Problems? Yep. Solutions? Not so much.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Electric dreams

Two typos and a misused 'which' yesterday but due to rushing I didn't spot them until long after my self-imposed thirty minute editing window had past. Tut tut. Am distracting myself with my consumer excitement of the day: I am going to go to John Lewis after work and buy a fleecy heated underblanket. My arctic bedroom conditions have beaten me - I went to bed last night wearing velour bottoms, a T-shirt, a velour long sleeved nightie, a snood and slippers and was still so cold that I had to heat up my microwave beanbag and arrange it over my face so that it heated up my nose while still allowing me to breathe. Basically, I need another radiator in my bedroom, but a fleece underblanket is a) cheaper and b) easier so we will all have to ignore the fact that c) it makes me feel like I should also be applying for a freedom pass.

Not much to report from this end. New eyeliner is lovely. I am waiting to see what the Apple Tablet looks like. The Guardian's editor says that Murdoch is wrong to charge for online news access, but I can't see how it's sustainable to give all this journalism away for free when so many individuals are prepared to do it on a smaller, more niche basis without getting paid or by generating advertising revenue on their sites. Of course, the big papers generate online ad revenue too - huge amounts - but it's simply not enough to cover their overheads: apparently the Graun is losing £100k a day. Hmmm. The next few years are going to be very interesting.

I feel so lucky to have been born with one foot in The Past and one in The Future. I got my first mobile phone and email address when I was 18, but I still clearly remember life without them, when home computers were rare, TV only had four channels, and I spent most termtime nights queuing with ten other girls, waiting to use the landline at our boarding school, trying to get through to the house of some uninterested boy who was out playing sport or doing something really cool and would never get the breezy messages we left. Now Skype videocalls are normal, I can watch live TV on my phone and I frequently leave the house without a clue where I'm going, but by the time I've reached the tube station I've copied and pasted the postcode from an email into the maps app, found my destination, worked out which stop I'm headed for, and then found out which part of the platform to get on the train in order to be nearest the exit stairs on my arrival. I can't imagine how the future of technology could be much cooler than it is already but I'm sure it will surprise us all. Hold on tight.

Once a gossip girl...?

I love my boss. He had to take the exam for UK Citizenship today, so that he can extend his visa. I don't know if you've tried to take the test but it is actually quite tricky in places. A lot of it is basic stuff that you would pick up through living here, but there are some historical dates/questions about Hansard that are harder. My boss was taking a practice test the other day, invited me in to his office to see how I did, and was gobsmacked when I got 22 out of 24 questions right. As was I. Anyway, then yesterday, this other guy asked Percy if the test was hard, and Percy said, "It is hard if you haven't revised - lots of history and strange facts."
"So I wouldn't pass if I tried?" he asked.
"No, you wouldn't pass. Jane did, but she is the exception."
Brilliant. Making me feel good while the other guy feels sick that he's been beaten by a PA. Mwah ha ha.

In other business... Somehow I doubt I will ever be naturally highbrow. I logged on to the Guardian's website this morning to check the news, and dutifully scrolled through stories about the economy and conflicts abroad. Then my eye was lassoed by an article called 'The Wisdom of Boybands'. My mouse shot over and opened the page and I devoured its contents like an emaciated hyena let loose in a butcher's. In shameful contrast to the articles about serious news, in this piece, the names were all familiar to me - Nicky from Westlife? Yep, interviewed him several times. Tony Mortimer? Lit his cigarette at the Ivor Novello awards when I was given special permission to come up to London for them while I was at boarding school. Simon Webbe from Blue? Yup. He used to know me as 'the posh bird'. Richie from Let Loose? I bought Crazy for You on CD single from Kiosks in Calne when I was 15, and we made a mix tape for Nessa when we paused the CD in the break between the first chorus and the second verse, and left the tape running, and then tried to get her to sing the beginning of the second verse really loudly and embarrass her. The only one I wasn't so familiar with was one of the Jonas Brothers, but even then, I'd recognise them in a line-up no problem.

