Sentence structure

Things I feel I would like to write: a review of my trip to see Clybourne Park at the theatre on Tuesday, a paean to vocabulary, a summary of yesterday's budget, a rousing call for Saturday's march, a record of my dinner at Bob Bob Ricard and a rant about the difficulties of hiring an RV in California in late August. Clearly I can't possibly get into all of those topics, I am far too distracted. Hmmmm. Drums fingers. Adds another line to the epic poem I am co-writing with Kate about the wonders of white wine. Hmmmm. Thinks again. Maybe I will do them all in one sentence. Depending on which ones are popular or generate feedback, I can then expand on them at a later date if necessary.

A play about changing attitudes to race in the Chicago suburbs, Clybourne Park disappointed me while seeming to delight ninety percent of the audience: they thought it was shocking and hilarious, while I felt jaded and unimpressed - the acting was patchy at best, the Big Shock moments weren't shocking, and there was no insight into current race divides that you couldn't find in an episode of The Office.

Partially inspired by this most amazing flowchart, I've realised that, possibly even more than my health, I am grateful for my vocabulary, a gift I received from my word-loving, crossword-solving parents - if you can't express your feelings, if you can't explain why you are thinking something or articulate your motivation, you're effectively rendered mute - I see it in teens who fight, not because they're violent, but because they can't tell the other person what they mean - and I'd argue that an ability to speak about the contents of one's head with precision is the greatest asset we can have.

I haven't really investigated the budget fully yet - my concentration levels are not at their highest at the moment - but it doesn't seem to have said anything too pleasing, and the thing that jumped out at me is that they are now going to tax private jet travel, to which I say, WHY THE FREAKING HECK WASN'T IT BEING TAXED BEFORE?

In the pub after choir on Monday, I became aware that none of my right-leaning singing friends had even heard of this Saturday's March for the Alternative, which a) means that they're not reading my blog (outrageous) and b) means that the right-wing press are not even covering it, even to slag it off - not something that should have surprised me, but since it's been on the front page of The Guardian's website pretty much daily since its announcement, the realisation that huge swathes of the populus don't even know it's happening is slightly frustrating - so for one last time (maybe), please read about it, and please come if you can.

I kind of don't want to tell anyone how much I like Bob Bob Ricard because obviously I am childishly possessive of a popular restaurant in central London and want it to be my place and no one else's except the people who know about it already, but in the spirit of sharing, it really is a gorgeous restaurant in Soho that has only become nicer since I was last there three years ago - the food is reliable, the menu has a good selection of prices and the atmosphere is basically my idea of eat-out perfection; on the downside, the wine list is a bit expensive, the waiting staff sometimes top up your glass even if you haven't taken a sip since thirty seconds ago when they last came round, and if there are celebrities present you can't see them because each table is curtained off, so opportunities for spying are limited - but basically, if I was richer and/or famous I'd go there constantly and if you want to take me out for a romantic meal, you could do worse than choose this place.

Hiring an RV in California in late August is freaking difficult, not just because there is a massive shortage of RVs for hire, but also because all the websites work like this: you type in your dates, they show you a list of possible vehicles that they may or may not have for hire, you are allowed to select one (and only one) of the vehicles that you're interested in (even if you'd be delighted to hire any of the twenty or so results they've found), and a new page loads asking for your details including your credit card number to secure the deposit, which you fill in, and then you get an email saying that they will look to see if the vehicle is available and then get back to you when they can, usually within 48 hours but no promises, and they can legitimately charge your card if the vehicle IS available, so you're loath to give your card details to anyone else, but you also know from experience that it's unlikely that that particular RV is going to be available and time is of the essence and there are possibly only two RVs available for that week on the whole of the West Coast, but you can't request a quote for any others because what if they all are available and your card gets charged twenty times and you end up paying a non-refundable 20% deposit on twenty RVs when you only want one?

OK that's it for now. I am bored and busy and grumpy and very happy all at once. Also: read Siddhartha, it's amazing. And this is brilliant too. Also, Boots own Skin, Hair & Nails supplements are just as good as Perfectil's and half the price. And I bought Pureology shampoo and conditioner for coloured hair - extra volume version - and it makes my hair really greasy. And I think one of the crayfish in my salad this lunchtime was funny. I spat it out but if I die in the next 12 hours, that's probably why. Also about a month ago, I got my highlights done by a girl and then quite soon after I saw my mum, who was like, 'When are you getting your hair done?' and I was all defensive and like, 'I just HAD it done!' and she was like, 'Oh! Sorry! Aren't they meant to dye the roots so you can't see them any more?' and I was like, 'They DID!' and she said, 'Hmmmm,' which she says quite often, and I said, 'It's HIGHLIGHTS, Mum - they take a section of the hair and then split it in half, and dye half of it and leave the other half undyed - it's meant to make it look more natural rather than just a block of solid colour.' And she nodded and realised she wasn't going to get anywhere with that argument, so she stayed quiet. And then I looked in the mirror, and my mum was right, I think the girl in the salon must have chosen each section, dyed about 10% of it and discarded 90%. And it's freaking annoying but it was too long ago to complain so now I'm going somewhere else to get it done again. Boring boring boring annoying. BYE.

Breaking news: I am mental

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Unencumberbatched

I don't normally read reviews of plays before writing my own, but this time I just had to check, and frankly, there is something of the elephant in the room about them all. And elephant is really not the kindest word here. Let's just put it out there (he did).

I SAW BENEDICT CUMBERBATCH'S PENIS LAST NIGHT. NOT JUST BRIEFLY. IT WAS FLAPPING AROUND FOR ABOUT TEN TO FIFTEEN MINUTES.

Anyone who DOESN'T begin their review of the Danny Boyle-directed Frankenstein (National Theatre) exactly like that either:
a) saw the play on a night when Johnny Lee Miller was playing the creature rather than Benedict (the two actors alternate the main parts), and should therefore have started their write-up by saying 'I saw Johnny Lee Miller's penis last night.' (Block capitals optional.)

Or alternatively:
b) they are UTTER PONCES.

I've skim-read several reviews and NONE of them have mentioned Mr Beefy McManStick (thanks to this website for the excellent list of euphemi). Yes, I am 33 with a degree in English Literature, and yes, I have several other things to say about the two hour play, but if we've evolved to a stage where remarking upon a prime viewing of celebrity tackle has become taboo, then mister, pull the cord and stop this train, because I want to get off.

So. On with the trouser snake review: I know the rubbish they tell men to make them feel better - that willies are all sorts of sizes when flaccid, but tend to grow to a fairly standard length and girth when erect - but even if this were true, clearly it is still preferable to have a big One-Eyed Nightcrawler even when flaccid. Unfortunately, Benedict Cumberbatch's organ is not big. It isn't even medium. I'm afraid it is small and tapered, like a baby carrot. To make matters worse, his buttocks are surprisingly curved and fleshy, like a woman's.

But hey, Benedict, if you're reading, fear not - because I thought your acting was, like, TOTALLY AMAZING! Once I'd stopped judging the lunchbox, I could get on with enjoying his performance. The creature is born from a weird, taut, circular womb in a spellbinding opening scene. He flails, jerks and grunts, making an utterly convincing transition from homo foetus to homo erectus over ten or fifteen captivating minutes, Cumberbatch's extraordinary voice put to brilliant animalistic use, the vulnerabilities of his character illustrated perfectly, setting up the audience for an empathy that continues throughout the play, helping us root for him even once he's behaved in the inevitable montrous fashion.

Sadly, there's another reason we long for Benedict's creature to succeed and remain on stage: basically everyone else in the play is pretty much totally crap. I think it's probably down to a really lameass script which suffers from squeezing a plot that lasts several years into an interval-less two hour rush, but the singsong West Country accent of the fat maid is like something out of a GCSE Shakespeare production, the farmer's wife is sub-panto, Frankenstein's dad was wooden, his fiancée's naive optimism was reminiscent of Playschool-era Floella Benjamin, and the many hammy one-line roles set the scene well enough but ended up feeling really token. At the other extreme, some of the sets are so good that they feel embarrassing - early on, a blinding locomotive enters centre stage to banging Underworld beats, ridden by steampunk-goggled actors yelling and singing unintelligible songs among jets of sparks and waves of dry ice. The creature rolls past the engine and has a seconds-long encounter with one girl - but then, after only a couple of minutes on stage, the train retreats, never to be seen again. So much work, so much money, so little payoff.

