Vigilant Idiot

"Be a bit vigilant," I suggested to you all last Friday. Advice, like criticism, is clearly something I can give but not take.

The time: approximately 08:48. The date: today, Tuesday, 24 May. The place: Northern Line carriage, northbound. I am leaning against a glass partition, listening to Alexander by Alexander, and playing a game on my phone. There is not enough room for me to extract my book from my overflow bag and certainly no space to annotate. I am reading Becker's Pullitzer Prize winning The Denial of Death and it requires annotating. So iJewels it is.

At Bank, there is always an exodus, but today's is even more pronounced than usual. Out of the corner of my eye, it appears that there are four vacant seats behind me, the other side of the partition, two facing two. A woman walks towards one of them. Without pausing iJewels, I swivel around the edge of the partition and reverse into another.

It is not vacant.

I have lowered myself into someone's lap.

It is the funniest thing I HAVE EVER DONE. I squeal, leap up and turn around. My victim is a diminuitive Asian female, probably in her mid-thirties, wearing headphones. She is finding it a bit funny but not really. The rest of the carriage is giggling quite a lot. I apologise with all the sincerity I can manage, while laughing uncontrollably. She gestures to the seat next to her, which does not appear to have anyone sitting in it. I get the message and lower myself down once again, thankfully without incident. My game of iJewels is a write-off.

It is nice to laugh. The worst fall-out from The Incident has been at night - I couldn't get to sleep before 4 or 5am, and when I did doze off, I dreamed bad things. On Sunday night I woke up early due to a full-blown panic attack, my hands round my neck, unable to breathe properly for several minutes, lots of asthmatic-style wheezing. Fun fun fun! But last night (Monday) I popped a Melatonin and slept right through. Today I feel like a new woman.

The days have been largely OK - I've just kept myself busy and, if I do remember what happened, I just remind myself how much worse it could have been. I do think it's clever, though, that despite my conscious mind's failure to maintain Red Alert, my unconscious is still doing its job. I was in Paperchase on Sunday picking out a birthday card, totally focused on the task at hand: the mugging couldn't have been further from my mind. But suddenly I felt something brush past me and I leapt as if I'd been tasered. I gasped, whipped around and my potential attacker revealed herself as a four year old in an elaborate princess dress. Similar things have happened several times - a lady stood on a plastic bag yesterday on the pavement and it burst surprisingly loudly - jaded city-girl that I am, I'd normally not even reacted, but yesterday I jumped melodramatically to one side and squealed like a TOWIE cast-member receiving a BAFTA. Clearly, although I've reverted to my casual self on the surface, there's still a good bit of heightened awareness bubbling away underneath. No wonder I can't sleep without 'erbal assistance.

Anyway, the long and short of it is this: thank you all for your kind messages of support. It's meant a lot. And I feel a great deal better as a result. You don't need to worry about me, I'm alive and lap-dancing. Let normal service resume.

In which I write a lot

So it turns out that even when I'm not trying to meditate in the middle of someone else's intestinal warzone, I find it freaking hard. I actually think I'm getting worse at it. Last night's attempt was so bad that I have lost motivation and now can't be bothered to try at all. Which is sad and actually I will rectify that asap. This week, I have to do a short body scan, when you briefly focus on different parts of your body from toe to head, and then focus on the supposed heaviness of my arms, my legs, and my neck and shoulders. Then I have to repeat that I am at peace three times. Then I have to 'cancel', by opening my eyes and taking a deep breath, and then do the whole thing again.

Problem is, I can't focus on anything at all. I think watching Sherlock just beforehand is probably not helpful, and Sunday evenings are never good for me anyway, in a mental sense, but last night things got so bad that I briefly wondered if I am not, in fact, human, but some rare and supremely gifted yet undervalued uberspecies whose mind can process infinite thoughts per second, trapped in the restrictive body of a thirty two year old woman. Thirty three year old woman. Shit. Anyway, my brain was moving so fast that I decided it might be interesting to try and record its absurd trajectories and discuss them with my therapist on Wednesday. So I switched on iDictaphone, and instead of saying the words in my head, I said them out loud. When I got too distracted I jumped back a stage. I transcribed the recording a moment ago and I sound like a lobotomised amnesiac. This is roughly what came out - the bits in brackets are the thoughts I had accidentally in between the thoughts I was meant to be having:

Feet
(Recording)
Feet
Ankles
(Sports day at school)
Feet
Feet
Ankles
Calves
Shins
Knees
(Brigitte)
Legs
(Period)
Stomach
Chest
Shoulders
(My face is itching)
Feet
Ankles
(Truck outside)
Feet
Ankles
(My stomach's rumbling, I’ve eaten a lot today, my head’s itching)
Feet
Ankles
(Yogatoes)
(My face is itching)
Feet
Ankles
(Eczema [other people’s. I do not have eczema])
(Simon)
(My head’s itching)
Feet
Ankles
(Come on)
Shins
Calves
Knees
Thighs
Stomach
Down my arms
(Skiing)
Elbows
Forearms
Hands
(Massage)
(Fish pedicure [more on this later])
(Grania)
(Robert)
Small of the back
Up the spine
Over the top of my head
(Lorry driver)
Eyes
Nose
Mouth
(Haven’t brushed my teeth)

Listening to the sounds outside
Back into the room
(Badminton with Sara on Tuesday)