Even worse, it's not like I now scoff at their opinions. I know there are more important things to be worrying about, but I genuinely never knew that Louis had fired Westlife twice for mucking about before they made the big time. And I really enjoyed reading what Tony Mortimer had to say about the fact that his ex-bandmates are still touring with his songs. I was following these people during my most formative years. Peter Mandleson, Alistair Campbell, IPPR, Afghanistan, immigration, nuclear disarmament, global warming and third world debt were all around in the eighties and nineties too - I just didn't give a monkey's. And now I'm wondering if it's too late. The vocabulary is still a struggle. Reading Prospect magazine takes weeks out of every month because I would rather stare into a stranger's shoulder on the tube than read a fascinating exploration of the use of neuroscience in developing political ideology. And then I notice a gossip piece about Cheryl Cole in someone else's London Lite and I get butterflies because I am so desperate to know what she's alleged to have been doing.

Should I give in? The siren calls emanating from the trashy, dangerously confidence-slashing women's media are powerful but I've fought them for several years, earnestly trying to boost my general knowledge through continued non-fiction book buying and a complete refusal to read Heat except while in hairdressers'. To relent now, to admit defeat by politics, seems like a shame. But we only live once. No one ever lay on their deathbed saying, "I wish I'd spent more time learning about the conflict in Darfur." Actually, maybe they did. But somehow, I don't think those will be my last words. More likely? My predictions are as follows:

1. "Ow."
2. "Morphine."
3. "Promise me you won't remarry."
4. "Can you pass me that bit of garlic bread?"

Weighty issues

So the MPs expense claims fiasco is still making me chortle. I know it shouldn't, I know it's outrageous, but it's just so ingrained in their culture. I was reading today that when Gordon Brown became an MP in the early 1980s, their annual salary was a risible £15,000. Expenses claims were how they survived. Now their annual salary is £65k, but over time, they've all colluded in wiggling the system in their favour and the unavoidable, laughable sense that they've all been simultaneously busted is slightly gleeful. I do want it to change, don't get me wrong - I think it's a serious issue - but the idea that our tax money has gone on the following surely raises a smile:

Nick Harvey (Lib Dem) - £30 per month for Sky Sports subscription
Julia Goldsworthy (Lib Dem) - £1,200 for a rocking chair
Alan Duncan (Tory) - £598 for lawnmower repairs
Oliver Letwin (Tory) - £2000 for repairs to pipe under his tennis court
David Miliband (Lab) - £145.96 for a pushchair
Margaret Beckett (Lab) - £600 for a hanging basket
Andy Burnham (Lab) - £19.99 for a dressing gown
John Prescott (Lab) - £112.52 for repairs to a toilet seat

Andy's £19.99 dressing gown was particularly poignant - I feel sorry for him that he didn't splash out a little more and go for something a bit nicer. But the one that made me feel saddest was John Prescott's repair work. How broken could it have been, for goodness' sake?! And how much did the seat cost in the first place, that it was preferable to spend over £100 repairing it rather than replacing it? The correlation that will inevitably be made between the size of Mr Prescott's derriere and the cost of the damage was what made me wince. One of the worst memories of my life happened about ten years ago, when I weighed... quite a lot. I was in Miami to do an interview with some tiny American popstrel, and we'd gone up to the rooftop garden of our unbelievably swanky hotel to take some photos on the beautiful wooden loungers by the pool. It was a stunning, warm spring day, the weather totally different to the cold rain we'd been having back in London. I was already feeling self-conscious as I was probably about five times the size of the starlet, painfully white and uncomfortable in my summer clothes that hadn't been worn since the previous year. But then, as I tried to relax on one of the poolside wooden stools, I felt an unmistakable crunch occur beneath my oversized buttocks, and seconds later, I was on the floor, the seat of the stool in two pieces on the decking beside me. Of course, I laughed. There was no other possible response. But I remember being furious that it had happened. I was convinced that the stool had been on its way out, and it just seemed so typical and so unfair that it had been The Fat Girl who had been the one to tip it over the edge.

These days I'm no longer fat, thankfully, but I still find weight a fairly constant concern. I'm currently preparing myself for ten days on the beach at the beginning of June and gearing up for that initial reveal of myself in a bikini, surrounded by people who are already bronzed: a moment of unparalleled awkwardness. I'm doing my best to eat less and exercise more in the run-up to the event, but even when I'm not working too hard at it all, there's that fairly constant stab of envy as I see one naturally slim person after another eating pizza or doughnuts or biscuits without thinking. I just envy that ability to eat without analysis - to grab lunch in McDonalds or guiltlessly order a Fiorentina for dinner and have no guilt or repurcussions. As Eva's mum always said, 'They'll turn to fat,' but they will have had decades of carefree munching and they don't know how lucky they are.