But still, go if you can get tickets (I think it's sold out 'til April). Benedict is truly amazing, bringing pathos and even humour to a brutish, violent creature. There are some interesting ideas about loneliness, the need for parental love and acceptance, and the role of man on earth. And I even learned an important life maxim - having become convinced that Frankenstein would be a much better role than the monster, I'd wanted to see the play on a night when Ben was the scientist and Johnny was the creature. Thus, when the former flopped out of the womb, I thought (and may even have whispered) 'Bollocks.' But then it unfolded that a) had I had things my way, I would have seen Johnny's penis, not Ben's (I'd far rather have seen Ben's); b) the creature is a MUCH bigger part than Frankenstein even though I'm pretty sure that he does not have a bigger 'part' than Frankenstein (ahem) and c) Benedict, I'm convinced, will make a much better creature than Johnny. So I didn't get what I'd thought I wanted, but what I ended up getting was even better than I'd imagined what I'd wanted was going to be. Lesson: SHUT UP.

Spun

So no one rejected me yesterday, neither in my conscious life, my unconscious or my subconscious. It was a good day, involving old friends, delicious halloumi, white wine and stand-up comedy and I felt very lucky. Probably not feeling quite so sprightly was the guy sitting on a stool high up in the slips at the Soho Theatre who, halfway through Greg Davies' winning set, started having a massive fit. The lady next to him shouted out, the house lights came up, and we all swivelled our heads, Wimbledon-like, to the right where we helplessly watched the man slither off his stool and vibrate on the floor. The floor manager called out for a doctor and eventually a man went over and knelt down, trying to calm the fitter down. It initially worked, but he then started up again, probably freaked out by the fact that he'd come round to realise an entire theatre audience was watching him jerk and flail. The man had been alone, so no one could confirm exactly what was going on. After a minute or so, we were asked to decamp to the bar, and it was a fair while before the stretcher arrived and he was carried out. Returning to our seats in the auditorium, I asked the gentleman next to me (who hadn't decamped as requested) if I'd missed any major excitements, and he said that the guy had seemed fairly wrecked when he came to, slurring his words and being a bit aggressive with the paramedics, but he wasn't sure if it had been too much booze or if everyone's like that post-fit. After another couple of minutes, Greg bounced back on stage and we all got back to laughing.

I often don't have a bent when I'm writing - I just tell you what's going on in my head. Maybe I should start trying to be more polemical, but I can't really find an angle on the guy-has-fit-during-comedy-gig story. I didn't learn anything from it and it was handled well by the theatre. Still, it seemed like an anecdote worth recounting.

In a slightly more opinionated fashion, I can admit with pleasure that I am grinning from ear to ear at the news that David Cameron's chief spin doctor has had to resign due to being a lying, unscrupulous, Murdoch-loving hack. It is a glorious moment of karma and one that I'm sure is bringing a lot of shadenfreudic happiness to a lot of people. I can but hope that Coulson's departure will assist in exposing some of the disastrous decisions that have been made of late, the sneaky dismantling of our treasured NHS being only one example of many hideous neoliberal choices that are changing this country for the Much Worse. I'd be furious about it all but, as usual, I feel powerless and completely unrepresented, so whinging on here and on Twitter is about all the vitriol I can muster. I used to think it was laziness that stopped me getting involved - now I think it's a total unwillingness to compromise my ideals - I'd rather do nothing than pour a phenomenal amount of time and effort into a system that is inherently flawed for very little reward, safe in the knowledge that my incalculably large sacrifice will be shortly forgotten. Actually, that's basically laziness isn't it. Either way, I'm aware that it's a sad response to the current political state, but I don't think I'm alone in doing the maths and finding the situation doesn't add up. I've always suffered from black and white thinking, and a political life strikes me as a very grey area of no man's land: an over-academicised, over-wrought, out-dated, unfair system that I'm happier ignoring. Except when twats like Coulson get exposed - that bit's fun.

What else is news? I'm off for the weekend shortly, a lot of cleaning to do and then Black Swan and a reunion tomorrow and hangover brunch on Sunday. In amongst all that I need to squeeze in a run, some yoga and a substantial chunk of writing. I don't have much hope that the latter will happen, but maybe if I state my intentions here, I'll be forced to do something about it. Because looking like a failure in front of you would be unbearable, given that it's never happened before. Oh no. Not ever. Not even once.

Acute accent

I was in Tesco's yesterday afternoon buying some stuff for dinner tonight, and the man at the checkout was very chatty.
"No plastic bags," I said, smiling. "I'm saving the planet."
"It is too late for that," he answered.
"What, so we should just stop trying?"
"Not stop trying, ma'am, but to fix the trouble we're in, we must start all over again."
"With a new planet?"
"With a new planet," he confirmed.
"Where will we get it?"
"I don't know. But we have grave problems here. It is too late. Too much digging and toenails."
"Toenails?"
"Yes, you know, underground - it is all going to collapse."
"Underground toenails?" I asked again.
"Noooooooo, not toenails," he said. "Toenails."
"TOENAILS? You are blaming the ecological death of this planet on buried toenails?"
"Tun-nels," he said, slowly, like I was the thickest person alive. I think I might be. We laughed. In the end I needed a plastic bag anyway, cos I'd forgotten my handy bag-in-your-handbag bag. D'oh.

Later on, I went to the National Theatre with my mum, where we had a nice dinner and then saw Men Should Weep, a play about working class Glasgow set in the 1930s. My dad's from Glasgow so it was interesting hearing them use vernacular I've been around all my life. There was a moment when the performance started that I thought how sad it was that he wasn't there with us, having decided that theatre is simply Not His Bag. It seemed like it would surely be of interest to him - but ten minutes in, it was clear that the kitchen sink drama would have made him flip his combover. And even if that hadn't have been enough to freak him out, the audience certainly would have done the trick. I have never heard so much coughing before in my life. It was like a whooping ward, with hacks going off every two or three seconds, obscuring the dialogue on many occasions. I managed to bite my tongue but admitted to mum later that, about halfway through Act Two, I'd been about two seconds from screaming "SHUUUUUUUUUT UUUUUUUUUP!", only containing my irritation when I realised that the disruption would probably get into the Evening Standard. I don't know what can be done with coughers. You can't expect the theatre to refund their tickets, so I don't blame them for coming along, but it is pretty darn irritating. On top of which, anyone with a vague penchant for hypochondria e.g. me inevitably spends the entire production convinced they're catching a bit of everything. I don't know about you but that's not my idea of a fun evening out. Maybe compulsory shots of Benylin and/or squirts of First Defence for all audience members are the way forward.

I'm feeling chipper today as I had a really positive session with my therapist yesterday afternoon. I'm still a long way from my target destination, but I have unequivocally left my departure point behind forever, and that's an amazing feeling. I am en route and there's no going back. It's not an easy journey, but as I sat in the wingback chair sobbing yesterday, saying how hard I was finding it all, I managed to ask her a question.
"Do you spend pretty much all your working time watching people fighting this same battle?" She nodded. "I just can't believe they're all strong enough," I sniffed. "I mean, it's so hard, it physically hurts."
"Oh, not many people are strong enough," she said immediately, and I felt a bit better. It's not that I am pleased to be winning or anything. It's an acknowledgement that what I'm trying to attain is not easy. It makes me feel more able to cope with the continued struggle. For now, I will push on. And you, up ahead, clear the path to the River of Inner Peace. Incoming.

Comedown

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

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

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

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

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

Floating, not gloating

Given the fact that I am trundling over rather rocky terrain at present, it seemed remarkably serendipitous that last night was the night that Emily, Grania and I had chosen, weeks ago, to use our £10-for-the-price-of-a-£40-session vouchers at Floatworks, Europe's biggest floatation centre. I wasn't sure what to expect but I was pretty certain that I'd come out of the experience feeling less stressed than when I went in.

