turbines - an ecological locking of the stable door in 2007 after the horse bolted pre-WW2.

On the upside, the food is amazing and I've already gained thirty five pounds. I smugly brought only carry-on luggage with me but I fear that my own body may exceed the weight restrictions on the return journey and while my bag might be allowed on the flight, I may have to check myself into the hold. Watch this space.

Growl

In the two months or so since I have been in my current job, I’ve probably been given around eight hours’ worth of work to do. One of the very few satisfying tasks I was assigned was to proof-read a document that would eventually be sent to thousands of company workers, informing them of radical changes to the business. I duly checked the pages for flaws, and identified several, including a grammatical error in the first line – a find which resulted in several consecutive moments of shaming self-congratulation and smuggery. I attempted to hide my glee as I returned the document back to its writer, anticipating praise and thanks.

Imagine my surprise and irritation, therefore, when this very afternoon, the finished document dropped into my inbox (and the inboxes of countless reams of other employees) complete with its original uncorrected errors and the same glaring syntax issue beaming out from the opening phrase.

It’s demoralising enough to have so little to do – but when what you do do is disregarded or lost, it’s really somewhat irksome. Still, the Bank Holiday beckons and I’m off to Suffolk on a hen weekend. All being well I’ll return in one piece next Tuesday.

Parlez-vous business?

Several days of doing next-to-nothing have taken their toll and despite the laughable amounts of time I’ve had on my hands since last week, I have not felt inspired towards any sort of creativity – not even a trip to Legoland nudged me towards a blog entry, although this event may have to be recorded for posterity at a later date. Instead of entertaining the single-figured masses with my wry brand of verbose sarcasm, I have spent my time browsing online and taking training courses with the hope that I will eventually be able to understand an entire sentence spoken by one of the City gents and/or ladies.

At present my learning is at a level similar to that of my ability to speak French. When things are written down or spoken slowly, as if to a deaf aunt or determined labrador, I am able to translate unfamiliar phrases and terminology (eg. ‘low yield bonds’ or ‘sinking funds’) back into a language I understand and no-one is able to monitor the sluggishness of this process. However, as in France, when anyone in the office speaks to me at a normal pace about the financial sphere, their strange vocabulary blurs into a foreign mess and I am unable to do anything beyond registering that a) I have heard these words before and b) I should know what they mean but c) I do not.

Maybe one day I’ll be bilingual but for now I am reduced to hiding behind my computer screen and consoling myself with the fact that it’s the weekend in three minutes. Although I do have to go to the gym straight after work so consider that weekend commencement postponed until approx. 6.30pm. The treadmill. Pah. Liposuction looking increasingly appealing.

No News Does Not Equal Good News

Nor, however, does it necessarily equal bad news. In this particular case, no news means, oddly, no news.

I have started my job. I’ve been here over a fortnight. I am learning a lot of things. And although the process of learning anything is, in itself, stimulating and satisfying, once the learning has occurred, one is just left with the ability to do something new. This would be ideal if a particular ability challenged my brain or imbued me with self-satisfaction. But sadly, of the myriad new skills I have acquired, it is safe to say that the number of those which captivate me is precisely zero. In fact, it may be more accurate to say that nothing I have done here would be of any interest whatsoever to anyone at all. The jobs I have to carry out are so mundane in nature that when I have tried to enlighten well-meaning friends and family members about my day’s tasks, I have induced narcoleptic attacks in both listeners and speaker.

I am bored. I’m so bored I have taken to poring over my own junk mail. Each five minute chunk of today has been noted as I have been sitting at my desk. And unexpectedly, being paid very well to be bored neither disguises nor removes the unpleasantness of the experience. I am utterly unstimulated and it is making me hate myself.

That said, there is a chance that I may be given new responsibilities in a couple of weeks. This carrot is just enough to keep me with my feet under the desk for the time being. Those concerned acquaintances who have long worried about me during my freelance years, those who greeted my announcement of full-time employment with barely-concealed tears of relief and joy, will be terrified that I might ‘do something stupid’ and jack it all in – but they’ll just have to wait and see what happens. As will I. But for now, honestly, there’s no news.