But back to politics (and away from any discussion about buttocks, whether they're mine or John Prescott's)... I had class three of my six-week politics course last night. The topic was inequality and it was fascinating. I found myself agreeing with Napoleon rather than Marx - equality of opportunity rather than equality of outcome - so my dad's fears that he's 'bred a red' can be calmed a little. But I still fear that, expenses scandal included, no matter how many scandalous truths are revealed about our governing system, the vast majority of people won't engage with politics because they simply don't believe that their vote will make any difference. The parties are too similar, the representatives are self-interested and the democratic machine is fundamentally flawed. How can we change this? I don't know. I am sure that some sort of parliamentary reform is vital, probably involving proportional representation, but even then, the extant political parties don't seem to reflect the national interests. And, worryingly, as I read in today's Guardian, the media won't change this: "What aspect of the restoration of trust in politics would be in the media's interest? The answer is no part of it at all." They are loving this scandal, they love discontentment, they love demonstrations that turn into riots. Good news is no news. In a country where the media, more than anything else, shapes public opinion, that's a fairly depressing state of affairs. And I can't even smother my sorrows by comfort eating. Bah.

There where things are hollow

Oh dear. How terribly unBritish last night's blog posting was. I have just reread it and felt distinctly uncomfortable at its unabashed happiness and overflowing joie de vivre. It was all true, of course, and I reluctantly admit that I am still feeling fairly fleet of foot and frisky. But how deeply uncharacteristic.

The only thing I can think of that might rectify this is a more lengthy complaint about the monstrous T-Mobile commercial that I witnessed being filmed in Trafalgar Square yesterday eve. First of all, the crowds gathered round the stage were huge. Yes, that's 'crowds'. Many, many people, all willing to give up their free time, desperate to be in a thirty second TV ad. The fame obsession of the British public will never cease to amaze me. I don't know what it says about me that I was willing to give up my free time to stand on Charing Cross Road and watch the proceedings, but I hope it's slightly less awful than actually wanting to be in the ad. I suspect it's a gossamer line.

A camera on a huge boom swooped over the masses, who obliginged by screaming mechanically and waving and sticking their tongues out, trying to do something - anything - to stand out long enough to earn their 0.15 seconds. Then the distinctly underwhelming celeb, Vernon Kaye, strode onto the temporary stage and shouted at those gathered beneath him, welcoming them to the next 'event' for T-Mobile. It was all so gross and I felt wrong and dirty for staying - but just when I was losing all self-respect, the karaoke began. After a fair bit of delicious wine at lunch, I was sucked in, hook, line, and singer.

We were getting into our stride a few tunes in - I had especially enjoyed Summer Loving - when the camera zoned in on a funky-looking blonde lass wearing a hoodie. As she saw her face on the big screen, she pushed off her hood and started really working the mike.
"Urgh," I thought to myself, "typical wannabe, making sure none of her fake-tanned mug is obscured on TV." She started singing - quite well, to be fair - in fact, staggeringly confidently for someone in the public, although it seemed like the sound balance on her mike was a bit more favourable... I felt briefly outraged for the other singers who'd came across as a bit breathy and understandably under-rehearsed, but then the man next to me said, "It's Pink," and I looked again, and from the mole on her face and a piercing somewhere, I realised that he was telling the truth, and the hoodie-wearer was, in fact, an American C-lister, with a moniker that matches T-mobile's logo colour, paid handsomely to turn up and give the advertising event of the afternoon a bit more star girth. All around her, everyone was smiling and reaching up to her, and suddenly I felt very protective of all the people who'd been happily chanting along to Build Me Up Buttercup before a Pop Star arrived. Sure, they'd only been there to get on TV too, but underneath all the commercialism, it had briefly seemed like a bit of harmless, inexpensive fun. But that's not enough for us these days. We can't just sing and look happy. We need additional endorsement from a well-known face. We need to be shown how it's done. We need to be put in our place. And it stinks. I wandered off shortly afterwards, leaving the fame-hungry hoardes to their worship.

I know, I know, I'm a hypocrite. I shouldn't have gone along at all. But I was curious. And it was a gorgeous sunny evening. Yes, I'm confused. But I do my best. And you love me for it.