Error.

I had my shower and peered into the pod, lime green on the outside, white on the inside, noticing as I stepped in that one of the previous users had left a couple of long, dark hairs behind. My over-sensitive reflex nearly kicked in but I reminded myself that I swim merrily in the sea, which I am told has a little more unpleasant matter in it than two long hairs. I sat down. The heavily salted water was warmish and a little over a foot deep. Body temperature, I think heated through a panel in the pod's floor. The liquid felt thick with the salt, almost syrupy. I extended my legs, put in the earplugs (supplied) and pressed the button to bring the pod's lid down. There was a red light at the foot end of the pod which emitted a comforting glow. I lay back, allowing my head to be completely supported by the water, and waited for the plinky plonky music I'd been told to expect: ten minutes to start with, followed by fifty minutes of silence, followed by more music to alert you that it's time to get out and shower.

I waited.

No plinky.

No plonky.

Just silence.

I waited some more. Without the music, I wouldn't know when to get out. I would lie there, not knowing when to get out, for an hour. Or I could get out then and there, wrap the clearly insubstantial towel around my naked form, slide my feet into the rubbery sandals and schlep back to reception to check. Given that I am always pro-active, always up for an adventure and always full of beans, I continued to lie still and hope a solution presented itself.

For the first few minutes I was intensely bored. Then I realised that you can curl yourself up, stretching one side and then the other, and hear your spine clicking. That was quite fun. Then I spent some time running my fingers through my hair, which was all ballooned out and made me feel like a mermaid. Also fun. Then I lay still, and realised that the water around your body gets really warm if you don't wiggle very much. That, too, was pleasing. Then I smoothed the water over the bits of my body that weren't submerged, and realised that it felt a bit like semen. Then I remembered being in Madrid about ten years ago and interviewing one of Scooch who said that his favourite place to masturbate was on sunbeds. And then I suddenly worried that I was lying in a pod full of strange men's semen. Then I started wondering how long it was 'til my hour was up. And basically I wondered that for ages until I got bored of wondering it and actually got out, and checked the time on my phone. I'd only had about 45 minutes but I was out now and I knew I wouldn't relax if I got back in. So I got back into the shower and then went to the hairdrying area to dry my hair. There was a lot of other people's hair on the floor.

When I got back to reception, I told the lady about my lack of music. "Did you have the green pod?" she asked, unflapped. I nodded. "Ah, well that one's temperamental." She wrote out a laminated voucher for another free session and handed it over. I felt placated but not yet relaxed.

When Grania and Emily came out, they too were unconvinced, although the woman behind reception said that everyone says their second float is miles better than their first because they know the ropes. That sounds to me like marketing gold. Then the three of us went over the road to the restaurant, where I took one sip of my delicious glass of cold white wine and then knocked the rest of it all over myself, much of it pouring into my left boot. The boots are ten days old and are lined with a massively-absorbent and warm fleecy fabric. So that's good. The left one will smell of wine FOREVER.

Then I had too much to eat and we set the world to rights and then I had to wait 14 minutes for a tube, so I went back up to street level which was DEFINITELY an error, and eventually got a bus home and felt exhausted and slept quite well, and today I am knackered but I keep thinking about floating and feeling, for some unexpected reason, like I really want to do it again as a matter of some urgency.

So, in conclusion:
Floating at the time: thumbs horizontal
Cold white wine in my mouth: thumbs up
Cold white wine all over my dress and tights, and in my winter boots: thumbs down
Memory of evening: thumbs up
Floating in retrospect: thumbs at 2 and 10 o'clock

Also: Blood and Gifts is a very good play at the National. It's about the diplomatic handling of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in the early eighties and I recommend it. It's very funny and informative. A bit like me but with broader appeal.

Finally: I just found out that, due to a glitsch in the system last week, our office vending machine went through a spate of giving away Kitkats for 1p. This is what happens when I start liking Twix Fino. It is a conspiracy, I tell you. Livid.

Yuck yuck yuck

If any of you have seen ads for a recent horror film called The Human Centipede, where a psychotic doctor kidnaps people and stitches them together, mouth to ass, you'll have a vague understanding of my dream last night, where a selection of men who I don't know in real life, including Stephen Fry, engaged in a bizarre - and totally unsexual - gay orgy thing where each of them had erect penises about 18 inches long and I had to help feed these monstrous apendages into the next guy's bum, until they made a chain of three or four. They were literally bending them into S-shapes to see if it would fit into the next one's lower intestine. More bizarre, this was happening in broad daylight, on a wooden platform constructed up a tree. I mean. I think I should give up hope of ever being normal.

Last night, Kate and I went to see a play at the National called Or You Could Kiss Me, which sent me to sleep after less than ten minutes. Kate woke me up about an hour in and said she wasn't enjoying it and that she was happy to leave. So we did. The joy of £10 tickets. It was, I suppose, a nice idea, but Kate summed it up as 'crappy gay puppets'. Which would have explained my dream, but there was no gay sex and no huge penises. Just two old guys in South Africa trying to cope with death and the breakdown of their relationship. It was a bit worthy. The makers of War Horse don't need to fret too much.

And now it's today and the UK is being rocked with all the details of Chancellor George Osborne's extensive Spending Review, which basically means he is ecstatically slashing the state back, involving the loss of half a million civil service jobs and another half million private sector jobs that will be cut due to decreased contracting. So that's one in sixty people who are currently working who will now be unemployed. Nice going. And housing benefit cut, and disability benefit, and university to be more expensive, and less funding for culture, and and and. And the right says a) the cuts are inevitable and b) this is the fairest way to dole them out and c) that these evil benefit cheats are stealing from all of us.

And I - and all those on the left - say that yes, we need to find money - but not so soon, and not this way. Where is the evidence of the wealthiest taking a hit too? Why are there still tax breaks for huge corporations? Why are non-doms allowed to squirrel their money away in offshore accounts? We say that the cuts are massively unfair on the people who need money the most. And that benefit cheats aren't nearly as big a problem as they're made out to be - just a useful scapegoat to 'justify' demolishing the welfare state and preferencing those who are already wealthy.

Seriously. What kind of society do the Tories think this is going to create? We're already in a recession. Chuck in another million unemployed - jobs which cannot be picked up by the private sector or the Big Society, because - yes - we're in a recession. And chuck in loads more people losing their homes because their housing benefit gets cut. And those who were on disability benefit also losing their payout after a year out of work, who are then added to the pile of those looking for a non-existent job. How is this going to help this country improve?

My question is not rhetorical. HOW do David and George think that their actions are going to ameliorate the lives of the majority of UK citizens? They don't. They admit it's going to be tough. They say that it's going to be unpleasant for everyone, but that we're all in it together. Unadulterated claptrap. [Ooh. Claptrap, making its LLFF debut, if I'm not mistaken.] They are slashing the welfare state, taking things back to the old days of rich-get-richer, poor-get-poorer, increasing the income gap, making sure that their own bank balances remain unscathed, and keeping themselves lined up for cushty jobs in the City when they quit government. It's unfair, sad and worrying. (Click the link for a sinister New Statesman article).

And where are the LibDems in all this? Clegg patted Osborne on the back after he made his cuts announcement. I hope everyone else who voted yellow in May felt the bile rise. I certainly did. What a disgrace. I'd rather be Stephen Fry's personal penis feeder than keep schtum on this.