It’s all about the money… for now

It was inevitable that some infectious commuter would spread some disgusting virus to me before long, with my immune system weakened by years of working from home and only rare interactions with the populace at large. The fact that my contraction of a sore throat and impending cold has been combined with the first Monday of my first full week in full-time employment seems a little harsh, however. It is mid-afternoon and I am flagging with the committed skills of a semaphore addict.

Office work is just as I remembered it, only now with less celebrities and more need for accuracy. I am still finding it hard to believe that this is my new life – not merely a brief jaunt into a strange netherworld – and that I will be here, doing this or something pretty similar, for the next few months, perhaps even for years. I’ve long longed for increased financial stability but now it’s been handed to me, the restrictive sensation of a predictable future is looming large. However, payday is in a week and a half and it is possible that my ability to cope with any monotony could increase slightly as a consequence.

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.

The Wait Is Over

Despite efforts to remain fairly anonymous - and apologies to anyone who is bitterly disappointed that this isn't being typed by an intellectually advanced bottlenosed whale - I now have a sneaking suspicion that my future bosses may have found this blog and have been reading it.

Only a few minutes after I posted my Anti-Ode to Being Housebound yesterday afternoon, I received a phonecall from my new employers, during which I was informed that I'd passed my preliminary checks and would be welcome to start on Wednesday 7th March. Aware of my own irritation with my stationary status, I readily agreed and hung up the phone.

I had hoped that delirium would hit the moment I finally received an end date to this much-bemoaned boredom, but instead, as predicted, I was gripped by an instant and forceful panic, along with an immediate yearning for my weary indolence of just moments earlier. How could I have been so ungrateful for my structureless existence? The inaudible ticking of my computer's desktop clock became deafening - the final precious hours until my first commute were fast dissolving and I needed to appreciate every last second of freedom.

And what have I done in the 24 hours since then? Spent time reading in front of a log fire, gone for a long walk, seen an exhibition, revelled in my duvet or watched a film in the morning? No. I have been irritatingly sensible and have spent my time clearing a backlog of admin: buying advance train tickets for an Easter weekend jaunt, reading up on my new employers and trying and failing to purchase an advance Oyster travelcard update online. However, thankfully I have not been entirely practical and am pleased to announce that over the course of the last few minutes I have revelled in my last weekday mid-afternoon snooze for the foreseeable future. My next post will be as an employee. Brings tears to my eyes.

iPod idiocy and job update

In decades gone by, a sign of mental decrepitude was the sight of an absent-minded individual searching for the pair of spectacles they were already wearing. In a modern take on an age-old problem, I am now confronting a new embarrassment. As I sit on the tube or walk along the busy London streets, I am regularly plagued by a panicked conviction that my iPod has been stolen and have to pat my pockets frantically and search my cavernous bag until I find it. Given the metropolis' reputation for petty crime and white-wire targeting, such behaviour could perhaps be seen as sensible caution were it not for the fact that, during these frenzied searching sessions, my headphones are always sitting comfortably in my ears and beautiful music is wending its way down the wires into my mind. Looking for an iPod while wearing it and hearing its music: absurd when it happens the first time, worrying when it happens every few minutes.

In other news: I am employed.

Denial - not just a river in Egypt etc. etc.

Regular readers will have noticed that this blog goes through sporadic phases where it will be updated frequently, and then enter a slightly stroppy stage when it petulantly remains unwritten. The logic behind this mercurial pattern is fairly unsurprising: I'm happy to write when I am happy, but reticent when I'm preoccupied and/or stressed.

At present, I'm in limbo - jobs are hovering inches above the proverbial table, I'm doggedly refusing to decide whether or not I want them until I know for sure that they will be offered to me, and I'm consequently inhabiting a strange state of not-knowing which is vague and unsettling - especially to one so reliant on structure, organisation and facts as I. The only practical solution, therefore, is denial. Consequently, I've blocked all thoughts of this situation out of my mind, instead spending inordinate amounts of time researching unrelated and unnecessary oddities online and reading whatever is close at hand in order to distract myself from my uncomfortable reality.