Update

I read online today that being green is a truly unselfish act. I thought about that for a while this afternoon. I've long held the opinion that there's no such thing as a selfless act - but [it's difficult to type as I have my hands on my head at the moment. I don't know who that blonde girl is in The Apprentice, but she has to die] this gentleman was saying that, since none of us will see the results of our efforts to recycle or fly less, it would be hard to argue that there's a selfish element. But you know me, I'd argue that [ohmygod, I actually can't watch, this is agonising] night is day, black is white or that cellulite is a turn-on. And I'd say that Doing The Right Thing, even if there is no discernible benefit at the time, is always selfish, because it makes you feel good about yourself. And on that basis, I'm back to my first claim that there is no such thing as a selfless act. I'll let you know if that changes.

Back to today. I couldn't resist beaking in to the Bank area at lunchtime and I'm disappointed to report, I couldn't see anything much at all. Lots of happy, smiling people and happy, smiling coppers, with a lot of drummers drumming. It was a bit like the Notting Hill Carnival but without as much marijuana in the air or empty beer cans on the floor. What did strike me was that, for every protester, there were about 487 people taking photographs. I've never seen so many cameras, it was quite extraordinary. The media presence these days is absolutely gobsmacking. I went back to the office with a spring in my step, and was able to watch the drama unfold throughout the afternoon on Sky News, read about it on the Guardian's online site and a couple of news blogs, got second-by-second updates from Twitter feeds and saw photos uploaded just moments after they'd been taken. It was something else. Regardless, I stand by my earlier confusion that I think the protests were largely pointless and won't change anything. But I'd love to be proved wrong.

[Sir Alan's fired the wrong person twice now. Ah well. No one with an IQ above double figures switches on The Apprentice thinking their blood won't reach boiling point].

In other news, I went out for dinner with Justin last night and drank far too much wine. And then had half a pint in a pub. It was a very fun night and I have no regrets, but times aren't unmitigatingly happy at the moment, and gals like me would be advised to steer clear of that popular depressant, alcohol. So tonight when I met up with Tracey, I resolved to be good. I had a virgin strawberry daquiri in Gordon Ramsay's hotel bar in Camden, and then a single glass of house white in the pub where we ate dinner. I was feeling so pleased with my self-restraint that I came home and ate a mini Caramel, then a yoghurt, then a mini finger of Fudge and then a mini Curly-Wurly. Fear and self-loathing in SE London. Growl.

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.

From Front Line to Front Page...

First of all, read this, it's absolutely gripping.

Secondly, I can't quite work out what I think about Prince Harry's war efforts. On the one hand, he seems like a nice guy and it must have been annoying to do all that training and then not be able to go and fight. But then, on the other hand, they must have been able to tell him before he started at Sandhurst that the chances of him fighting on the front line were pretty anorexic - so I don't feel that sorry for him - it's not like it was unexpected. Plus he's a royal, so his life's not too tough. But then he did lose his mum. But then you can't just have special treatment because you lose your mum. But then, the only way he was able to go was through a massive and, to my knowledge, unprecedented media cover-up. I'm not too happy about this. I am happy he got the chance to fight, but he only had that chance at the expense of the 'trustworthy' reputation of our country's media. Our biggest news organisations all agreed to keep schtum so that he could go, in exchange for the juicy, attention-grabbing/money-making stories that Harry has been feeding them during his time in Afghanistan. And although there's a part of me that thinks that's all quite nice and British and sportsmanly, there's another, far more substantial part that thinks, 'Hang on, if they're all agreeing to lie about this, how many other stories are they all agreeing to lie about?' Have we got a free press or what? I mean, obviously they were free to print this but they chose not to - in exchange for profit-making coverage and exclusive access at an unspecified later date. I'm really not sure I'm particularly fine with all this. Don't get me wrong, I've never thought for a minute that the papers tell us everything there is to know, but this is the first time I've been aware of a deliberate cahoots-style agreement across the board and it's kind of freaked me out. The liberal in me is outraged but the Evelyn Waugh fan in me is glad that good old Harry got a chance to show his colours on the field - and let's not forget that for many people, Hazza's involvement on the front line would be a fantastic advertisement for our beleaguered armed forces. On yet another hand, royal involvement could equally rub a lot of potential recruits up the wrong way and surely the potential gain to the hiring strategy for the armed forces is offset by the increased danger experienced by those fighting alongside Harry. I think on balance it is very, very sinister that every single current affairs organisation in the UK agreed to keep us in the dark in exchange for juicy gossip, and much as I appreciate how frustrating it must be for Harry, who is clearly about as useful as a chocolate hairdryer in most ways and has finally found something at which he is obviously very talented only to be denied access to it by a US website who refused to play ball, I don't think that one young man's desires - third in line to the throne or not - should be accommodated if it means that our press agrees to pull the wool over the eyes of 58 million people. I dunno though.