Fringe

So I'm back from four days at the Edinburgh Festival, four days older, about £300 poorer (most likely much more but I can't bear to look) and approximately four stone heavier. We ate and drank like fat monarchs and then burned off around 0.4% of it charging up and down the Scottish capital's not-insignificant slopes from one venue to the next. Organising a trip to the festival is not for anyone who struggles to schedule a doctor's appointment. The book of options is as thick as Edinburgh's phone book, stuffed with details about the shows, plays, comedians and musicians that are performing for our applause. As an example, the Udderbelly is one of the larger companies at the Festival, with stages in (I think) three or four different parts of the city that range from the huge McEwan hall (where the university students go to graduate) to tiny rooms for one-man plays that seat only 30 audience members - and they had over 120 different shows playing each and every single day of the three week festival. Then there's the Pleasance, Assembly, the Caves, and countless less official rooms-above-pubs where there are shows that range in price from 'We'll pay you to come' to £20 a ticket. So you work out what you want to see, when it's on, how much it costs, where it is, how long it will take you to get from that venue to the next, whether you've got time to meet someone for a drink or lunch in between, whether you'll manage to stay awake given that you stayed out dancing until the wee hours at Silent Disco or similar, whether your feet will freeze off given that it was baking hot when you left your hotel at 11am and now it's arctic and you can't wear tights with flip-flops without looking like a retard.

It was an experience. Last time I went to the festival was in 1993 - I went with a group from school in preparation for our Theatre Studies A Level course, which I then abandoned after a few weeks. My memories of the festival are: falling asleep in an eternal and appalling Shakespeare production, freezing my 15-year-old ass off up at the castle ruins for a midnight performance of Clytemnaestra's Bairns and calling up our Deputy Headmistress from the payphones in the Waverley shopping centre to receive our GCSE results. This time I had no exams to worry about, just a rapidly diminishing bank balance and a rapidly expanding thigh girth and that omnipresent festival sensation that you can't do everything, which I'm really getting quite adept at handling.

We did do a fair bit, though - the geeksheet above should give you a flavour although it did not remain accurate due to some last minute shifts. We also, despite being as organised as I'd thought it was possible for a human to be, managed to arrive smugly at the wrong venue well over 50% of the time, leading to irritating middle class dashes across the city as we flapped late into plays about teenage gangs, the fallout from Guantanamo detention centre, the sex trade in London, Georgian refugees, or an uplifting performance by the exceptional Soweto Gospel Choir. Late night comedy was probably my favourite bit, Terry Alderton causing me to laugh so long and hard that by half-way through I was wondering if I actually had the energy to go on, half-lying on my chair, weakly convulsing with mascara tears streaming. There were certainly negatives too but I loved the sensation of my critical faculties becoming honed as I saw more and more - so even when I could pick up a flaw, it brought me satisfaction. Certainly I've realised that plays need to say more than 'Slavery is awful' or 'Being a refugee sucks' - the play we saw about women hired as sex slaves in London detailed two tragic stories but didn't tell us anything new, while the play about torture in Guantanamo was spoiled by being too far-fetched - the final oh-so-predictable twist was totally unnecessary and, in fact, the play would have been far more interesting without it. Still, though, in every case I was glad to have attended.

Not sure Em felt the same about our comedy show on Saturday night - Australian Jim Jeffries who swore with evident pleasure, daring us to squirm, laid into women (especially lesbians) in pretty disgusting style, and whose graphic accounts of sexual antics had me wincing. There was irony in his performance, though - an underlying sense of 'I know this is shocking' - an irony that was absolutely missed by the 15 drunk Scotsmen in the row behind us, who yelled 'Hibs - CUNTS' all the way through; burped loudly, pungently and frequently; and who used Jeffries' jokes as vindication for their own revolting views. There were more mysogenistic, anti-Semitic and xenophobic comments coming from the guys 30 centimetres behind me than there were from the comic onstage - and eventually their lewd behaviour started bothering Jeffries, who called the show to a halt and asked for the guys to leave. Security filed up the aisles but the men refused to move, and we later found out that unless the guys had been physically violent or threatening, the guards couldn't lay a finger on them. In the end, a guard sat down next to them, which was basically as effective as saying 'Ah, ok lads, as you were' and indeed, they did carry on chatting and shouting for the rest of the gig. Not pleasant, but certainly an experience.

Worst show for me was probably Flawless, now known as Flawed, who are undeniably talented dancers - but their stage management was about as complex and well-orchestrated as our dorm plays were when I was a 12 year old boarding school girl. Achingly long gaps between numbers, unclear song-endings, bad props - this an act who (I believe) came second in Britain's Got Talent - and their performance was put to shame by the Soweto Gospel Choir and the Cambridge University Footlights, both groups who know how to run a show. Flawed weren't helped, however, by one of their video clips showing a dancer as saying that this was an exciting time for young people, "what with role models like Obama and Susan Boyle." I blast-laughed loudly and alone, remembering quickly that we were not at a comedy show.

Got to go to be therapised. Festival summary: very fun, very expensive, very white, very privileged, bit guilt-making, not as emotionally affecting as Glastonbury but recommended nonetheless.

Welcome to Smugness

Welcome To Thebes (National Theatre) is a massive play. Massive in scope, in cast, in ambition. Thebes is a fictional African city, struggling to find internal stability after years of colonial rule. An Obama-esque entourage from Athens thumps in to help the new female leader with the transition, and the clashes begin: between Africa and the West, between ancient and modern, democracy and force, tradition and innovation, man and woman. The plot is big enough on its own, and then the uber-ambitious playwright heaps on another layer, updating Greek tragedy to the present and stirring the whole lot together. The characters are given names from prominent Greek plays (Antigone, Tyresius, Creon, Oedipus are all featured or mentioned), and, a little like I'd felt during Tom Stoppard's Arcadia last year, I couldn't help wondering if this was a writer who'd confused being as effective as possible with being as clever as possible.

The Olivier isn't a small theatre. I was delighted that my companion, Rob, has not yet discovered my blog, so I could happily bore him with all my gems from my recent NT tour. But so there we were, sitting in the whopping auditorium among over a thousand others, and yet I can't imagine that more than a couple of handfuls of people had the classical knowledge to understand a fraction of the Greek references that were bandied about. I'd studied Oedipus Rex, and I saw some weird play about Clytemnestra one year at the Edinburgh Festival. But my memory being what it isn't, I had no real recollection of anything. All I knew was that, in Greek tragedy, the blind man always sees the best and we're meant to come out feeling catharted. Not cathatered.

And that's me with English A Level and an MA in Literature under my belt. What about the rest of the audience? Rob didn't have a clue what was going on. The struggling modern African nation helped by allegedly benevolent but ultimately distant and selfish Western superpower stuff we get. But the classical stuff? I'm not sure it added much, to be honest. There were a couple of moments where an injoke about Oedipus being a motherfucker caused a bellow of smug laughter, but it only served to underline the fact that countless other 'hilarious' references were going unnoticed by the crowd.

There's no doubt that the playwright is a bright spark, and Welcome To Thebes is undeniably an impressive achievement. But it's also the hardest work I've had to put in at the theatre since the last time I saw Oedipus (which I reviewed at the time as "genuinely crap") and I've decided that maybe I don't like Greek tragedy. And maybe £15 to learn a life-lesson like that is money well spent. To be honest, last night won't really go down as significant in my theatre-going experience for anything except one moment, about a third of the way into the first half, when the blind man paused in the middle of one of his speeches, and the actors didn't flinch, but then it went on for a little longer than was comfortable, and then we heard a clear prompt from the desk, feeding him his next line, and I think that was the first time that I've ever seen anyone forget their words in a major play. It was startling. I never feel like I'm suspending my disbelief for a second, but then someone screws up, a strange voice comes in from beyond the stage, and immediately the spell is broken. Not to say it ruined the play. But I'll never forget it.

In other news, I have no other news. More on this story as it unfolds.

Lukewarm turkey

I was going to write about my weekend, a harmless discussion of the great performance piece I saw at the National on Friday evening, Domini Public, where we all wore cordless headphones and had to stand in different places or make certain gestures depending on whether we were born in London, or had ever photographed ourselves naked, or earned over £20k, or had children, or had followed a stranger down the street, or believed that hierarchies were necessary to 'get things done'. It was interesting enough watching people move around the square, seeing who answered what to which question. And then there was the twist, which was unpleasant and fascinating, and ended up in me (amongst others) being mock-shot by my friend, Tracey, in front of a hundred strangers. It was a great hour, excellent value for £10, and I'd encourage you to go if the run hadn't already ended.