Anyone else constructing similar self-diversions could do worse than succumbing to Michel Gondry's new film, The Science of Sleep - Simon and I went to see it on Friday and it's barking mad in all the right ways. Charlotte Gainsbourg's bewitching English accent inspired me to buy her last album, 5.55, which is on as I type - she's singing about a plane crash and helping me forget my current career confusions. Hopefully the forthcoming new week will bring answers, but until then, I will drift along on this unfamiliar cloud where my future is in the control of virtual strangers, the past is distant and irrelevant, and the present is unpleasantly hazy. Suddenly the appeal of hallucinogenic drugs isn't so incomprehensible.

Children's publishers: you have my sympathies...

Tuesday night was a sleepless affair, involving much of the clichéd tossing and turning (if pushed, I'd say fractionally more of the latter). Having decided to learn to proof read for a job interview in just a couple of days, and my knowledge of the company in question being less than zero, there was a fair bit of pressure on the old mental furnace and frantic revision kept me awake through most of the twilight hours.

By lunchtime yesterday I was fairly insane with self-imposed and confusingly intense stress about a job I wasn't even sure I wanted. I had printed out copies of a children's book I wrote a year or two ago, a copy of an educational Shakespeare book I wrote around the same time and never did anything about - and stacked these alongside my portfolio, my MA dissertation, my café book and the book I'm actually reading (DC Confidential, book group friends - really enjoying it). I had preened and prepped myself into interview shape and enthusiastically set off for the far-flung reaches of Farringdon.

First impressions weren't great: the dilapidated building and disappointing reception area had me nostalgic for the relative swank of the City job I'd been for a fortnight ago. But then we walked downstairs through the storeroom stacked high with shelves full of beautiful, crisp, unsullied children's non-fiction books: encyclopaedia, dictionaries, books on dinosaurs and monsters and electricity and chess and how to play the guitar. It was heaven. The half-hour copy-editing test went surprisingly well - they were, in fact, extremely impressed that I knew my proofing symbols as they apparently don't use them in their offices - and the interview was cruising along nicely. But then they passed me the job description. The salary made me blanche - it was sub-Botanist. I tried to maintain my composure and show continued enthusiasm for the role, but my shock clearly showed as my interviewers laughingly assured me that, for publishing, this was a very reasonable offer. Pity the publishers - job satisfaction is a covetable thing, but it comes at a price, and if I ever want to move out of home, it's not one I can afford to pay.

In other news, my Valentine's flowers were delivered at 8pm last night, while I was out, and by the time I saw them this morning, they were dead, with nine of the eleven (eleven! I ask you...) heads pointing south by the time I got to them. I've got a new bunch now because I went back to the shop and complained - and Simon is having a feisty email row with the Head of Customer Services, Europe at Interflora. Undeniably a hassle, but so much more interesting than receiving the perfect bouquet first time round.

When only a Pilot V5 Finepoint will do...

It's a funny old world, isn't it. Eleven hours away in Los Angeles, Robbie Williams' publicist is fielding hundreds of calls regarding his client's decision to check into drug rehab again. In the Far East, the North Koreans have agreed to start the nuclear disarmament process. Up in Leeds, police are talking to three men in connection with the murder of a 2-year-old. So much is happening, lives are falling apart and being pieced back together again - and yet, here I am, still wearing pyjamas, still unemployed, still sitting in my beloved bedroom chair, studying a page of mysterious hieroglyphics with unusual seriousness. While the rest of the world is dealing with its issues, I am learning how to use proof-reading symbols for a job interview at a publishing house tomorrow.

There's something slightly humiliating about poring over a page of strange squiggles and lines - an echo of childhood multiplication-tables-induced panic. But learning the proofreading language in 48 hours is no mean feat and unless I want to be left with no job options other than the very-well-paid but fundamentally-un-me job at the City bank or a stint at TGI Friday's, right now I need to get on and do it. This being the case, it is strange that I am being mentally dragged towards the red pen section of my local stationers' in order to find the Ultimate Copy Editor's Writing Utensil. If only 'flawless procrastination skills' were a CV talking point...