Back to me. I had a tricky evening yesterday - I went over to the flat and, having been relentlessly positive since minute one, suddenly I didn't like it. It felt dark and claustrophobic and wrong. Plus the tiles were annoying. Nothing a few cheap light fittings from Ikea can't solve though, I'm sure - and probably just a last-minute panic. This time next week, all being well, my bed will be in situ and I'll be unpacking for my first night in my own home. Between now and then, the ever-increasing list of tasks continues to be formidable - but I've come this far and brute determination, the incentive of solo living and the hotly-anticipated return of Monsieur L'Atelier on Tuesday will help me over the finishing line. Bring it on.

The geese are getting fat

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

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

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

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

Contents too unrelated for satisfactory title

Many apologies for my four day absence from the blogosphere. I have been both busy and creatively uninspired, a combination that does not entice one towards the computer to muse wittily. If I'm totally honest, I'm not 100% sure that I am now sufficiently fired up to write the kind of post that the Faithful deserve after such an unusually long hiatus, but I am of the mind that something is better than nothing.

So here goes something.

The last few days have been carol-tastic: I had a three hour rehearsal on Saturday afternoon, followed by a concert to a packed Mayfair church on Saturday evening and another concert on Sunday night. The latter was at Cliveden - a huge stately home that was the site of the Profumo/Christine Keeler affair and is now a swanky hotel full of rich Americans. I didn't see much of the place - just the reception area and a few ground floor rooms - but the spare loo rolls were tied up with Cliveden-branded navy-blue ribbon which was vastly OTT but strangely pleasing. It did occur to me that, if you're caught short, starting a new loo roll is traumatic enough without having to undo branded bows but then again, Cliveden guests probably don't get caught short in the first place - frightfully common habit.

Now I'm back at work with a busy week ahead. I am woefully out of touch with current affairs - other than a quick skim through the online Guardian this afternoon I seem to have been either dousing myself in self-help books or revising The Twelve Days Of Christmas for the past fortnight. No time for news. One story that did catch my eye during my twenty second foray through the internet was that, since the launch of the appalling free papers in London over the past year or so, recycled rubbish has tripled on three of the major tube lines, from 3 to 9.5 tonnes per day. The three lines who reported the increase have now been fined by the tube overlords, penalised for failing to attain targets in the 'ambience' category after a recent passenger survey. The tube lines blame the increase of newspaper rubbish that, they say, is impossible to manage. So thanks to the morons who enjoy these freesheets and then leave them lying around, we'll be seeing a decrease in standards on three of London's busiest underground lines. Obviously in our capitalist world, such a commercially successful venture won't go away any time soon - but it would be nice if it wasn't going to affect those of us who are desperately trying to prevent our brains from dissolving and slipping out through our noses in the near future. Yet another reason to hate the Metro - as if we needed one.

Blog-writer Jane in acerbic anti-celeb culture rant

Really, I should probably accept that I hate the existing free London papers and stop going on about them. But last night, the front page of ‘thelondonpaper’ took my breath away. And not in a good way.

The principal headline is probably excusable, although I could take issue with it if required. In truth, the area to which I wanted to draw attention was the banner above the headline. Two stories are flagged up with a blue background, one with red. The red story concerns sport, while the two blue stories are purportedly news. And in the opinion of the paper’s editor, what are the two most attention-grabbing stories in the entire paper, after those on the front page? Well, we have the revelation that sunglasses are ‘Hot, even in winter’, illustrated by a picture of Nicole Ritchie sporting a pair of oversized frames that look like remedial ones Harry Potter might wear if he had conjunctivitis. We are informed that we can read more about this gripping story on page eight, but effectively, it seems that the breaking news is: celebrities wear sunglasses all year round! Allow me to catch my breath.

But even that nugget wasn’t the most jaw-dropping page element. What made me really squirm was the story on the left-hand side of the banner. It reads: ‘BB’s Charley in amazing club brawl’ and even typing it makes me feel nauseated. Firstly, if you have to preface a supposed celeb with their origin, they’re not famous enough for the front page. Headlines featuring real celebs don’t read ‘The Royal Family’s Queen in Corgi chaos’, ‘Popstar Britney watches Corrie’ or ‘Football’s David Beckham spells word correctly’. These people don’t need explanations; but one of the ‘characters’ from this summer’s series of Big Brother, Charley, absolutely does – and for this reason, she shouldn’t be flagged up on page one in the first place.