I was also going to tell you all that, if you are remotely interested in the National Theatre, you should definitely pay £7 at some point and go on one of their backstage tours. After years of good intentions, I took one on Friday before Domini Public and it was a rewarding way to spend an hour and a quarter, filled with gems about current and past productions, giving a good insight into the stage management side of things and the props department. Notes I took included the following:

• The National Theatre site is the size of Trafalgar Square, just over two acres
• There are 850 full time employees
• The biggest theatre, the Olivier, has 1160 seats, and more lights than seats
• The stage and seating in the Olivier is based around a traditional Greek amphitheatre, but whereas the latter normally has 180 degree seating around the stage, the Olivier has 118 degrees of seating, which is apparently the extent of male peripheral vision. Women have slightly more. Either way, it means that when you're standing on centre stage, you can see every seat in the house without turning your head. We tried it. It's quite amazing.

And then I also had stuff to say about the next leg of our Capital Ring walk that Kate and I took yesterday, from Wimbledon Park to Richmond, through some gorgeous parkland via deer and the A3. Our next segment takes us under the M4 and I'm weirdly very excited about that. Will be sad when it's all over.

But really what I think will be most of interest is not any of the wonderful, worthwhile activities I've been up to, but the topic that has really been on my mind over the past few days. Inevitably, it is men.

As noted last week, my therapist and I were discussing my desire for a boyfriend. Of course, it is perfectly normal for people to desire a mate. No one would say that there is anything unusual about that. However, I am a little bit different, in that my desire is less for an actual boyfriend (although that would be dandy) and more for the status I perceive I will acquire (in whose eyes, I have no idea) when I gain the acceptance of a respectable male. Being the only child of two wonderful parents who are still crazy (in love) after all these years, where their relationship has been far more a defining factor in their lives than their nationality, their career, their family or their bank balance, it was inevitable that I would grow up thinking that finding a mate was, pretty much, the only thing one needed to do to be viewed as a success.

Then I went to an all-girls boarding school. This was not a sensible move if one was trying to move away from the supremacy of Acceptance By Relationship. In between the near-constant steamy lesbian shower sessions, our focus was entirely on boyfriends. Not on sex. Not on kissing. Just boyfriends. In my seven years there, I never once felt pressured by my peers to lose my virginity; in my recollection, sex was barely even discussed. All we cared about was getting someone to go out with you. You could kiss someone at a party one weekend and come back to school. "Did you get off with anyone?" the ganets would ask. Occasionally, you would excitedly nod yes, blocking out the fact that his train tracks cut your tongue and that it was really difficult to feel like this was a romantic zenith when you're kissing on a bouncy castle and you can hear someone being sick in the rosebushes. But, to the ganets, the snog was not the goal. This was just an amuse bouche before the main event: possible boyfriendom. And so the agonising wait began, each morning's post a crushing disappointment as the longed-for letter with the appalling handwriting and Slough postmark failed to arrive. Finally, a couple of weeks later, you'd hear that the boy in question had pulled Clarissa at the Mariners and it would become clear that the relationship about which you'd fantasized (in between calculating how to get Take That to perform an impromptu gig in the Middle IV common room) was clearly over before it had begun.

And so the snog would be rendered meaningless, because it had come to nothing. Kissing wasn't an end in itself. All that mattered was finding long-term commitment. Getting someone to fancy you enough to stick their tongue down their throat was no challenge; getting someone to stick their necks out and tell their friends that they liked you, now that was a compliment. Without that, without the superior gender (and it wasn't stated like that, but that's how it felt) waving their wand (and it wasn't stated like that either, but who are we kidding?) in our direction, giving us their blessing, saying 'You are pretty, you are attractive, I am male, I know these things,' then we were failures. But all along, I was also a pain in the ass. I didn't just want ANY boyfriend. I wanted one I respected, one who I found attractive and interesting. So 99% of the time, when a guy was interested in me, I shut it down. Because they were normally complete freaks and, somewhat like Groucho Marx, I didn't want to be a member of any club who'd have me with their member.

Fast forward sixteen years, and here I am, nine days away from my 33rd birthday, and my subconscious still spends far too much time shouting at the rest of me that, unless a man tells me I am his be all and end all, I will have failed - but I am still enough of a pain in the ass that I won't settle for anyone unless they rock my tiny world. So I have been searching, and rejecting, and being rejected, for too long and it's tiring. And thus, last Wednesday, I agreed with my therapist that I would take a break from looking. That even though I have been trying, whether consciously or not, to find a bearable boyfriend every day I've been single over the past decade and a half (which, actually, adding together five years with H, two with Simon, two with Luke and cobbling together the rest, probably adds up to about ten years off the market and five years on), I should now stop the search. Which is about as likely as me deciding to stop breathing.

But bless me, I'm trying. I removed my profile from the dating website I was on, and I must say, after my collated run of morons, that has felt less like a sacrifice than a sigh-heaving relief. And I am not going speed dating tonight, even though I bought the £10 ticket ages ago and I think I look quite good at the moment as I have a new dress that goes well with my unexpected suntan (shoulders and face only - the remainder of me still has the colour and texture of an uncooked Eccles cake) gathered on yesterday's walk. I am trying very hard indeed to forget about flirting, and have managed to cut back to only one extremely slow e-banter conversation that I don't think will come to anything really, since the guy in question is even more judgmental than I am, and not only wouldn't want to be a member of any club who would have him as a member, but would actively want to nail gun anyone who suggested such a thing and consider doing so as a public service, because surely any girl who wanted to meet him would be a danger to herself and society at large. There's a fair bit of self-loathing there. But underneath all that he's quite funny and I'd be interested to meet him. OTHER THAN THAT there is no one. I promise. I'm being good.

Still, it's like giving up heroin. I imagine. What is the methodone equivalent for people who are addicted to finding a relationship? Lots of meaningless sex wouldn't work because it's the social acceptance I crave from a third party, who has to be male, saying 'I am handsome and funny and intelligent. And I want to spend my time with you.' Ultimately, I have to believe that that is a load of crap and that the only person who decides whether I am good enough is me, and why would I entrust such a fundamental role to some stupid man who doesn't even know me very well? But that kind of cheesy, American self-acceptance is probably a long way off, not helped by the fact that everywhere I go, everyone admits that life is better when you're in a relationship, and that being single is a lonely pastime for people who are unlucky and/or not good enough. It's freaking annoying because I am clearly amazing, hilarious and, in almost every way, happy.

And that's what I keep finding weird: beyond the Seal of Approval thing that I so obviously want from a boyfriend, I'm not that bothered. As I've pointed out many times before (but not so much that this lady is thought to be protesting too much), my life is pretty much perfect. I don't sit looking woefully at the other end of my sofa thinking it's lacking a scrotum. I am not gagging to have babies just yet - walking past countless suffocating family picnics in the sun yesterday afternoon I heaved many a sigh of relief that my neck doesn't yet have that extortionate albatross swinging off it. I don't need a boyfriend to do my DIY - I feel pretty capable of most things and my dad is more than adequate for the rest. I don't feel I need a man to organise my bills, or earn money, or take me to the cinema. In fact, the fear that he might at any point vanish/die can make relationships so unpleasant that I'm not sure they're even worth it. Really, I just want one to say he's my boyfriend so everyone knows I've passed The Test, appear with me at the odd function, and kiss me regularly. Oh, and I'd like one to come to the opera with me. A night at Covent Garden is the most romantic experience I can imagine and going with girls feels wrong. I've got tickets for two productions this autumn and if I don't have a man at my side for at least one of them I'll strop. Since I'm not allowed to actively pursue anyone, if you're single, in possession of a Y chromasome and would like to be considered for this role, feel free to drop me a line via the comments section. It's Rigoletto and Cosi Fan Tutti. Don't all shout at once.