My left arm is heavy
(Chest tightening)
My left arm is heavy
Both arms and both legs are heavy
Both arms…
(My friend Kate)
and both legs are heavy
(My boss)
(Going to work tomorrow)
Both my arms and both my legs are heavy
My neck and shoulders are heavy
(That bar in Kennington where I went with Kate)
My neck and shoulders are heavy
(Someone giving me a neck massage)
(Japanese hairdressers)
My neck and shoulders are heavy
I am at peace
(My blog entry about not being at peace)
I am at peace
I am at peace
(Heard a noise like a frog, thought about the rockery in Luke’s parents’ garden)
Cancel
(Exhale)

My left arm is heavy
(Thinking of Eva, Kit, photography, the guy at the photography course)
My left arm is heavy
Both arms… (Claire, Henry, Gordon)
Both arms and both legs are heavy
Both arms and both legs are heavy
(That film, Sliding Doors, the end of it, John Hannah on the bridge)
Both arms and both legs are heavy
(Walking through Battersea Park with Kate and Sarah and Simon the morning after that New Year’s Eve)
My neck and shoulders are heavy
My neck and shoulders are heavy
My neck and shoulders are heavy
I am at peace
(People outside)
I am at peace
(Yoga at the Ayurvedic spa in India with Simon, tea planting, photos, being smeared with red paint)
I am at peace
(Grania)
Cancel

My left arm is heavy
(Denouement of Sherlock Holmes in the pool)
Both my arms and both my legs are heavy
(Quite smug that I never thought it was John, I knew straight away that he had the stuff on, it was good though, bad beginning, my eye is itchy, my ear is itchy, you’ve gone right off course, go back)
Both my arms and both my legs are heavy
(Rucksacks)
Both my arms and both my legs are heavy
(Going to the States)
(Grania, Andrew)
Both my arms and both my legs are heavy
My neck and shoulders are heavy
(The School of Life)
(That came out of nowhere)
My neck and shoulders are heavy
My neck and shoulders are heavy
(What if the dictaphone’s not working?)
I am at peace
(Peace be with you in church)
I am at peace
(The sheet music on Brigitte’s piano)
I am at peace
Cancel

In have no idea if this is normal, if this is along the lines of everyone's head contents, or if it's a total miracle/outrage that I haven't yet been locked up. Either way, you can hopefully understand that my thrice-daily meditation sessions are more exhausting than I'd anticipated, and sandwiching them into my normal life is not easy.

Friday I had a gathering at Charlotte Street Blues, where I drank a mojito and then several litres of white wine, and danced and laughed and received quite literally astonishingly cool presents, not one dud, and I'd for some reason got some business cards printed last week, and started handing them out to all and sundry, feeling like it wasn't quite breaking the boyban if all I was doing was handing out tiny glossy rectangles to virtual strangers. And then we went to The Roxy, where a minging guy basically tried to have sex with me on the dancefloor without a) removing any clothing at all or b) asking, and I was faux disgusted by another guy who was really flirty while wearing a wedding ring, but then he turned out to be an amazing dancer and that was really fun. And then we left and Trace and I walked to Soho Square and my stupid key for the Londikes didn't work AGAIN and I wondered briefly whether there was some hidden breathalyser mechanism because I clearly shouldn't have been allowed on a bike under any circumstances, but then I couldn't remember where my nightbus left from and I ended up walking to Victoria, and pretty much the entire way there I was talking to the woman from Barclays Cycle Hire, chattering away about how annoying it was that my key didn't work and all the while she was probably playing Solitaire and saying, 'Mmmm. Mmmm. Yup.' about every six seconds until I bored myself and hung up. And then I got on the bus and met the guy from Cameroon and then came home.

So Saturday was a bit groggy, but I got dressed up and went over to West London to the Mary Poppins land that is Holland Park to see some friends and then down to Aqua Sheko just off Ken High Street for London's only fish pedicure. Ohmygodohmygod. I found out about this approx. one week ago and immediately knew that even if it was £100 and/or absolutely crap, I still had to try it. Fortunately it was neither. Grania has a photo of me where my leg looks weirdly amazing [now posted], so I will wait until she sends that to me to post it, but basically, you submerge your feet in these tanks and all these little catfish-like brown fish, about an inch long, come and EAT ALL THE DEAD SKIN. They like it. It is like putting a platter of doughnuts in front of me. They can't help themselves. Apparently they gorge and gorge and gorge, and then every now and then they go and sit on the bottom of the tank and have a rest for 5 mins and then they're ready to go again. They are insatiable. For dead skin.

Anyway, so you put your feet in and these fish swarm around and between your toes, and it's tickly and initially very freaky and Grania said she was going to be sick and I was so worried that she was going to vomit into the tank that I was completely distracted from the fact that I, too, thought I might vomit into the tank. But after about two minutes, it's fine, and then after five minutes it just becomes really nice and relaxing. And you sit there for thirty minutes and then your feet feel amazingly soft and then you get an incredible foot massage for fifteen minutes. I won't lie. It's not the most incredible pedicure on earth. I could have had the fish chowing down for another hour or so. But it was an experience. Possibly don't go when you have a whopping hangover. Other than that, I'd recommend it.