However, I might forgive this editorial error if Charley’s news had been of remote importance or interest to the wider public. Clearly, it is no small task to make a value judgement about what the public view – or should view – as important or of interest. But this is the job of an editor. And the editor of thelondonpaper has decided that a young girl having a fight outside a nightclub is not only newsworthy, not only front-page news, but should be described using the word ‘amazing’ – a word meaning ‘surprising greatly; inspiring awe or admiration or wonder’. Does the editor seriously want to imply that bitch fighting is worthy of awe? I have a big problem with that use of adjective.

I also have a big problem with celebrity journalism but as long as it’s treated as vapid rubbish, I can swallow my rage. It’s when it is dressed up as news that I get worried. If you believe that the papers are merely reporting what people want to read, then you believe the editor is blamelessly doing his job. But I believe that the media – and perhaps the free press in particular – have more of a duty to their readers than that. I know there will always be celebs and there will always be people who are interested in their lives. But celeb culture is only one way of living and if London’s free press choose to promote BB’s Charley and sunglasses instead of, for example, the scary situation between the Turks and the Kurds or the search for a new LibDem leader then, not for the first time, I fear for future generations. Blimey, it’s exhausting being serious.

Fragment: consider revising

Lots to say today, especially given that I’ve recently returned from a delightful and festive birthday lunch for Laura. I am now back at my desk, very chatty and slightly redder of cheek – and hopefully working slash blogging capably and without (noticeable) error.

In general, I’m not a fan of The Times newspaper, but this dislike is largely to do with vague, indiscriminate political issues rather than any precise gripe. However, through my morning haze on the tube this morning, I noticed a front page headline that sparked a specific degree of irritation. The headline read as follows: ‘Children who can’t write their own name’. Now, correct me if I’m wrong, but this isn’t news. Strictly speaking, it isn’t even a sentence. When typed into Microsoft Word, it is underlined in green and the right mouse-click reveals the beloved grammar hint, ‘Fragment: consider revising’. Children who can’t write their own name what? Should be culled? Are well thick innit? Exist in their thousands south of the equator? I know I’m being pedantic but if you can’t get news from a front page headline on one of the UK’s most popular papers, then what hope is there for the rest of us?

The story to which The Times ‘journalist’ was referring was that young children today are, apparently, woefully ill-educated – while The Guardian and this morning’s Today programme were covering the news that primary age children are stressed to the point of severe anxiety by the sheer quantity of exams they have to sit in addition to the daily threats of terrorism and local crime. Which is it to be, lads? Are they overworked or under-taught? Or both? In a shocking revelation, some pupils, reported a Guardian journalist, “said the tests were ‘scary’ and made them nervous”. Now, don’t get me wrong, I’m not into terrorising six year olds, but surely an element of school must be about attaining goals. If parents want their kids to spend their formative years wafting around making collages out of leaves or creating wonky music using bongo drums and those miniature cymbals that everyone always coveted at junior school, then that’s fine as long as they’re then prepared to accept ‘children who can’t write their own name’ – and, presumably, sub-editors who can’t formulate a grammatical headline. Or maybe there's some middle ground. Meh, I knew I should have watched BBC Breakfast - they would have been seated firmly on the fence.

In actual news, Al Gore has been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his film, An Inconvenient Truth, less than a day after a British high court judge ruled that it could only be taught in schools as long as there were written guidance notes to accompany it that represented the other viewpoints. What was really adorable was this note that was written at the bottom of The Grauniad’s online coverage: “Friday October 12 2007. A panel in the article above listing the significant errors found by a high court judge in Al Gore's documentary on global warming was labelled The nine points, but contained only eight. The point we omitted was that the film said a sea-level rise of up to 20ft would be caused by melting of either west Antarctica or Greenland in the near future; the judge ruled that this was "distinctly alarmist". The missing point has been added.” Of course, it’s pure hypocrisy for me to find errors in The Guardian adorable and lynch The Times for theirs, but c’est la vie.