Miller time

So before my fit of overwhelming self-pity on the tube home last night, I saw an amazing, amazing play, and if you can get to London and get tickets, I would recommend you do so. It was Arthur Miller's All My Sons, and it was, like I said, amazing. The poster for the current London production shows a soppy, Vaseline-on-the-lens snuggle between David Suchet and Zoe Wanamaker, which drew an involuntary urgh of disgust from me when I saw it on a tube escalator some weeks ago. But it got a five star review in The Guardian and I owed Don a theatre trip after he so kindly took me to Jerusalem, so we returned to the Apollo for this. Other than the five stars, I knew nothing about it. I'd taught A View From The Bridge a few years ago as a tutor, so I was pretty sure it would be set in post-war America, but that was it. And wow. What a plot. Jerusalem was a fantastic portrait of modern Britain, but this was a tight, pacey drama with laughs, a joyous combination that left me attractively gobsmacked. Nothing about the schmaltzy poster was echoed in the production. It was hard and tough, unflinchingly powering through painful moral dilemmas with a directness that set my head whirring. Rooted in its era yet still fully relevant, the play questioned whether looking after our nearest and dearest can justify crime, whether our familial duty is greater than our duty to society as a whole. The acting was exceptional, but what got me the most was the script - each character rigorously fleshed out, necessary and consistent. No lines for the sake of it, each remark was loaded with backstory and, as the truth gradually outed itself, Miller's talent became ever more evident.

Anyway. It was a masterclass in objectivity, insight and genius. And I read in the programme that, had All My Sons not been a hit when it was first performed, Miller had made the decision that he would give up writing plays forever. A near miss. And a triumph today - bursting with lessons for us all, fresh and unpatronising. Loved it.

Then I got on the tube, felt inadequate because I will never write a play like that, and then the sweet young couple next to me started kissing and giggling and it tipped me over the edge. Instead of gunning them all down like Michael Douglas, I went home and wrote a poem, a poem that exposes me for the needy, illogical sap I am. I published it on the internet for all to see. And for some ridiculous reason, it actually helped.

The Final Countdown

Hmmm. No idea what's going on at the moment but I appear to have lost my blogging mojo. I'll tell you what it is, though - it's that I keep not writing it. Like exercise, the less you do it, the more you hate it. And, at this time in particular, I should be writing.

Because - deep breath - I really do believe that this is an extraordinary time for British politics. I'm sorry. I know you want to hear about my dating mishaps and the spots that mysteriously appeared on my left buttock last week. But this is urgent. I am greatly fearful that there will be a Tory government in a day or two - not only fearful because I don't think they are the best party to run the UK in the short term (although I really don't think they are) but because I am convinced that this election presents an opportunity to change the political system to something representative, and alter things for the better in the long term. Even if I were a potential Tory voter, I wouldn't want them to win tomorrow.

Just think of all the benefits a truly engaged electorate could bring to Britain. How different things would be if everyone cared about their society, everyone believed they had a voice and everyone believed their vote would matter and their opinion would be heard. I'm not saying that some form of proportional representation would create that society overnight. But I am saying that a continuation of this deeply-flawed FPTP system will guarantee that the vast majority of the electorate remain distant, unengaged and resentful for the forseeable future.

I live in an 'ultra safe' Labour constituency, which means that, according to the Voter Power Index, my vote is actually worth 0.6 of an actual vote. And that's true for the vast majority of us. Since less than 20% of constituencies are marginal, eight out of ten votes cast tomorrow are pretty much irrelevant. Eight out of ten people in Britain aren't being heard.

Depressed? You're right. It's a disgrace. And this is the only way I can think of for us to make it change. Please - if you can, vote to make a difference. Keep the Tories below the 300-odd seats they need to form a government and let's not miss the best chance our generation has ever had to make a better, fairer system for the whole of the UK.

Yes, you're right, the economy's fucked. Labour made some bad choices, George Osborne is still midway through puberty and the LibDems are very new to this game (although Cable isn't). The economy is going to be fucked whoever comes out on top tomorrow night. Analysts today announced that the UK is going to be in a worse financial state than Greece by the end of this year. The short term is going to be bad. So let's at least do what we can for the long term.

Go on. Do the right thing. Vote tactically and keep the Tories out. And tell everyone else to do the same thing. 40% of the electorate are apparently still wobbling. I know it's much more fun when I write about walking round without realising there's a penis drawn on my face in indelible marker (NB this has not yet happened) but this is a huge opportunity and I feel like I have to do my best.

Right. Best done. Rant over.

What have I been up to... Friday night I went to the ICA with Emily to see Vote Afghanistan!, a documentary about last year's rigged elections, which made me feel simultaneously hopeless and
buoyed, since at least we're not the only deeply misguided country out there. Brothers and sisters of Kabul - big shout out from London town! We'll all be ignored together!

Oh, sorry, I was meant to stop ranting.

Saturday night was excellent - Grania and I went to Islington to see beatboxer-extraordinaire, Beardyman, whose brilliance cannot be overstated. He was funny, politically engaged and supremely good at his job: what more can one ask? I stood there agog, playing my favourite 'identify the sample and cheer knowingly to impress other concert-goers at the speed at which you recognised it' game and trying not to stare too much at the pneumatic drill dance that the young couple were doing to my right, the boy spooning the girl and jacking up and down as if on a miniature and diesel-powered tandem pogo stick. It was a bit rank.

Sunday I took it easy with my parents and chewed the fat (and delicious flapjacks) at Alex and Ben's before trying to get an early night and failing. Monday I was fed and wined to perfection at Sara's. Yesterday I went to see Counted?, which tried its best but didn't manage to elevate itself above an educational schools play. I wish everyone in schools were shown it - it would be brilliant. But as it is, the half-full audience were mostly converted anyway and I felt like they were wasting their breath. And, possibly, our £22. The intellectual zenith for me occured when the main character asked another what his vote was worth, on a scale of one to ten. The guy said it was worth about seven. The main guy asked what was worth more? And I thought about it, and really, democracy - if you can get it - is so important, isn't it? Almost more than anything else in life. It hit home. And then I realised I was a bit sleepy after my Wagamama's dinner so I had a bit of a snooze.

I'm off shortly for uke fun and must go smother my currently-annoyingly-sensitive-and-slightly-stingy-for-no-clear-reason face in make-up, so I'll have to leave you with love. Vote well, my British amigos. The moment has come. And yeah, obviously we're going to have five years of shit Tory rule come Friday morning - make sure you can live with yourself for the next half decade.

OK. I really will shut up now.

Ill Behaviour

Sometimes something happens in front of me, and although it is fascinating and extraordinary at the time, the thought that pops into my head is not 'Ohmygod, that's fascinating and extraordinary,' but 'Ohmygod I can't WAIT to write about this.'

That happened this morning.

I was on a fairly packed commuter tube northbound, standing in the central atrium bit, leaning against the glass partition that separates the standing section from the seats. Despite the high density of people, I'd managed to angle myself so that I could read my book, the brilliant River of Time by Jon Swain, tales of 1970s Cambodia and Vietnam so potent and engrossing that I momentarily forgot where I was. But suddenly, across the width of the carriage, by the opposite doors, someone sneezed - a strange, cracking noise that jerked my attention. I looked up from my book. There, a metre or so away, was a young man who, from the mouth down, was completely covered in opaque white vomit. It had clearly taken him utterly by surprise. Several people around him had been splattered by the force of the eruption. It was all over him, down his chin, his shirt, over his suit jacket which he'd draped over one arm; thick, smooth emissions like emulsion paint, but with small yellow items flecked within. I'm guessing he'd had something like the world's largest ever bowl of Ricicles for breakfast. A matter of seconds later, we pulled in to a station and he exited. The remaining people looked around, some horrified, some smiling, all silently listening to their own world, white headphones snaking into their ears. It was British tolerance at its best.

The space vacated by the puker stood empty for a couple of stops, and in that time, I was able to secure a seat, three away from the vomit-covered partition on the same side. The girl sitting next to the partition had a good half pint of vomit sliding down the other side of the glass to her left, but she appeared to be calm. Then a man boarded the train, saw the rare area of space, pushed through to stand in it and then leant on the partition, covering his dark jacket in another man's sick before 9am. Disappointing. When another passenger alerted him to his nightmare, he dealt with it well, blushing and giggling rather than getting angry, and later helpfully pointed out the offending matter to another young man who had been about to make a similar mistake. It was all rather cheery. And a tube first for me.