Then we went to a charity shop and I bought a red jacket and then we went to Waterstones and I decided to buy The Slap on Amazon, and then we went to Bethnal Green, to Bistrotheque which was great, and to the Working Men's Club, where a guy was dancing and then chatting to us, and I realised that I don't like going out dancing with one other girl because if I meet someone nice, I feel really guilty about abandoning them for even one second, and sad for them that they aren't being chatted up by someone. Even if she has a boyfriend, I still feel sad for her that no one is chatting her up, and I realise that is probably ridiculous, but on reflection yesterday I realised that I still have clear memories of being the fun girl at teenage parties who was always making sure there was an amazing song on the stereo and who knew all the words to everything and who was funny and confident, while all the pretty ones were outside in the foliage snogging Anna's brother's friends. And I may have looked like I didn't mind but fucking hell I did. And I guess that's why I now would feel so uncomfortable ever putting anyone else through that. Which means that really the only time I feel comfortable meeting someone is on a date, because everyone present is involved and no one feels left out. Because there's nothing worse than going out with someone, a platonic friend of either sex, and realising that while you thought you were meeting up to have a chat, they were meeting up with you as a platform to meeting someone else - someone they've never met before, someone they can kiss - and they want you to stand there and talk to them until they meet that person, and then once they've met them, you can go away please, and hopefully find your own person, but if you don't, then that's just your tough shit slightly.

ANYWAY. So I wasn't particularly friendly to the really quite attractive guy who came up to me at the Working Men's Club, in fact when he accidentally spat while he was talking to me I said, 'I asked for the news not the weather,' which I haven't said for about thirteen years, but Grania said she laughed so much internally that she slightly did a wee. But then I felt bad, so I was a bit nicer to him and danced with him for a bit and then these beautiful girls came on stage and started doing an amazing routine, and we were all agog, and I said to him, 'You need to go for that one on the right, she's amazing,' and he said, 'I'm not sure my girlfriend would be too happy about that,' and I was thinking inside, 'Girlfriend?! Things that make you go hmmmm.' I mean, of course, he did nothing wrong, he just danced with me, but why are two guys going out and doing sixties dancing with strangers except if to pull? And later I spotted him bumping and grinding with someone else, and I tell you what, on paper he was behaving himself, but I'm pretty sure his girlfriend wouldn't have been too happy with pretty much anything he was up to that night.

Eventually it all caught up with us and Grania and I called it a day and started the trek home via nightbus, and met an adorable blond South African guy who seemed so sweet and gentle, who told us that he worked in a salsa bar and then told us that he'd got the deep cut on his knuckle because he pushed his ex-housemate's head through a window during a fight, which all seemed rather extraordinary, and eventually I got home and slept and then woke up and cooked and mum and dad came over for DIY and eating, and my flat is at a new level of amazingness, and then I watched Orchestra United and Sherlock, and then I couldn't meditate and couldn't sleep and then it was time to get up.

It's all excellent.

The omens

I had a couple of hours to kill after work yesterday before I was due to meet my date. Normally I would go to the gym, or shop, but yesterday I was ex-freaking-hausted so I went home and had a nap, like the true hipster I am. When my alarm went off, I got out of bed with resentment, made myself look as pretty as I get, and set off for the agreed place of rendezvous: a pub in Battersea.

I took a seat on a bus. After another couple of stops, a man got on and tried to buy a ticket with a five pound note. The female bus driver said she didn't have enough change so she couldn't let him on. He said it was OK if she didn't have change because he was going to take the bus to its final stop, and that somewhere in between here and there, she'd get some change from another passenger and could give it to him then. She said no, that she wasn't allowed to do this. He said that was ridiculous. She stood her ground. At this point, I was kind of on the side of the guy. It was his risk to take: if she didn't get change, he'd lose out, not her. But then he got angry. In a strong West Indian accent, he started shouting, "Why you gotta treat me like dis? Make me embarrassed in front of all dese people? I got money! I'm a grown man. I'm givin you dis money. Take de money and you give me change later. I'm married. I got six children. Don' make me look bad here. I ain't gettin off dis bus, lady. I got my money." I took his point, but he was being a bit too shouty. The driver turned off her engine. Clearly, we were not going to move. Another bus pulled up behind us. I dinged the bell, several of us disembarked and we got on the bus behind. The joys of a travelcard.

Moments later we arrived at a bus station from where I was planning to catch another bus. I walked to the appropriate stop. There was a huge crowd there. I looked in the direction they were all looking. The entrance to the bus station was cordoned off and an ambulance was parked there. No buses were going to get through. I started wondering if these signs were from Cupid, telling me to turn back.

Then I saw a guy I'd dated last year. It was unmistakeably him, standing there with his same arrogant, self-satisfied face on, still urgently requiring a slap. He had his iPod on and was carrying an overnight bag. I was immediately staggered that I'd ever thought, even for a milisecond, that he was attractive. I mean, he was breathtakingly not good enough. The power of my brain to tell me I fancy someone when I patently do not will never fail to amaze me. All because he'd had a few poncey articles published in Time Out, one of which said that some element of a shit play we went to see was 'Lynchian'. I am a dick. It made me cringe and then laugh. Meanwhile I hurried to hide behind a bus stop partition, desperate for him not to see me. He clearly saw me: I was wearing a huge yellow flower in my hair and clippy cloppy high heeled date shoes. Thankfully he ignored me too. God even thinking about him now makes me feel a bit sick. Yuck.

The first bus had had to stop unexpectedly. The third bus was not able to reach the stop and collect me. And a hideous spectre from my past had reared up to haunt me. Plus the boy I was meant to be meeting had only ever been borderline appealing over email. The temptation to run home, don my velour and eat popcorn was stronger than a tightly-woven rope, the thickness of a giant's neck, made of steel threads and coated in superglue, but I knew it would be terrible to cancel at such short notice. Bravely, I tottered on towards the next stop, where we had been told we'd be able to pick up a diverted bus. Suddenly the 344 was visible in the distance. I knew I had to sprint. I took off. And then I saw a distinctive overnight bag beside me, and realised that I was, momentarily, engaged in a race with Mr Time Out. In his so-last-year battered Converse, he easily overtook me, but we both made it onto the bus. I went upstairs, he stayed down. And that was the last I saw of him. Until we both got off at the same stop, stepping down onto the pavement in unison. I can't imagine two people wanting to acknowledge each other less. I've never walked away from anywhere so fast.

Heart still in shock after my Olympian sprint, Beyonce-style in stilettos, I entered the pub. I couldn't see my date. I scanned more thoroughly. There was a guy in the corner I hoped was him, but knew it wouldn't be. I texted my date. "Either you're not here, or you are here and look nothing like your photos." A few minutes later, I heard the door open. He looked exactly like his pictures. And he was late. His excuse was that he'd come from his parents' house where he is 'staying temporarily' and they'd left him a note saying 'Please feed the cats and tidy your bedroom.' This was not the most erotic start to an evening. Then he suggested cheating in the pub quiz. The last time I saw someone cheating in a pub quiz - in fact, they weren't even necessarily cheating, they were just using their phone, possibly to send a harmless text message but also potentially finding out an answer - I shouted out "CHEATING!" and pointed at the cretin across the bar. The people I was with wanted to murder me, so intense was their embarrassment, but I didn't care. That's how much I don't like cheaters.

He was a nice guy though. On the list of Things I Want To Kiss, he was probably above 'The Pavement Outside Tottenham Court Road Tube Station' and some way below 'Louis Walsh'. Doubtless he felt similarly unmagnetised by me. Nonetheless, despite a total lack of chemistry, we spent a happy evening together, came fifth in the pub quiz and went home our separate ways. I am tired today.

Sex, cars, clothes and self-hatred

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

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

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

Tube hook-up

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

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

Ew

I can't believe it's taken me so long to write this down.

Yesterday, I was walking along Whitehall towards the ICA where I was going to meet Emily and see Shooting Robert King (recommended) and then Sara was going to meet us in the foyer and we were going to go to the bar for a drink and then Emily was going to go home and Sara and I were going to have dinner. I was a bit like a baton in a relay race, but curvier and fractionally less easy to pass from hand to hand while running at speed.

Anyway, so back on Whitehall, I was walking along in my Fit Flops, and looking at the pedestrian in front of me. She was wearing bright blue cropped trousers, trainers, and her hair looked a bit frazzled. I guessed she was a slightly muttony 55. Then I looked down at her bag, and started trying to work out what she was carrying. It was a plastic bag, within which was what looked like a plastic paint bucket that, for some reason, I felt was filled with vinegar and cockles and mussels. I don't know. That's just what sprung to mind. I didn't have much time to dwell on it, however, because after a couple of seconds, she did a sudden, unexpected lurch to one side, and then carried on walking. Then I heard the sound of some liquid hit the pavement. I looked at the bucket of cockles and mussels, thinking the liquid was coming from there. But no. It was between her feet. And suddenly, as we walked along, she started the most extraordinarily vigorous wee. To be honest, wee isn't the word for it, such was its fury and volume. It was a piss. And some of it WENT ON MY FOOT. Freaking Fit Flops. If only I'd been wearing trainers, none of this would have happened. Well, she still would have wet herself. But I wouldn't have had to walk around the rest of the evening, in the ICA of all places, knowing there was someone else's urine on my foot.

I tried to be nice about it in my head, and realise that some people are incontinent, but seriously, this wasn't incontinence of the type for which I am mentally prepared to be a fact of life following childbirth or general old age. This was incontinence that would not be contained by incontinence pants. Gasp! Maybe that was what was in her bucket! Earlier wees! And it was full, and she didn't have time to stop, so she just thought, "What the hay, I'll keep on going, no one'll notice." That was the weird thing - she just kept on walking during the pee. I've never tried to walk and pee, at least not since I was wearing nappies and expected to multi-task in this fashion, but I don't think I'd find it too easy. She made it look like a wee-walk in the park.

Then the other day there was this old witchy woman on the tube with loads of bags who sat down all flustered and got a yoghurt out and started eating it with her index finger, scooping it out and licking it off with loud smacky noises. I was nearly sick. God I'm glad I'm not mad. Yet.

Back

Well, I'm back. Back in the UK, back in London, back at my desk, back in the game. Apparently I am "disgustingly brown" - I can't decide how I feel about that. Probably good, on balance. The most amazing thing that has happened since my return is that I received an email from Transport for London saying that someone had actually handed in the items I'd left on the tube like a dick last month. They'd been given to a tube worker at High Street Kensington, and I'd left them when I'd got off at Paddington on a Circle Line train bound for the City, so they went almost the entire way around the loop on their own, with no one nicking the brand new flip-flops and brand new Zara dress. Maybe they're disgusting. Either way, it really is absolutely extraordinary and very very wonderful that a) someone was nice enough to do that and that b) the TfL system managed to match up the bag with my description of it on their website. The efficiency alone makes me very happy. It wouldn't happen in Egypt, I can tell you. I toddled over to Baker Street yesterday, showed them my ID, described the items and hey presto, a couple of minutes later, we were reuninted. Marvellous.

A request to the Dream Fairy: please can I stop dreaming about shopping? For the last four or five nights, I've had the most wonderful consumerist dreams, where I've purchased quirky items for my flat and/or beautiful vintage dresses and then woken up and found I own them not. It is a very disappointing way to start my day.

Now I am counting down to Glastonbury and wondering when, if ever, I am going to notice a subsidence in my appetite. Coming back to work has been odd and my focus has been better on other days, I must admit, but my boss has missed me which was lovely, and I am largely happy. Plus, there's nothing like hearing about others' love problems to make you glad to not be going through sagas, isn't there? To all you whose hearts are aching at present, have strength: this too really shall pass, time really does heal all wounds and there really are plenty more fish in the sea - so many it's easy sometimes to get a bit lost en route. Stay strong, mes amis.

New one on me

I was on the Hammersmith & City Line last night, listening to my iPod. I didn't want to be listening to my iPod, but I'd had to put it on because the people opposite me were talking so loudly. I had the volume up to the max, but I was listening to Bon Iver, who's quite wafty, and he couldn't drown them out. I managed to focus on my book, though, and it was all OK. What was curious, was that the man received a phonecall, answered, and I quite clearly heard the lady who was phoning him say 'Hi, how are you?' She wasn't on loudspeaker. He just had his volume turned up so high that I could hear his incoming call. Actually, maybe he was a bit deaf and I'm mocking the afflicted. Oops. Apologies.

I had a lovely dinner at Tab and Ad's and then got home and had a bad phonecall. But it had to be done and things will be better as a result. Fingers crossed, anyway. I have high hopes for me.

Cosy commute

In a shocking twist on normal events, this morning I was running slightly late for work. It was one of those days where, even though I knew full well I was running late, I still dawdled through my usual routine, staying in bed far too long, brushing my teeth quite slowly and being indecisive about my outfit. Consequently, once I was en route, I knew I had no time to spare. I scampered across to the tube, trotted briskly down the escalator, and saw with some dismay that the northbound platform was fairly packed. Undeterred, I strode down to my customary spot, ready to disembark at the other end perfectly in line with my destination stop's exit to street level, and took my place at the appropriate huddle of fellow commuters, waiting for the next train. It came. It left. I remained behind the yellow line. There hadn't been a hope in hell of getting on. The next one pulled up a couple of minutes later and I saw a tiny foothole where I thought I could pop my dainty size tens. Assuming a waif-like demeanour, I stepped up onto the carriage floor and levered myself in. The nice lady in front of me tried to be accommodating, but there was nowhere for her to go. She was facing in to the rammed carriage, with her back to me, so all I could do was spoon her, almost resting my head on her shoulder to avoid being decapitated by the curve of the closing doors. We remained in this intimate position for one stop, when things calmed down a bit and we could find our own tiny pocket of space with less physical contact. And really, it hadn't been that bad. What was weird, however, was that when the train arrived at my destination, she too disembarked. And above ground, I saw her again, walking just ahead of me in her distinctive little blue hat. My interest piqued, I carried on monitoring where she was going and it wasn't long before we both walked into the building where I work, and got into the same lift, and got out at the same floor. I'd never noticed her before, and there are several hundred people who work on this floor, but I felt acutely aware that the fact that we'd been snuggling together only a few minutes earlier suddenly seemed a lot more inappropriate. Oh well.

Minnie me

So I was standing on a blissfully unpacked Embankment tube station platform this evening. I had put my handbag and a carrier bag on one of the grey steel seats affixed to the wall and I had half turned away for a moment and was looking at my phone.
"Excuse me," said the geeky looking gentleman who was sitting on a separate bank of seats about ten feet further down the platform. I braced myself for something unpleasant. I had no idea what he was going to say, but I was fairly confident that I might need to be braced. I smiled at him. He gestured at my belongings on the seat behind me.
"One of those little tube mice has just crawled into your handbag," he said. "If you have any food in there, you might want to discard it."
"Ooh!" I said, excitedly. I absolutely love the little tube mice, and sure enough, when I turned around, there it was, sticking its little head out of my green leatherette bag and wiggling its whiskers. I took a step towards it and it quickly scurried up, over and down, across the floor and down onto the tracks in a jiffy. The excitement was all over far too quickly.

Still, even though I am fond of little tube mice, and even though I'd clearly seen it vacate my bag and scuttle away, I still felt a bit ginger as I picked up my bags when the tube arrived, and even now, when I think about it, I get a little tingle about my ankles as if a creature may be about to shoot up my leg. Odd, the way one's mind works, innit?

Another unhelpful sign... Part 3

Maximum fine: £1000.

Maximum fine. I'm sorry, but that's not a threat. You're saying that there is a possibility that, should I light a cigarette, I will be fined £1000. I have no possible way of knowing what the odds are that this event will occur. You've given me no indication of probability. But what is definitely true is that you have not stated the minimum fine. Therefore it is safe to conclude that the minimum fine could be nothing. Zero. Or seven pence. It's almost worth the gamble of smoking on the bus, just to see what happens. And I don't even smoke.

This is how bored I was on the 36 the other night.

A surprise, a bandage and another close encounter

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

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

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

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

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

Volume knobs

It's been a while since I've ranted about the tube, but rest assured, the grapes of wrath are still flourishing, usually on a twice daily basis. My current bête noir(e?) is a group I have classified as Voluntary Yellers. Of course, it is an accepted fact among all but the most moronic of Britons that anyone who raises their voice above a whisper on any form of public transport should be forcibly ejected immediately and, if possible, muted permanently as punishment. In spite of this, there are still some travelers who find it difficult to monitor their personal volume, who are forced by virtue of rush hour to stand millimeters from their companion but are nonetheless unable to regulate their voice to a reasonable level. These are the Involuntary Yellers, and I'm afraid I must confess that on this subject I cannot be entirely objective: my dear papa has been a lifelong member of the IYs and thus I am choosing not to attack this group. For now.

The Voluntary Yellers are something else altogether. These are people who kindly and completely unnecessarily choose to project their fascinating conversations across the tube or bus for the listening pleasure of anyone in a three mile radius. On three occasions in the past week, I have had to bear the irritation of two or more people who have chosen to sit, not in adjacent seats in a vacant carriage, but across an aisle from each other, and who conduct their conversation at levels loud enough to cause tinnitus. Just to ice my bigot cake, it has appeared to me that the more inane the topic of discussion and the more grating the accents of these individuals, the louder their voices. South Africans and Irish tube users seem particularly un-self-aware, although predictably the worst culprits are our friends from across the pond.

From a psychological standpoint, I can understand the power-wielding rush of knowing other people are listening to what you're spouting off about - but there's something tragically teenagerish about it all, an insecurity that compels individuals who feel unheard in the rest of their lives to inflict themselves on powerless commuters instead. On paper, I'm tolerant. But in practice, I glower. And then I huff. And then I pointedly insert my iPod headphones. Petty acts of pointed revenge, of course, make no difference - if anything, it gives their behaviour recognition, thus encouraging its continuation - but I don't have time to counsel them into maturity on the Northern Line. Instead, I must suffer the Voluntary Yellers in silence and hope that they eventually come to blush at their lack of courtesy.

On another note, here are three things I love:
1. My new Vacuvin. Meh, it's impossible to be consistently liberal.
2. Prospect magazine. I've just received my second trial issue and I'm still hooked.
3. Charlie's story last Saturday about her terrible shiny lime green bridesmaid's dress with its unsightly brown stain on the rear. Her explanation: she sat in paté.

Lo siento

Shortly after 7.30am on Monday, I received a panicked call from my father, to alert me to the fact that my recent blog entries had disappeared. Since then, a few other people have commented on the mysteriously vanishing account of the past few days.

Readers, allow me to explain.

The past fortnight has been pretty tricky for me, and although the way I described it on this page was both accurate and valid, I now understand that it was also possibly slightly too open. It's one thing to talk about my skirt getting stuck to the back of my legs when I'm too sweaty after the gym; it's quite another to discuss personal matters that affect a third party. I may be suffering mentally and want to offload for international sympathy and concern, but this time, it wasn't just my own pain that I was sharing with the global Faithful.

Plus, as a concerned friend commented earlier in the week, it was painfully obvious that I was using my blog entries to communicate my feelings to Paul. I was stunned to learn that my cunning plan had been rumbled so easily, but it was hard to disagree that if this is my primary method of communication with someone, there's trouble afoot.

Thus it was that, at 5am last Monday, during a fit of REM pique, I stumbled through to the sitting room, grabbed my laptop and deleted the latest posts, a first for me and an act of dishonesty of which I am not proud. After all, flippant or not, this blog is meant to be an accurate record of my thoughts; I've always banned myself from sub-editing more than one or two hours after the post goes live - deleting it altogether, several days after the event, is an act of Orwellian proportions, deliberately reshaping history for future readers.

But hey, that's what I did. So suck it up.

Thus, if you're only here for a Paul update, I'm afraid I must disappoint you - not to protect his feelings, but because I have, quite simply, no clue what's going on. If I learn any more, you'll be the first to hear. Probably.

In other news, I ran 9.07 kilometers yesterday. It took me 1 hour and 7 minutes, which means that running 10 km in under one hour at the end of September is looking pretty impossible. So I think my new goal is to do it in under 1 hour 10 mins. That will still involve a pretty sizeable increase in my pace. But hey, at least on race day I won't be jogging past the London Aquarium, where some sort of Truman Show director figure seemed to have plucked the city's most irritating, misguided, wafty tourists and commanded them to meander in the most haphazard fashion in my vicinity, all with gargantuan pushchairs and tearaway offspring who cannoned back and forth between their family members at unpredictable speeds designed solely to make it impossible to navigate any sort of smooth path between them all. I took to clapping loudly in front of me as I ran along, barking 'Watch where you're going!' to anyone who struck me as particularly idiotic.

This morning I had to disembark the Northern Line at Elephant & Castle because I was overcome by nausea. I sat on a seat at the edge of the platform for several minutes, wondering if I should press the button for Assistance and ask for some water, but then the wave passed and I was able to continue my journey. So that was a bit weird.

What else can I tell you? I bought a new hairbrush. I'm currently loving green tea. I can't get Rimsky-Korsakov's Scheherazade out of my head. I had a free make-up consultation at the Clarins counter in Boots this evening which was really fun although ultimately expensive. I am loving my subscription to Prospect magazine, although am possibly taking geekdom to new levels by underlining and highlighting vital passages and sticking in Post-It tabs on relevant pages. I'm just about to start reading The Mitfords: Letters Between Six Sisters. The same fly has been buzzing around my flat for what seems like an eternity; I think it nipped in through the front door at the weekend and it's becoming progressively more drowsy as its inevitable doomsday approaches, but is managing to stir me to new heights of irritation nonetheless. I've run out of Eve Lom cleanser and am dreading forking out for another pot, but I've had that one since December last year so really it's not a bad deal. I had dinner with EmRob in Spitalfields which was great but fattening. My eyes are slightly stinging. I want Darnell to win Big Brother. I wish I could get two Burmese kittens. I miss having a Vespa. It's time for bed.

Chess pains

So last night, I was going to see a concert performance of the musical, Chess, at the Royal Albert Hall and I was going to meet Paul and Ses and Arabee for a drink in Gloucester Road beforehand, so I got changed at work and then realised that my dress fell in between my buttocks in a leaves-not-enough-to-the-imagination-esque fashion, so I went to my local New Look to buy a pair of big pants to solve the problem, but then I realised that time was marching on and when I went to the changing room to don the new knickers and saw the huge queue I realised that I should get a move on and that waiting in line was not an option, so I found a deserted corner in New Look's underwear section and changed my pants under my dress. I don't think anyone saw. Then I got on the Circle Line at Moorgate and went to King's Cross, and then changed on to the Piccadilly Line towards Knightsbridge but when we reached Covent Garden my skin suddenly tingled and my hair felt like it might fall out because I realised with absolute 100% certainty that the tickets for Chess were not in the handbag I was holding, but instead in the silver evening bag I'd planned to take with me but decided against at the last minute, which was still on the floor in my office. So I got out of the Piccadilly Line train at Covent Garden, went back to King's Cross, changed back onto the Circle Line, returned to Moorgate, went back up to my office, got the tickets, and went back to the tube, calling Paul en route to say that since I had screwed up so spectacularly, he should now meet me at Knightsbridge rather than Gloucester Road and we'd get a cab from there. So then I got to Knightsbridge and the clock was ticking in deafening imaginary style as I strode up the escalator, new pants frustratingly unsuccessful in solving buttock/dress issues, make-up smudged and face sweaty from rushing and public transport, hair no longer glossy like a pony but lank like seaweed, but I surfaced at last and crossed the road towards Kensington Gore, phoning Paul to tell him I had arrived but he didn't pick up and it rang and rang and then went through to voicemail, so I started to panic and rang again but the same thing happened, and I started planning going alone and leaving his ticket hidden under a rock outside so that I could go in and not miss the beginning, but then on the third time he finally picked up and was all lacksadaisical and chilled like he'd been on a three week spa break in Mauritius and it turned out he'd actually strolled beyond Knightsbridge tube, back towards Hyde Park Corner, for no apparent reason, so he began to meander back towards me and oh so slowly came into view and loped across the road and I saw a bus coming so we ran after it but then the bus stop wasn't operating because of road works and we couldn't make it to the temporary bus stop 200 yards further down Kensington Gore, so I stopped running and he caught up with me, and didn't say hello but instead said, 'Can I just say: calm down.' Readers, I am highly strung but rarely murderous. Yesterday, minutes before curtain up, I was planning my first kill. 'When,' I spat at Paul, 'in the history of existence, has telling someone who is stressed to calm down EVER actually made them calm down?' Even more annoying was that Paul's phone didn't show any missed calls on it so when I explained that I'd been ringing him fruitlessly for several minutes, he looked at me like I was insane while trying not to reveal the extent of his ill-hidden disbelief and growing conviction that I am technologically inept. Thankfully he had brought me a banana to quell my post-gym starvation attack, which I ate on the bus, and that helped. We arrived at the Albert Hall only a few minutes late, had wine, I improved further, watched the show, I started to feel warm and content, went into the host's swanky box at half time and mingled with random celebs, I journeyed towards Cloud 9, watched the second half, I relaxed completely, congratulated our talented cast member, I was proud and satisfied, bought a beer in South Ken tube station, I was sleepy, arrived home, I was dead on my feet, Paul decided now was the time to buy a stock photograph for his new website, launching today, and showed me the copy, I became alert and critical, edited text by making it much better, Paul rejected my suggestions for a variety of flimsy reasons, I slipped into a coma, and then it was this morning.

Mind the gimp

Admittedly, I spent several years of my life 'living', on and off, at a boarding school in Wiltshire, and three as a university student in Bristol, but basically, I am a Londoner. I've been here since I was born and I doubt I'll ever leave for too long. I don't speak like a Cockney and I don't eat pie and mash, I've never been inside the Houses of Parliament and I hate the Evening Standard, but like I say, basically, I am a Londoner.

You'd be forgiven for thinking, therefore, that for me, minding the gap between the train and the platform would be pretty much as second nature as breathing or liking Malt Loaf. I certainly wouldn't expect a seasoned public transport user like myself to find the gap a tricky concept. I don't know. Maybe I'd had a bad night's sleep. Maybe the Russian and French artwork from the Royal Academy exhibition had disturbed me. Maybe I am just a bit thick. But this morning, on leaving the train at Bank station, I very nearly missed the platform edge and slipped down the gap into unending humiliation.

Thankfully I noticed the (admittedly larger than normal) trench in time and managed to push myself forward to safety without incident. But the mere thought of how close I had come to such an excruciating encounter was enough to make me break into a cold prickly sweat. With the possible exception of death by Toxic Shock Syndrome (most often caused by leaving in a tampon for too long), I think death by finding the gap has got to be up there in Most Embarrassing Ways To Die. Worse, though, would be not dying - the pain of limb against concrete, the withering looks of derision from other commuters, the ill-concealed giggles of overweight Italian teenage tourists, the panic about whether to risk electrocution and rescue the Clarins foundation that had slipped under the tracks, the nightmare crash diet that would have to be started after it took three burly men to drag me out from my nook... Thankfully this disaster did not occur this morning and it's enough to make me wonder if I haven't just witnessed a modern Easter miracle.

Feeling groovy

After a tough week, my perkiness levels were fully replenished last night with a spectacular meal at the impeccable L'Atelier de Joel Robuchon in Covent Garden, where I was lucky enough to be treated to the unforgettable tasting menu and accompanying wines by a young man. Now, obviously, I'm not particularly fussed whether he keeps in touch because I am extremely desirable and have many hundreds of eligible bachelors queuing to take me out for similar dining experiences. Plus I am perfectly happy on my own, yadda yadda. But completely off the record, I'd quite like to see him again. To redress the financial balance, I'd offered to buy us cocktails in the upstairs bar beforehand - I had one called a Peach Bison which I ordered partially because the name made me laugh, but apparently it's pronounced Bee-son, not Buy-son, which wasn't nearly so funny. Our drinks were served on black napkins and a red rose petal. Nice.

Today I woke up with a spring in my step and bounced off for a run down by the river where I managed to jog continuously for almost 45 minutes. This was momentous. Then I went into town and was worthy, and now I'm back home in bed feeling exhausted but extremely happy. Isn't it nice when you feel in need of a little pick-me-up and one comes along?

In a visual echo of this, I was on the bus earlier and spotted this jolly addition to a slightly dour message - somehow the young mother and elderly gent look slightly less disgruntled with huge smiles scratched onto their otherwise blank visages although their demonic eyes are a little threatening. I do love the ankle detail on the lady too - some sort of pixie boot perhaps? Or maybe an electronic tag from a recent stint in the clink. Shame that the toddler's smaller face was too tiny for detail - instead the child has been scarred/bisected for eternity, a helpless victim of modern graffiti. Having had two glasses of wine in the pub this evening, I was feeling a bit blurry and possibly weirded out the two other passengers by singing along to the Alto 2 part of Frank Martin's Mass a little louder than I should have done. Now I'm off to sleep - it may only be 10.40pm but I think I could sleep for several decades; there's lots to do tomorrow and a bumper episode of American Idol to watch so I need to be perfectly fresh for that. A bientot.

Irritation, Satisfaction and Happiness

What annoyed me today was the eight year old on the bus who was determined to impress his father by swinging on the handles that dangled from the ceiling. Sadly the miniature attention-seeker could barely reach the loops and simultaneously touch the floor with his feet, which meant that every time the bus jolted, he lost all control and swung helplessly into the indescribably patient woman sitting nearby. His father was as effective as the rhythm method, repeatedly calling his son to heel in a lacklustre fashion that merely served to underline his pathetic failure as a role model and create crystal-clear images of his future, sitting alone in a moth-eaten old people's home while his selfish, boundary-less offspring tries to wow the ladies by hanging from handrails on the tube.

What satisfied me today was our office Christmas lunch at the Coq D'Argent. It began as a civilised gathering and ended riotously with discussions of sex on stairlifts and a rowdy game of the enduringly popular 'Shag, Marry or Cliff'. Unexpected and thorougly enjoyable.

What thrilled me today was that, at approximately 2pm this afternoon, I exchanged on my flat purchase, 46 days after I saw it on the first and only afternoon that I went house-hunting. I complete on the 27th December and, once I have removed every morsel of decoration that currently exists therein and replaced it with something different, tasteful and massively reduced in price, I will move in. Poverty beckons. And Kim: you may now get excited.

Stir Crazy

This morning on the tube, I was seated opposite a large man wearing a thick, grey overcoat. He had arrived on board carrying a recently purchased coffee which he held in one hand as he unzipped the front pocket of his rucksack. Inside, in an inbuilt pen holder, was a long-handled, shallow spoon, which appeared to be made of mottled plastic or wood. He extracted it gently, prised off the lid of his coffee, stirred the hot contents and replaced the top. I was strangely impressed: a man whose spoon preferences are so specific that he brings his own each day for this stage in his morning's ritual. He licked the foam off it and I waited to see where he would discard it. But, unexpectedly, no discard took place. Instead, he casually wiped the spoon off with a small napkin and replaced it in the pen holder. I can barely bear to think about it. This was not a throwaway cutlery item for my fellow passenger but a cherished favourite which would be reused time after time. Merely imagining the build-up of festering milk froth and saliva particles combining with the internal rucksack dust makes me feel queasy now, several hours later. But this is just another in a long list of odd characters one meets on the London Underground and I, for one, wouldn't change that for all the chauffeur-driven cars in the world.

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.