Finally, I note that there has been some unexpectedly good news for the hospital chief responsible for Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells hospitals, the trust that was recently accused of causing the deaths of more than 90 patients over a two year period: she was given a quarter of a million pounds to quit. I’m going to kill 90 bankers and see if they offer me £250k to resign. Whaddya reckon? Fingers crossed that some mentalist doesn’t actually go on a shooting spree in the next week as this entry might make me a suspect. I didn’t do it, honest guv’nor. Happy weekend.

No news is... a waste of paper

Regular readers might have gleaned that I am not a fan of London's free morning newspapers. As the longest-running culprit, right-wing rubbish Metro is terrifyingly all-pervasive: I frequently look down my tube carriage in the mornings and notice that almost every commuter is holding one aloft. I, of course, bursting with (a desire for) intellectual superiority, refuse even to open a copy or glance at my neighbour's.

Today, however, my eye was caught by a headline that has to be a major contender in several categories at this year's press awards, in particular 'Laziest Journalism' and 'The Depressing Reality Of Showbiz'. The eye-grabber in question is at the top right of the photo above and reads 'Gabrielle: Honestly, I really do have two eyes'.

For my foreign/elderly/sensible readers who may not be familiar with Gabrielle, let me assist by explaining that she is a singer who, in 1993, achieved massive chart success with her debut song, Dreams, a catchy number aided by her trademark nasal voice and the bejewelled eyepatch that she wore in all the promotional materials. At the time, rumours abounded as to the origins of this patch: was she a pirate at the weekends? Had she been partially blinded by an incident involving a staple gun? Or was she merely suffering from a bad case of conjunctivitis? The jury was out, but at a time when American pop trio, TLC, were embracing the safe sex movement by attaching packets of condoms to their clothes and even, in one case, over the lenses of their spectacles, Gabrielle didn't seem quite so controversial.

It is thus depressing in the extreme to see that the Metro journalist still falls back on this 14-year-old curiosity. I struggle to believe that their entire interview didn't throw up anything more fascinating than the existence of the standard rationing of eyeballs in Gabrielle's head. If it didn't, it's the fault of the writer - and if it did, it's the fault of the editor who chose that pull quote to go on the front page over the superior material. Either way, the Metro sucks. And let this be a warning to any wannabe stars out there: watch what you say and watch what you do - you can sell all the records you want but chances are, several years later, you'll still be defending yourself against inane questions asked earnestly by moronic writers who hold the keys to your mortgage repayments along with their dictaphone. Resist the spotlight.

Under the influence

The news is rarely happy but today’s seems worse than normal with British soldiers killed by US unfriendly fire, tragic words from the family of the Liverpool teenager killed by a shot to the face by teenagers and more damning news about the health service and stroke patients. What I found most depressing on a personal level, however, were The Sun’s photos of Amy Winehouse.

After a late night row with her husband who is, apparently, a known junkie, the couple made up temporarily and went to the corner shop to buy cigarettes, where they were caught by a Sun photographer. The husband is shown with scratches and blood all over his face and Amy’s arms are covered in self-harm/suicide attempt scars and bandages. Most disturbingly, there are deep, fresh blood stains on her pink ballet shoes where, reveals the newspaper gleefully, she has been injecting herself with heroin between her toes. An alleged ‘pal’ of Amy’s claims in the article that she takes drugs this way ‘as it gets her high quicker’.

I don’t know who I’m more annoyed with: the singer or The Sun. As an ex-celeb obsessive, I know how much influence popstars can have on young people. Fortunately, my love of Howard from Take That only caused me to a) wear a red bandana on my wrist non-stop for three years because Howard had endorsed it as ‘cool’; b) start listening to Pink Floyd; and c) start supporting Manchester United. I also successfully completed my self-imposed challenge of writing the words ‘take’ and ‘that’ consecutively in every single one of my GCSEs. Similarly, my Michael Jackson phase inspired a hefty portion of my art coursework as I made alternative cassette covers and a collection box for all of the singles from his Dangerous album. Eventually, my interest in all things celebrity led me to pursue a career in pop journalism where I came across a whole lot more deranged young fans who were willing to travel the length and breadth of the country – and beyond – to see and scream in the direction of their idols.

I was fortunate in that the objects of my affection were, although unarguably stupid, pretty clean individuals (MJ's paedophilia aside...). There have always been worse role models and drugs are nothing new – but to my knowledge, no celebrity has ever been photographed with inter-toe blood stains caused by heroin injections. Had it happened in my day, I strongly doubt that I would have seen it as an endorsement of such behaviour – but I know with absolute certainty that there is a petrifying number of young, impressionable people with access to drugs and little motivation to stay off them who will find these pictures an inspiration and a justification rather than a warning.