It brought to mind my old hairdresser, Helen, who told me that when she had been pregnant she'd suffered really badly from morning sickness, and was always ill on the train to work every morning. At first, she'd held it in until a station, and then got off and been sick into a bin, and got back on the next train, but eventually she just took a plastic bag on board with her every morning and was quietly sick into it without even getting up from her seat. I was fairly disgusted at the time but if I'm ever pregnant, maybe I'll understand. Somehow I don't think morning sickness was the cause of the sneeze-chunder explosion I witnessed this morning, though. Unless science has moved on very quickly in the last week without my knowledge.

On an unrelated subject, last night I went to see Trash City at the Roundhouse. It was a weird cabaret spectacle with a fantastic set and bizarre performances including a vast black man dressed head to toe in white tulle singing a terrible version of Fix You by Coldplay, several strange transvestite geishas doing dance routines to what Chris described as nineties-influenced big beat, whipped cream, Alice Cooper, an hilarious song called something like 'Everyone's Fucking But Me', weird acrobatics, pole-dancing robots, nude women smeared in something resembling Marmite and then eating fire, heart-shaped balloons, feathers, and a vast dinosaur made out of reclaimed metal and a motorbike engine that thudded its way through the crowd as a finale. I love things like that. I don't really understand them, I don't have a clue what motivates people to put them together, but it's good to be out of the usual headspace, a bit like a legal LSD trip without the comedown or the panic about violent flashbacks which clearly never really happen but which we were warned about so persuasively at school that I have never done acid - something about a woman who was driving her kids down the motorway twenty years after she took a tab, and started seeing huge insects flying towards her and swerved to avoid them and wrote off her car, killing herself and her kids. And then another girl who stabbed herself to death in the bath with nail scissors, which, in retrospect, I'm not sure is even possible. Still, the horror stories worked. And Trash City is cool.

Rave review

My routine when I go and see any culture, be it TV, film, art, theatre or opera is as follows: 1) Try to go in with an open mind. 2) Form my own opinion. 3) Force myself to see the other side - if I've loved it, try to guess how people will criticise it; if I've hated it, try to imagine why someone would love it, or (most often), if I've felt ambivalent, try to imagine why someone might give a shit. 4) Go home and read what the critics have said. 5) Digest. 6) Come up with a final verdict, taking everything into account. Fun to be me, isn't it? So footloose and fancy free? Nah, I do this readily, easily - it's not a chore, honest - I enjoy it.

So, last night I was lucky enough to be taken to see Jerusalem, currently the hottest play in the big smoke. It's had a brace of four and five star reviews from all the big papers, and won barrowloads of awards. I'd heard good things from friends and I was really looking forward to seeing it. I did not, however, know if I would like it. Good reviews from journos and friends do not automatically mean I'll enjoy something - and, in fact, in an unconscious effort to be deliberately obtuse, I think they often push me the other way. On this occasion, however, I will happily admit that they were right - I was captivated.

It was an amazing script, first and foremost. That was the best thing about it by a west country mile. Well-observed to the last syllable, the gags were topical, the references were spot on and the pacing was fantastic. The playwright, Jez Butterworth, found the perfect blend between classical allusion and timeless concepts of ownership and fairness, meaning that Jerusalem is accessible and challenging whether you're a theatre snob or a newbie who failed GCSE English. There's a fair bit of St George, William Blake, myth, legend, ley lines, spirituality, Shakespeare and Arden, and if you want to be poncey and compare the protagonist to Falstaff, Lear and Caliban, you can knock yourself out - but there are also mobile phones, Girls Aloud, drugs, all-night benders, The Prodigy, paedophilia, Trivial Pursuit, Morris dancing, giants, drums, BBC News West, a lot about the challenge, claustrophobia and limitations of growing up in a small Wiltshire village as well as a celebration of country life, the experiences borne out of boredom and the honesty that comes with the inability to be anonymous. I was agog.

And then there was Mark Rylance, labelled in our press as our best living actor. I'd never seen him before. He is really good. Rooster, the character he played, was phenomenal: grotesque, selfish, weak, aggressive, coarse, rude, greasy, physically damaged, emotionally horrifying, failed and angry, but generous, kind, struggling, vulnerable, incredibly charming and - yes - immensely attractive. A superb creation played to perfection.

Does it sum up modern Britain? Certainly it's a big chunk of what a lot of people feel. It's a comment on the English countryside so watching it in London felt a bit odd and removed, and there are definitely many general concerns in modern urban life that weren't touched upon, but that's not a criticism - better to do a few things to perfection than try to cover everything and fail. I wondered if the seven years I spent at a Wiltshire boarding school and the three years I spent at uni in Bristol gave me more of a connection (however tenuous) with what was going on than my life in the capital since. Place names such as Devizes, Wootton Bassett, Chippenham and Marlborough were all bandied around last night and it was immensely pleasurable when they fell on my ears; I'm not sure if that will resonate to quite the same extent with everyone.

Most affectingly, I felt - and perhaps it is the mark of a truly great piece of culture that everyone in the audience feels this in their own way - but I felt like it was written with someone like me in mind. I feel like I am lost in the no-man's land between the bored teens who just want acceptance and diversion, and the conservative townspeople who want order restored. My parents, and, in fact, the people I saw the play with last night, would have wanted Rooster out of his caravan faster than you can say 'Scarper'. I can see their point and I understand their reasoning - logically, I feel it too. But in my heart, I wanted him to carry on living right there in the forest, dealing drugs and behaving disgracefully. I don't know why - is it an immature desire to be a rebel, a childish refusal to conform? Perhaps. I'm certainly not holding myself up as a paragon of grown-up ideals, and maybe if I have kids one day I'll hate people like him, but last night I passionately wanted to protect and preserve the variety. The thought of sanitized order, manicured lawns, Singaporean cleanliness and Aryan purity scares the bejeezus out of me. The world needs Roosters. And I write this at home, while my downstairs neighbours are playing hard house so loudly that I can't hear my Sam Cooke. Maybe I should be annoyed, but I can't muster the energy. I love that they're enjoying themselves. Plus Sam Cooke is actually extremely out of tune. Seriously, listen to Lovable - it's painful.

My host complained that, at just over three hours including two intervals, the play was too long and self-indulgent, but I wouldn't have cut a moment: every exchange added something and I could have stayed longer. The set was breathtaking, and the direction was bold - I loved the fact that one of Rooster's most heartfelt outbursts was delivered into a video camera that was facing us, so that Rylance's back was to the audience throughout - an immense confidence in an actor's abilities.

So. I've seen it, I've read the reviews, I've listened to my friends and my own opinion and I've formed my Jerusalem verdict: possibly the best play I've ever seen, entertaining, funny, challenging and charming. I walked back to the tube, alone, and felt incredibly fortunate and full of joy. So why, then, did the snake return this morning? It's a mystery.

Six degrees of inadequacy

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

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

Weird weekend

It started off surreal, then went disorganised, then was brilliant and extravagant, then my dreams were complicated, I played the uke, and now I'm back at work. After a pretty good Thursday night, my expectations were for a full-on anticlimax on Friday, when Grania and I went to see Shunt's production of Money in a warehouse in Bermondsey. Control-freak that I try not to be, I'm not that good with surreal. I generally prefer to know exactly what is going on, and be able to change the course of things if necessary. I do, however, know that it is important for me to face up to the fact that I understand nothing and any concept I may have of controlling anything is an absurdist fantasy in itself. Thus, in the spirit of facing one's fears, I try to put myself in situations where I'm out of control as often as possible. Going to see Money would certainly count as one of those situations. Fortunately, when I admitted later to Grania that I spent most of the time thinking 'What the FUCK is going on?', she conceded that she'd had a similar reaction. And what was good was that it was really fun. At one point, we were clutching on to each other in the dark, wondering if we were going to be frisked by a terrifying actor dressed up as The Stig; a few minutes later, we were drinking free champagne and throwing plastic balls at other audience members across a giant perspex platform. The set, lighting and sound were absolutely phenomenal; the acting was fine; the plot was... absurd - but it was an interesting experience and I'd definitely head along to their next production with a spring in my step. Then we went to dinner at Village East which was perfect and not surreal in the least. Actually, I lie - the illustration to indicate the route the ladies' facilities was of an owl with a woman's head. That was a bit odd.