Ms Winehouse is clearly a talented and respected musician but she is trying to ignore the responsibilities that come with that gift. As a role model she sucks. She is in turmoil and should remove herself from the public eye until she understands the weight of her influence and is better able to set an example. How idiotic – or drugged – does a celebrity have to be to leave their house wearing blood-stained shoes? She needs help and I could understand if many parents were very angered by her behaviour.

Meanwhile, The Sun has the largest readership of any newspaper in the UK and by printing these pictures and publicising her actions they are increasing the likelihood that this behaviour will be emulated – in spite of pathetically insincere urges for her to ‘Get help’ in their headlines. And don’t even get me started on their thinly veiled lesson in attaining a more effective heroin high. Celebrity and the media: two sides of the same tarnished coin. Suddenly I feel really old.

Stop the press

In a dramatic piece of breaking news, a link has been found between the over-sexualisation of females in the media and countless millions of insecure and unhappy girls. I'm sure I'm not alone in struggling to see how this is new knowledge.

For the past several centuries, certain types have been idealised and then idolised, from Cleopatra to Casanova, Grace Kelly to Kelly Brook (but, interestingly, not Henry Kelly). People’s self-images have always been affected by the portrayal of others – whether in novels, on TV, in films, advertisements or in the music industry. Primitive make-up used by beauty-seekers centuries ago led to skin poisoning and death. Victorian women squeezed into corsets so tight that they damaged their internal organs. And in the Fifties, female stars were regularly described by their measurements (34-24-34) – and ‘normal’ women whose figure didn’t conform to the Barbie girl ideal felt overweight and unhappy with themselves.

Of course, modern technologies have allowed far more unrealistic ideals to emerge – see this film for proof. But whether our beauty idols are genuinely fictional (e.g. Jessica Rabbit), or fictionally genuine in the sense that their beauty is not as it appears (e.g. every celebrity female), is strangely irrelevant to most of us. Most of us are well aware of modern airbrushing techniques (see left for more evidence). We know celebrities put themselves under insane pressure to look good – and that it can involve impossible fitness and diet regimes, 24-hour make-up assistance or drastic surgery. But sadly, despite our own fulfilling lives, and our limited time and money resources, we often chastise ourselves for our inability to compete with these racehorses.

In the UK, most women desire to be thin, toned, tanned and facially beautiful. In Southern India, women should be plump and dark skinned, whereas in Northern India, they should be thin and pale skinned. The fact is, whatever the individual criteria set by your society, there will be criteria, and either you fit the bill or you don’t.

My own childhood was utterly devoid of anything cool. At the boarding school I attended, fashion was a bizarre combination of comfort garments for the critically obese and ethnic skirts from Kensington Market. For several years, I rarely deviated from my unofficial uniform of a deeply unflattering men’s rugby shirt teamed with a long, shapeless skirt and a pair of elephantine Doc Marten loafers. My hair was long, straight and a non-shade of dark mouse for nearly a decade. I remained untouched by any glimmer of fashion sense until my twenties – and I would say that most of my friends were similarly unfussed.

Yet this lack of external pressure did not protect me from insecurities. There weren’t any teenage popstars to taunt me and I had little interest in boys at the time, but I was still painfully aware that I was on the porky side of slender. I felt overweight from around the age of seven, and was massively under-confident about my appearance until relatively recently – and shamefully, I expect a good deal of my current confidence has to do with being fancied by boys (even if it’s only one or two every few years).

Sure, since Britney donned the school uniform and started a new craze, the pressure on girls to emulate and conform – largely in order to win the interest of the opposite sex – has certainly entered a younger domain. Primark is selling thongs for young girls (since when has a primary school kid worried about VPL?) and last year I saw a nine-year-old wearing high heeled boots and a pair of jeans that said ‘SEXY’ on her ass. And don’t even get me started on the outrageous, whore-like Bratz dolls with their transvestite make-up and penchant for burlesque accessories.

The modern world is chock-full of reasons for young people to develop insecurities – only a fool would need the news to tell them that. The solution – as ever – lies in better education, improved facilities for young people, rock-solid family units and positive role models. But while we’re waiting for that nirvana, if a report can make a drop in the ocean, I’m all for it.