Saturday I slept a lot and spent an intense hour with Rodney Yee (via the medium of DVD) - the man really is a wonderful aberration and I still ache now. In the late afternoon, I headed into Covent Garden and met up with Luke for a New Year drink/dinner/more drink. We talked mostly about him, which is how he likes it, and it was really fun. I got home feeling very giggly and bought a new bed.

Then Sunday morning hit. I had set my alarm for 10am, and then woke up all perky at about 8am. Brilliant, I thought - what shall I do with my spare two hours? I had high hopes for organising my bathroom cabinets or something equally useful, but before the plan had solidified I had fallen back to sleep in a quasi-narcoleptic fashion, my brain desperate to avoid the task I'd identified. And, as so often happens when I'm asleep but semi-awake, I had vivid dreams, where a boy I liked was being horrible to me, and then I agreed to have all these random people back to my house for dinner, and they were all there and I was in the kitchen and Emily and Lucy were trying to help by preparing the starter but I got really really angry with them for stealing my thunder by handing out all the food, and I woke up feeling a mixture of sad about the boy, guilty about Emily and Lucy, and stressed about not having defrosted the lamb in time for the fictional dinner party. Honestly. Then I was running late for my ukulele workshop, so I went to that for two hours which was good as I learned to play Take Me Home, Country Road and Always Look On The Bright Side Of Life including the key change in the last chorus, which makes me sound so professional that perhaps my audience may forget about the fact that I can't get one of the intervals at all and have to sing extra-loudly to cover up that bit. Then I went back home and faffed, got excited about my new bed, got excited about my holiday, chatted on the phone to girls about boys and then went to bed and couldn't sleep. Now it's Monday, I'm back at work, the week stretches ahead, the weather is minging, it's too cold to go for a run and the prospect of the treadmill is not filling me with joy. Grumble grumble.

Children of the (Facebook) revolution

Warning to those of a sensitive nature, those in denial about the youth of today, or those likely to think that the behaviour of one or two teenagers equates to the behaviour and/or deepest desires of all young people, globally: clicking on the image to the left to embiggen it may seriously damage your health.

For all others: Oh. Emm. Gee. This is horrific and hilarious on so many levels. There is a full description of the scenario if you scroll down to below the scanned bit of paper, but to explain in brief: some girl ratted on her brother to their parents, and they grounded him. Desperate for revenge, he was going through her room and found a list she'd written of all the boys she knew and what she wanted to do with them. He posted the list on Facebook, and everyone in her school (and now millions of others) have seen it, singlehandedly making me thankful to be an only child. NOT THAT I HAVE EVER WRITTEN A LIST LIKE THIS and yes, the girl seems deeply unpleasant and in need of a bit of ego-crushing / life-lesson-learning, but wow. Not sure anyone deserves that intensity of humiliation when they're still at such a formative age. Could their relationship ever recover from this? Shudder. Laugh. Shudder.

I have just returned from a 40 minute run with Laura when I felt like someone had filled my lungs up with treacle. It was a lot harder than the 10k I did in 2008. It's so weird when that happens, isn't it? I ran along the Southbank for 45 mins on Monday and it was absolutely fine, then did 45 mins of cardio in the gym yesterday and quite enjoyed it, and then today I almost had a hernia on Southwark Bridge and had to stop outside M&S on Old Broad Street because I had a stitch. Sooooooooo cool. I am still in shock now. Yoga tomorrow, methinks.

Last night was a cultural highpoint. I went to see a modern reworking of Moliere's The Misanthrope on Panton Street and it was absolutely fantastic. I was totally prepared to hate it because it was a) in the West End and b) had celebrity cast members (Damian Lewis and Keira Knightley) but I was hooked from curtain up. The script, echoing the original, rhymed. Throughout. This was brilliant because it forced the audience to really, really listen - as a consequence, it was one of the quietest congregations I've ever enjoyed. It was also brilliant because it was massively clever - two hours of rhyming isn't easy, whatever the topic, but when it's also satirical, topical and believable, it's a huge technical and linguistic achievement. Most of the way through I sat there fuming that I hadn't done it first, but ten percent of the time I had to concede that it was way beyond my abilities. I got the jokes, sure, but I don't think I could have thought of them in the first place. Maybe in a few years... It's the first time I've ever left a play and bought the script in the foyer. In fact, the last time I bought anything in a foyer was the twin cassette of Starlight Express in the mid-eighties and I'm pretty sure my parents will have paid for that.

I suppose it resonated because, in some ways, the play's central premise is so close to what I battle with a lot - whether one should be open-minded and forgiving of humanity's failings or rail against them and fight for the right to be different. In the same way that the planetary YouTube clip I posted the other night made me feel tiny, culture like that makes me feel pleasingly irrelevant: people have been worrying about this stuff since the 17th century and they'll be worrying about it long after I'm gone. I'll do my best, bumble along, and eventually I'll feed the worms. Nice.

It wasn't just the script that was wowing, though. Damian Lewis was good, as expected, but Keira was a revelation. I really like her and think she's absolutely gorgeous, so I'm possibly not the most objective viewer, but her portrayal of a whining American superstar was confident, utterly convincing and, at times, very moving. She gave me goosebumps and I send her props. Also, if she's reading, I'd really like that black dress from the final scene in my size. Any way you can help? Thanx.

After the play, I went home and watched Celebrity Big Brother, which sadly grinds to an end this weekend. Last night's episode was absolutely fantastic and I was grinning compulsively as Alex Reid was covered in spray tan. Brilliant entertainment, a blast of MSG escapism, and anyone who's snobbish about reality TV knows where they can shove their superiority complex. Byeeeeeee.

Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow.

My remaining wisdom teeth are hurting. They keep waking me up in the middle of the night, and this morning I went to the dentist who said they are slightly infected and that the pain is not coming from where they are pushing through the gum (as I had thought) but from the infection that has crept under the skin: they are 'partially erupted' like a half-hearted volcano, leaving me open to evil outside contamination. So now I'm on anti-biotics, the ones that make you feel sick anyway, but if you drink alcohol, are guaranteed to make you vom. So that's fun. Five days without booze. January just took a turn for the worse. Poor me.

Yesterday was good though. I met up with Ses after work and we had a nice drink in the National bar, and then she left to go to the cinema and Grania arrived and we watched Our Class. When I book tickets for something, it's genuinely a fairly impulsive decision. I don't read reviews or previews, as I'm exceptionally easily-led in terms of theatre and film and, once I've embraced an opinion, tend not to be able to see or search for anything else. When it comes to the National Theatre, I don't think I've ever seen a bad production there (ones I've not enjoyed, yes, but actual wastes of money? No.), so I read a sentence or two about the plot, and then if I'm tickled, I book. I bought the seats to Our Class about four or five months ago, and when I went in last night, all I could remember is that it was something to do with Poland.

It was probably the most effective account of the events surrounding WWII that I've ever seen. Ten adult actors start off as school children in pre-war Poland, and we follow their lives for the next eight decades or so. Some are Jews, some are not. It was moving, instructive, horrifying and profound, and the use of modern dialogue and the lack of any attempt at Polish accents was particularly effective, giving the production a timelessness that was chilling. And the breadth of the play, something that would have been over-dramatized on film, was extraordinary - using the same actors for characters aged from primary school children to OAPs, without any changes in costume or make-up, no sets, the only props limited to ten wooden schoolchairs... it was minimalist but the script's scope and conviction left us all stricken. Understandably, Holocaust films often focus on the war years alone, but this play took the audience from twenty years before to fifty years after, leaving us in no doubt that the effects of the war are still being felt today. Lest we forget. Brilliant theatre, not perfect but highly recommended, £10 restricted view seats upstairs more than adequate. Go go go. Oh. I've just been to the NT website to get you your hyperlink and it turns out that last night was the end of the run. Sorry. You'll have to take my word for it. I'll try to give you more notice next time.

Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow.