Can a Cake be 'Too Cakey?'

It’s Tuesday evening, and I am bereft. Bereft, I tell you. For what is there to look forward to, now that The Great British Bake Off has disappeared in a flurry of icing sugar and showstoppers, a tsunami of tears over failed fondant fancies and with everyone flustered by frasiers and friands? Well, everyone apart from alarmingly calm Brendan, who finally cracked at the end, did some crying, and left an enigmatically unfinished sentence about what it would mean to him to win.

This seems to have been the year when everyone I spoke to was obsessed with Bake Off. We all had our favourites, and howled with indignation when they were kicked out. ‘AN ALL-MALE FINAL?’ I shrieked when Danny-the-NHS-Emergency-Consultant was unceremoniously shown the marquee tentflap. Bake Off madness! I had my worries that Mary Berry might be overcome with the testosterone – although given the finalists were John, James and Brendan, I figured she’d probably be able to remain upright.

I was rooting for James to win, as HOW many times was Brendan going to say it was his ambition ‘throughout’ to get to the final? He was starting to sound like he had designs on invading Poland by the end. Also, isn’t it everyone’s ambition throughout to get to the final? I doubt many people go into it thinking, ‘ooh, I’d love to get to week 4, then I’ll have to opt out because I’m shit at pork pies’.

Although I was only rooting for him to win because I thought John (my true fave) was too inconsistent to claim the Golden Bake Off Baguette. My friend Ed was of the opinion that James is totally the person at school who is all, ‘Whevs, hehehe, jokes and larks, I ain’t done no revision’ (the fact that he wasn’t a Cockney – or Russell Brand - notwithstanding), but secretly he was a total swot who craved star baker and that John was class. James’ crucial final bake was basically just a ton of cake with half of Tesco’s fruit selection on top of it. Which I could have made. (As a side note, I did love the idea of a cake being criticised for being ‘too cakey’, though.)

Ed, a man of noted taste, decreed that John must win, and lo, he did! Even though he was clearly the best chap there, (excellent at baking, pretty, clever, seems totally sweet – what more could you ask for - AND I loved his accent! Sigh), I found myself shrieking, ‘WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK?!’ when the winner was announced. I was worried Brendan was going to kill him and put him under his (gingerbread) patio. It was all too exciting – my friend Claire pointed out the genius piece of editing when ‘Brendan realised James’ showstopper cakes had gone wrong. He looked over to John, in the manner of a man playing Cardinal Wolsley in a BBC drama, as if he were the only figure between him and total domination; cut to three ravens in a tree, one of which flies away. Amazing.’ Accompanied by shots of rain dripping off the bunting – mirroring Brendan’s tears of angsty ambition.

I loved John’s comment about how people thought bakers were all drippy housewives, and actually they were all control freaks who were desperate to be loved; couldn’t help thinking that he’d come up with that based on 10 weeks of hanging out with Brendan, The Macaron Machiavelli.

My only technical problem with the show is that I can’t decide whether you should win based on having been really good throughout (ie James was star baker 3 times, Brendan 2, John only 1) or whether it should all be down to the final push, as it were. Although surely John deserved the win just for using a hairdryer on his showstopper icing. I think Mary and Paul both fancied him, and he had a total flirtathon with Sue, which probably helped. (Can we have Sue and John presenting next year? Mel could do the ‘history’ bits?)

And another unanswered question was, when they all had a group hug, are John and James really tall, or is Brendan incredibly dinky, and he’d actually made that gingerbread house the correct size for him to have as a holiday cottage?

Anyway, I must confess, I’d got so over-involved that I got rather emotional about it - especially when John said he just wanted to make his mum proud and his family all seemed rather unsupportive (the subtext of which appeared to be: I am disappointed you’re gay. Why are you doing all this baking? That’s TOTALLY GAY). I wanted to shake his mum and go, ‘Why are you not proud of him? He’s amazing! The whole bloomin’ country loves him!’ AND HE GOT A FIRST IN HIS LAW DEGREE. WHILST DOING ALL THIS BLOODY BAKING.

I’m still bemused by this idea that James is a fox, though. He just wears funny jumpers and is a bit Scottish. Maybe people who like baking shows have more homely tastes. ‘Daniel Craig? Oh no, I bet he couldn’t make a profiterole to save his life – give me one of those baking boys any day’. I’d also be a bit wary of having him as my doctor, given his ‘I’m making Turkish Delight for the first time! It’s the final, why not?’ approach. I have a vision of him trundling into surgery, merrily burbling, ‘Appendectomy? Well, yeah, haven’t tried that before today, but let’s just see how it goes! Oops, I’ve dropped a crucial bit on the floor’.

As a special treat, and to save us all from withdrawal symptoms, can we have a special bake off challenge as part of this year’s Apprentice, just so we can have Mary and Paul back on telly again being judgy? I think Mary could try flirting with Nick Hewer, and I’d like to see Paul (whom Claire has dubbed ‘the Christian Grey of Baking’) face off with Karren Brady. ‘Go on, have some of this bakewell tart, it’s delicious’. ‘No, Paul, I can’t, I can barely fit into this pencil skirt as it is!’ ‘Come on, Karren, live a little! I’ve kneaded this dough over here for you specially’ *Karren blushes violently and goes a bit wibbly*

Or Mary and Paul leading teams of rival bakers for a Comic Relief Apprentice? C’mon LordSirAlan Sugar – the clue’s right there in your name…

Here be Dragons

So, I am still living in The House of Tiny Tearaways (we have also added mice, and moths in the kitchen cupboards, to the household which is not very pleasant). One of my housemates was visibly horrified when I bludgeoned a moth to death on the wall with a magazine the other day. When you see 'em, kill 'em, that's my motto. I'm not taking the same approach with the mice, mind.

Anyway, some new David-the-housemate gems.
1/ He took a girl to see Shame on a date. (Award for least appropriate date movie choice ever?) I asked him if he knew what it was about before he went and he said yes. It was a second date – they unsurprisingly didn’t make it to a third.

2/ I came home the other night to find him at the table in the sitting room, constructing a number of dragons (and a wizard) from small pieces of coloured card in a kit. I was so bemused, I couldn’t even form the question as to why he was making them. He mocked my choice of TV viewing matter (True Blood – I know it’s schlocky, but I like it), which caused me to retort, ‘I AM NOT THE ONE MAKING DRAGONS OUT OF BITS OF CARD, DAVID’. His reply, ‘I’m making the wizard now, actually’. He really is a genius. He’s just posted on our house FB page that we now have a MarioKart trophy. I’d kind of like to live in his head for a day, it must be quite an intriguing place to be.

I also tried watching the much-hyped Girls on TV and then Tiny Child Ben walked in at the beginning of the second episode when they’re having very noisy sex. I don’t think he believed me when I said it was ‘the new Sex and the City’, especially as I was so flustered that I tried to turn over to Newsnight… Living with 6 people does have its drawbacks.

Bonding with Daniel

What did you do with the extra hour on Sunday morning, then? I, of course, woke up at 7.40am (so, in theory, I’d had a lie in, if I was assuming it was 8.40am Old Time), my brain having amused itself by creating another Weird Celebrity Dream. This time, I was going out with Daniel Craig. Yes!! I’ve upgraded from having awkward chats with members of Take That in the back of a taxi and I’ve got a celebrity boyfriend! And not just any Celeb BF, actual JAMES BOND. Wow, my psyche is really upping the ante here, I thought. Before wondering, in the dream, (not unreasonably) what on earth Daniel Craig was doing going out with me (see, even when unconscious, I’m realistic about my place in the pecking order). And then having the terrible realisation – on top of not feeling A-listy, beautiful and interesting enough to go out with Daniel Craig – and once I'd stopped giggling wildly like a nervous chimp at the idea that he fancied me, that, um, we had nothing in common. And that actually he was quite dull.

No offence to the real-life DC, by the way, who by all accounts is charming, lovely and a jolly good bloke.

The dream culminated in Everyone’s Favourite Blue-Eyed Bond inexplicably throwing those little paper cups (you know the ones that you get jam in when you have a cream tea in a Cornish cafe? Those) at me and making me catch them. He’d filled them with honey instead of jam, though (no doubt as part of the numerous Skyfall product placement deals, 007 isn't allowed to have jam on his toast of a morning and has to have honey instead). Of course I was failing miserably to catch them, because my hand/eye co-ordination is non-existent. ‘You have to WATCH IT’, he kept saying, lobbing another one at me from a different angle. I got the hang of it just as I woke up. So, hey, maybe we could’ve made it work after all. I am now even more keen to check out Skyfall to see if JB woos a lady by throwing small paper cups of honey at her to test her reflexes.

If I Could Turn Back Time

I know in theory every year elapses at the same rate, of a day at a time for 365 days, unless it’s a leap year. But this year seems to have shot by with Usain Bolt-like speed. Thus it’s nearly eight months since I moved back down from the wind and rain-lashed streets of Edinburgh to the wind and rain-lashed streets of London. The weather has given me a sense of continuity, but pretty much everything else has changed.


Viz:

Employment – I’m now officially referring to myself as a freelancer again, as, praise be! I’ve managed to get a couple of contracts under my belt, after a very shaky start. Having not been unemployed for a very long time, I can confirm that being without a job, in a recession, is a dispiriting business. I found myself wandering the supermarket aisles, looking for produce with yellow ‘reduced price’ stickers on them and scrutinising the price of everything in order to shave off a few pennies here and there. It’s like being a pensioner, but with a smaller cardigan collection and fewer pairs of sensible shoes. Despite this, the minute I had an office to go to every day and a monthly wage packet, I was once again frittering cash on fancy Finest pasta, spending crazy amounts of money getting my hair dyed at the hairdresser instead of doing it myself and drinking horribly overpriced cocktails with my friends. How is it that you can charge up to £12 a go for just mixing together a couple of spirits and some fruit juice and sticking on a bit of ‘garnish’? People will look back in years to come and say, ‘No wonder entire economies fell apart, when they merrily spent a tenner a go on a perfectly ordinary drink’.

Cocktails are the new designer handbags: we buy them because everyone else is. I think, after years of finding them glamorous, I might finally be finding them unconscionably profligate. It may be time to just congregate round the telly at different friends’ houses each week with a bottle of Merlot and a DVD.

I’m hoping the contract work keeps appearing, as I’m enjoying doing a Littlest Hobo routine round different publishers, dipping in and out of things and catching up with lots of friends in the process.

Fitness – once I had the luxury of an ongoing cashflow, I decided to get myself a new Personal Trainer. I kidded myself that I was doing sterling work in the gym, whilst knowing that my natural tendency is still to give up the minute I get bored or tired and that any workout I undertake is generally at about 1/3 of the effort of a PT session. A sentence I never thought I’d be writing two years ago: I missed being turned into a sweaty, exhausted wreck once a week through the medium of exercise. And also, when you’ve had what amounts to an ersatz boyfriend for a year and a half, you kind of miss that too.

So I requested a new trainer (from my favourite receptionist at Regents Park Virgin Active, who knows my name and greets me merrily every time I see her. Again, I say, the receptionist at the gym knows my name. That would never have happened pre-Edinburgh). She suggested Geezerboy Mikey (that’s not how she referred to him, of course). I have now got over the feeling that I’m cheating on Cheerful James (much like when you change hairdressers, you feel guilty for ages afterwards), as I huff and puff my way around the gym, even into the ‘weights room’ where I am surrounded by grunting men with necks as wide as my thighs. I have done boxing, I have done skipping. I have done biking, rowing, running on a treadmill and throwing a variety of weighted balls at Geezerboy. He calls me ‘darling’, ‘love’ and sometimes even ‘sweetie’. We have progressed from a formal handshake at the end of each session to a formal handshake and a kiss on the cheek. I bloody love him.

The other week I attempted a PUNCH class (gym’s capitals, not mine), as it turns out I really like hitting things. I wouldn’t say my technique is in any way good, but I’m certainly enthusiastic about it. I got paired up with a really tall German girl, who’d never done it before. I ended up feeling like David Haye when he had to fight that 7’ 6” Russian bloke, whilst she ended up punching pads that were roughly level with her waist. My shoulders were killing me for three days straight. I can’t imagine she felt any benefit whatsoever.

I really miss all the walking I did in Edinburgh, but have been trying to force myself to leave the house early enough each day to get in at least half an hour’s walk to work. The diet is faring a lot less well, given that the return of my social life has also meant a return to drinking too much wine and an over-reliance on chips as a food group. I knew it was too good to last.

Home – I have moved house three times since December. I am fucking sick to death of moving house. All my stuff is now in storage, apart from six pairs of jeans, a few dresses, a huge number of stripey tops, five pairs of shoes (two of them trainers), a DAB radio and a laptop. Plus a really random assortment of books.

There has been a lot of faffing about with my Streatham flat. My tenants wanted to move out. Then they didn’t. Then they were applying for a visa for Australia and would definitely move out. Then they got turned down, so they wanted to stay put again. It’s been like the hokey fucking cokey all year. Annoyingly, they can ask to be let out of the (18-month) contract early, but I can’t give them notice till the end of the year.

So I decided that I’d take the radical step, after five years of living on my own, of moving back into a house share, as I can’t afford to live alone. My criteria were: Streatham; about £700 a month – the irony that I used to have an enormous 2-bed flat all to myself for that amount of money was not lost on me – and a bathroom of my own. With bills preferably thrown in, and definitely a dishwasher. I hit up Spareroom.com and found a likely place which had a nice tiled hallway, a bay windowed sitting room, a garden, and… six housemates. Six! That’s practically a sports team! (Well, it is if you’re playing five-a-side). I emailed the landlord, and fixed up a visit for that night. A chap showed me round and I said hello to three housemates (there was another chap, and a couple, moving in the week after me). The house was massive, my room was fine (up in the eaves, so apart from the potential for a lot of non-rock headbanging, quite atmospheric, and quiet) and my en-suite shower looked perfectly presentable. Dishwasher? Tick. Cleaner once a week? Tick. All bills, including cleaner, Sky and Wi-fi? Tick. ‘I’ll take it’, I said. Job done, moved in five days later. Moving this time consisting of putting all my remaining possessions into a variety of plastic and canvas bags, throwing them in the back of my friend’s car and then throwing them on the floor of the new room, where 85% of them remain unpacked.

Living with six other people feels kind of like being in an episode of Fresh Meat, crossed with an episode of This Life. My house mates are:

Chris – a very tall and affable Northern Irish man, who is keen on most sports, but especially cycling. Thus, I am now fairly au fait with the Tour de France, and why Chris Hoy is built like a tank, whilst Bradley Wiggins is built like a pencil with all the wood shaved off.

Asha – a petite South African girl who is keen on Holby City and cooking very elaborate meals for her boyfriend.

Kim ‘n’ David – an insanely good looking couple. Kim luckily leaves for work at 6.30am, meaning that I don’t have to feel spectacularly ugly when faced with her in the kitchen of a morning. Which is a relief. David is Canadian and has the best tan I have ever seen. Kim is a fan of Britain and Ireland’s Next Top Model, which means that I can forgive her for her beauty, in favour of bonding over shit telly.

Ben – goes to the gym a lot, and is very well turned out (but has an annoying habit of going to the gym without taking his keys, meaning I have to let him back in the house. Take your keys! I am not your mum!) Although, as he only left uni two years ago, I am, indeed, old enough to be his mum. He is the slowest eater I have ever encountered. And it was, of course, Ben who I had to beg for help when my bedroom door locked itself yesterday morning when I went for a shower. Thank God I go to the bathroom in my PJs, not just a towel. He very kindly phoned the landlord for me, who turned up with a spare key half an hour later. It was all mortifying.

David. David is, I think, my current favourite, for his all-out weirdness (he does coding for some IT company, and plays a lot of computer games. Enough said). Conversations we have had so far:

David: Hi. I think there are masses of mosquito larvae in a load of stagnant water in the wheelbarrow in the garden. Do you want to see?
Me [spluttering slightly]: Um, OK.
[After we have gazed at about a million wriggly black things in the wheelbarrow and discussed whether we should use bleach or petrol to get rid of them. PETROL?!]
David: Do you want to kill them?
Me: No! You spotted them! Also, you're a man! That's your job!
[David potters off with the most toxic bleach we can find in the kitchen cupboard]

I return to the house and am about to put my key in the door. The door magically opens. Behind it is David, looking a bit lurksome.

Me: Oh, hi! Er, thanks!
David: Well, I was on my way to bed, and saw you coming up the drive, so I thought I'd open the door for you.
[It was, at this stage, 8.30pm, so I’m not sure if 'going to bed' is a euphemism].

I had nicked a bit of mirror from the utility room that looked as though it'd come off a wardrobe that David had dismantled, as I had no full-length mirror in my room. It'd been there for a few days, so I assumed it was surplus to requirements.
David: What are you going to use that mirror for?
Me: Umm, looking at myself?

David: I'm going on holiday tonight.
Me: Oh! How nice. Where?
David: Ibiza.
Me [goggling at idea of David in Ibiza]: Really? Who with?
David: On my own. I'm going to a yoga retreat.
Me: Wow! What kind of yoga do you do?
David: Well, the bendy, stretchy kind.

This then offered up my favourite exchange in a long while, in the week when David was away between Chris and Ben.
Ben: Have you heard from David?
Chris: No. Which means he's either having fun, or he's dead. I honestly have no idea which.

This morning:
David: Heard you got locked out of your room yesterday. In a towel. Hur-hur-hur
Me: Um, yes. Luckily the landlord came round quite quickly, otherwise I’d have had to spend all day in the house, like an invalid, in my pajamas.
David: You could have kicked the door down!
Me: That’s a rather expensive way of solving the problem. And I think I’d have broken an ankle.

It's kind of like being back at uni, but with a TV that's three times the size, and better quality booze. Well, also I have my own bathroom and am listening to Xfm and Radio 2 instead of Radio 1, but otherwise little has changed. I might start writing essays on a Sunday night for the full effect.

Medalling with the Olympics

So, how are we all feeling about what I insist on calling (in homage to Siobhan Sharpe from the sublime Twenty Twelve), the Jubilympics? Since we unexpectedly won the bid seven years ago, I spent six years railing at the mad expense of it all, and furious that, if there is actually all this cash swilling around the country, it couldn’t be used to fix the whole of Britain (and then buy some Greek islands, so we could all go on a free holiday). Instead of hosting a really glorified sports day, which apparently only eighteen people and William and Kate are permitted to attend.

Then, during the last year, I resigned myself to the pointless expense, the terrible mascots, the awful font they’ve used for everything, the garish colours and the inevitable disappointment when we don’t win all the things we’ve been assured we’re dead good at, and thought, ‘OK, fine; I shall tolerate this sports day, and just moan a lot about how difficult it is to get around London’. Then, of course, faced with a year-long barrage of articles about sports people, who are, let’s face it, in general tremendously easy on the eye, my Wall of Sporting Disinterest was dismantled, brick by brick.

And then it happened: the broom came to sweep away any lasting cynicism. The opening ceremony. ‘What will it be like?’ we all wondered, impressed by everyone’s adherence to ‘save the surprise’ and not instantly take to Twitter the minute the dress rehearsal had finished. We’d been told there’d be a load of farm animals, and some stuff about the Industrial Revolution. It sounded… weird. Weren’t people supposed to dance about and wave some flags in formation, or something? And then just blow all the remaining cash on fireworks?

Instead, what we got was a global advert for British eccentricity. A show that started off in Hobbiton, then morphed into an industrialized SF epic creating The Rings, followed up with hallucinogenic dancing nurses, the whole of Top of the Pops from 1965-1999, mashed up with an episode of Hollyoaks, culminating in The Hunger Games. I totally expected all the Young Torch Bearers at the end to come on in chariots, with flaming capes, then try to kill each other. Or kill Seb Coe for the world’s dullest speech. You’ve had SEVEN YEARS to write a speech! Danny Boyle’s just thrown in bits of Kes, winged cyclists, a giant baby and the Arctic Monkeys! Come up with something more entertaining! They should’ve got Boris to do it. And it’s not often I think that. People around the world who’ve never been to Britain must think we’re all certifiable. But what bonkers fun. And credit to everyone involved for just going along with it – not least the Queen, who finally proved once and for all that she’s got a brilliant sense of humour.

I watched it at my friend Claire’s, who’d done us a British menu of shepherd’s pie, jelly and ice-cream and patriotic red, white and blue M&Ms. I was totally sold on the Glorified Sports Day from that moment on.

I’ve always been a huge fan of acquiring random snippets of knowledge about sport, and the Jubilympics is absolutely ideal for this. No idea who anyone in swimming is, other than Michael Phelps and Rebecca Adlington? Spend an hour glued to Mark Foster and Clare Balding on the Beeb, and you’ll find yourself name-dropping all of the British men’s team and their World Record-beating efforts; debating whether or not a fifteen year old Chinese girl can swim 50 metres faster than an American man under her own steam and cheering on one of our chaps (Liam Tancock) for studying ballet in order to improve his backstroke.

And of course, following on from the Tour de France, which I chose an auspicious year to take an interest in, I now know at least five cyclists, when previously I only knew Chris Hoy and Mark Cavendish (the latter of whom I have actually met, when he came in for a book pitch meeting. Very nice chap, as I recall, albeit a bit bemused by the idea of doing a book, I think). But now, there is swishy-haired, intriguingly neurotic Victoria Pendleton. There is Chris Froome. And of course there is the all-round cycling colossus that is BRADLEY WIGGINS. He is a ginger twig. He has amazing sideburns. He is hilarious. (Standing in front of a wildly cheering crowd, having made history by winning the Tour de France, he blithely announced, ‘Right, now we’re going to draw the raffle’). Best of all, he seems bemused by a nation’s sudden adoration and our desire to give him a knighthood. And probably a gold bicycle, and an array of unlikely advertising deals and a spread in OK! And a massive hug. And loads of pies (if ever there were a man who looked as if he needed feeding up, it’s Bradley Wiggins). Gold pies! Yes.

I can only imagine how excited I’m going to get when there’s a bit of athletics action and I can suddenly know about discus throwers and pole vaulters. Do we have any good javelin throwers nowadays? Why was it that we used to be really good at the javelin? Perplexing.

The only downer is that, as many people have pointed out, despite the fact that we've paid for it all with our tax dollars, none of this is ours. I’ve referred to it as the Jubilympics not merely because I like it as a word, but also because LOCOG get in a massive huff if you use the word ‘Olympics’, and team it with, well, nearly anything that could be vaguely sporty, or medally, or summery, or even 2012-y (apparently Twenty Twelve the TV series had to be called that because LOCOG wouldn’t allow them to call it ‘2012’), if you’re not an official sponsor.

A few weeks ago, I was doing copy for a book with a Jubilympic theme. This is, honest to God, the email that I got telling me what I could and couldn’t put on my ad:

The Olympics are coming around fast and LOCOG are monitoring all advertising and digital comms to see if anyone is using any of the following combination of words.

Not at all

Olympics
Paralympics

Category 1

Games
2012
Twenty twelve
Two Thousand and Twelve

Category 2

gold
silver
bronze
London
Medals
Sponsor
Summer

If the unauthorised party has (a) used two words from category 1 (e.g. ‘Games 2012’) or (b) used one word from category 1 and category 2, a Court is likely to find it has infringed LOCOG’s rights. This means that some surprising combinations are banned – e.g. ‘Summer 2012’. It has not been tested but you may be in trouble if you imply any association with the Olympics to promote your service/product eg. ‘David hopes to run in 2012’.

The same rules apply to any business which is not an official sponsor of the Olympics or have not already sought permission from LOCOG to use such terms.

Apparently, LOCOG own ACTUAL SUMMER. So if I announce any sporting intentions in a public place for the next few weeks, I shall be restricted to non-Olympic endeavours only, such as darts. Or croquet.

It’s no wonder our medals tally isn’t what it should be and apparently we're the least active nation in Europe when it's this hard to even talk about sport.

Right! Time for some judo. Apparently Gemma Gibbons has won a semi-final with a 'golden score'. No, me neither.

Not Tom Hardy, Not Russell Crowe

It’s ‘summer’ (as in, it’s June, I’ve only just turned off the heating and we’re alternating between blinding sunshine and uncomfortable heat [yesterday] and floods [today]). As a side note, next year, can we just segue straight from spring to autumn? They’re both nice seasons, which I like and feel comfortable dressing for. I still haven’t bought any summer clothes, as I’m working on the assumption that I won’t need any, as the only holiday I’m going on is to Edinburgh. Where, as we’ve established, there are many weather conditions, few of which involve sun or extremes of heat. I’m also assuming that as Britain is staging a monster sporting event, for which we’ve been preparing for years, it will piss it down with rain for most of July and August. Ergo, I can stick with my customary jeans-and-Uniqlo-top combo and avoid the sales and buying anything new to wear till autumn. ‘Dressing for summer’ will merely involve either carrying an umbrella or leaving it hopefully at home.


I digress. It being ‘summer’, the film studios assume that our brains have gone melty in the heat, and we can only cope with effects-heavy blockbusters. Which is fine, but why do they all have to be such a monumental waste of time, money and effort?

First up, I bought into the hype (the PR and marketing team deserve a massive award for creating so much expectation and desire for something so dull) and went to see Prometheus. I wanted to go and see it at the Imax, as I’ve never seen anything there, but it was sold out, so Tottenham Court Road Odeon it was, with 3D specs which they now charge you extra for! As well as charging you extra because it’s in 3D in the first place! And then they offend you further by showing that bloody advert about how cinemas might die if we all download films, or watch DVDs or something and just turn into huge sheds with seats and cobwebs in. Stop doing this when I am a/ IN A CINEMA, THEREFORE SUPPORTING CINEMA and b/ you have just fleeced me massively for doing so. It does rather make me want to watch a DVD with popcorn I’ve made myself and no-one either kicking the back of my seat, talking through the film, or constantly checking their texts and emails on their phone, lighting up a surrounding area of at least four foot as they do it, all of which is immensely annoying. Make adverts about that instead, please, it would really increase my enjoyment of spending too much money in your ‘multiplex’.

Anyway, back to Prometheus. I have the dubious pleasure of having seen all four Alien films (yes! Even the one with Winona Ryder in it). I think I’ve even seen Alien Vs Predator on TV (which, for the record, was schlocky fun). Prometheus is an event because it’s the first time director Ridley Scott has ‘returned to the Alien universe’. Even though he’s spent the last six months protesting that, really, this film has bugger-all to do with Alien. I’ve no idea why he bothered with that, given that IT IS AN EXACT REMAKE OF ALIEN. Albeit with nicer effects and scenery, but made by a man over 70 who has clearly forgotten how to make a film that makes any sense in terms of plot or characters.

So, when you decide to make an homage to Alien, here are the things you need to include:

Big spaceships!

Robots being creepy and having their heads torn off!

Sticky substances that will probably corrode your clothes!

Unpleasant things either going into, or out of people!

Shadowy people doing things for nefarious means!

A tough woman running around in her underwear for quite a lot of the film!

A crew who, whilst they only number 17, you only get to know 5 of and there are a suspicious number of deaths! (Are some of them dying more than once?)

Shit apparently being blown to smithereens, without actually killing the one guy you want/need dead!

For Prometheus, you will also need to rip off the costume department of much-derided hot sci-fi mess The Fifth Element, and have supposedly feisty heroine Noomi Rapace running around in what is effectively a bandage boob tube and a pair of bandage pants, for about 20 minutes. Having just given herself a pretty hardcore abortion/caesarean. Because having your heroine run around in a skimpy vest and some pants was, like, sooo 1979 and repressive. We couldn’t even see her abs! Practically Victorian. No, in the future, female archeologists will feel so body confident that they’ll want to take off nearly all their clothes and dash about, covered in blood and trying not to faint with the horror of it all for ages, rather than, you know, making their first post-operative priority finding an intergalactic dressing gown or something.

You will also want to include a diverse mob of crew members who have apparently never met each other before they’ve been shoved on a massive space tank and put into cryostasis for two years, (other than nearly-naked Naomi and her boyfriend, who was obviously supposed to be played by Tom Hardy. But he either had ‘scheduling issues’ or read the script beforehand, and so didn’t do it. So they’ve hired a man who looks exactly like Tom Hardy. But isn’t him. Shame, as I always fancy Tom Hardy). The crew also haven’t thought to ask what mission they’re being recruited for. Or even where they’re going. Was it like a press-gang thing, and Charlize Theron just came up behind each of them, banged them on the head and then stuck them in a pod, after taking all their clothes other than their pants? If you can be put into cryostasis for two years, why do you have to just be in your underwear? Why can’t you wear something proper? Another of Ridley’s unanswered mysteries.

The crew includes a geologist who is admirably straightforward about why he is there (‘I just fucking love rocks’), which also, of course, means that he is doomed, despite his ginger Mohican and intriguing tattoos. One assumes, despite his appearance, that he’s one of the clever ones, as when they go explorin’, he has some laser gizmos for mapping the large construction that they’ve wandered into. However, despite the fact he controls the mapping gizmos, he manages to get lost trying to get back to the Mothership from the large construction. Call the gizmos back and make them show you the way out! Or, the large construction being revealed to be, essentially, a giant interstellar croissant, would you not just go back the way you came?

But we need him to get lost in a Scooby Doo way, because then he can be killed off along with the film’s most annoying character, the biologist, played as a Shaggy-style stoner dimwit, by Rafe Spall. I have no idea why they cast Rafe Spall, and then made him do a very unconvincing American accent. There are tons of American actors, employ one of them instead. Whilst Noomi is supposed to be English. Just make her character Scandinavian, it’s fine. No-one cares. If you’ve spent a trillion dollars, even on a seemingly really vague mission, I fail to see why you’d employ the universe’s thickest biologist. Rafe bimbles about doing nothing much, until faced with, them being on a planet two full years away in a spacecraft from where he lives, a lifeform that’s, well, alien. Ergo, he knows nothing about how it’s likely to behave. I’d be standing well back, or at least have my helmet fully up for protection. Not Rafe, though. No, he decides that the alien – which looks, if you’re being kind, like an albino cobra with the underside of a stingray grafted onto it; or, if you’re a feminist film critic pointing out Ridley Scott’s apparent issues with women, like a vicious fanny on a stick – is very beautiful. And goes towards it cooing as though he’s just found a big basket of kittens.

Naturally, the fanny on a stick attacks Rafe for being an idiot and he falls victim to the first ‘unpleasant thing going into or out of someone’ episode.

It was a bit unclear to me whether it was him or the ginger geologist who then randomly got reanimated as an Alien zombie (which no-one in the film really comments on, despite the ensuing spat having taken out about 7 of the crew’s members. It’s fine, we hadn’t been introduced to them, so we needn’t worry that they’re dead). We also don’t need to worry about who/what killed off Not Tom Hardy (probably because he’s not Tom Hardy); why they’ve travelled two years in a spacecraft, yet choose to park it about a mile away from their chosen spot, thus meaning they have to commute back and forth in some not very high tech-looking space golf buggies, getting caught up in sand storms, etc. But not seeing Zombie Rafe Spall approaching from a mile away, thus giving them time to shut the door and stop him taking out half the crew. And why, when faced with a huge, crashing spacecraft falling vertically on top of you, you don’t, if you’re Charlize Theron, run away to the side instead of straight ahead. Or why, when you’ve driven your really-tiny-in-comparison-with-the-Engineers’-ship ship into the side of the latter at great speed, there is still loads of it left afterwards, and it’s all working perfectly well, thanks.

You’ll also need to reference your original 70s classic by including a sequence that makes viewers of a certain age think not, ‘ooh, that’s a lovely effect’ but, ‘ooh, someone watched a lot of Jean Michel Jarre spectacles back in the day, didn’t they?’

Oh, it was all exhausting. And lacking in suspense, or shocks, or intrigue. What will happen when they wake up the Engineer? Well, he’s been asleep for over 2,000 years, or something (I’d given up caring about the timeframe ages ago; it could have been two billion), so of course instead of waking up and going, ‘ooh, some lovely chums to chat to! At last! Let me tell you the secrets of the universe!’, being eleven foot tall, built like a marble tower block and feeling like a bear that’s been dragged out of hibernation, he’s really bloody grumpy and snaps everyone’s heads off. So, by the end of it, they hadn’t answered any of the questions they’d set up and were clearly angling for a bloody sequel. However, Michael Fassbender does ‘creepy robot’ brilliantly and is still acting everyone off the screen even when he’s reduced to being just a head in a bag.

In other news, I went to see Avengers: AGM, or whatever it was called. Again, boredom on a stick, just with loads more explosions, and I’ve now decided I fancy Tom Hiddleston a bit. And that it’s the law that everyone, regardless of gender, has to fancy Scarlett Johansson. The film also stars Chris Hemsworth, who, as Thor, is equipped with a massive hammer.

Hemsworth seems to be building a career around raiding the tool shed. He lost out on wielding some tools in The Hunger Games to brother Liam (perhaps bows and arrows aren’t strictly ‘tools’), but within the month, there he was in Snow White and the Huntsman, clutching an axe. Also doing battle with: a drink problem; depression because he was a widower; a Scottish accent; trying to make people care about Kristen Stewart; the fact most of the film was ripped off from Lord of the Rings; a load of famous dwarves in an unconvincing Technicolor fairyland complete with CGI badgers and foxes (just film some real ones!) and a big stag that spent all of its screentime projecting, ‘I AM NOT ASLAN. NO, I AM AN ENTIRELY DIFFERENT GOD-LIKE ANIMAL BEING. ALSO, I AM NOT THAT STAG IN HARRY POTTER.’

Anyway, it is diverting, if, like me, you enjoy watching a woman deranged by her own beauty and power turning into a flock of crows, and being a bit like a fantasy version of Loose Women (ie constantly bitching and raging about other women being younger, prettier and nicer than you).

It does make me worry about what Chris Hemsworth’s next film will be, given that it will have to include a/ an accent that is not his own (heavy Australian) and b/ tools.

Chris Hemsworth’s Agent: Hi Chris!

Chris Hemsworth, Wielder of Tools and Accents: G’day, mate!

CHA: Er, g’day! Yes. Hi! Anyhoo, I’ve got a lovely new job offer for you! It’s got all your favourite things in it! It’s got an unwieldy title, you’ll be doing an accent, AND it’s got tools! It’s soooo you!

CHWoTaA: Ripper! What is it, cobber?

CHA [brightly]: It’s Avengers Self Assemble: The Ikea Story! You’ll be playing a character called Bjorn! There’ll probably be a sequel, which will involve the pun ‘Bjorn Again’!

CHWoTaA [raising Aussie eyebrow quizzically]: Sounds good, but what are the tools, mate?

CHA [quietly]: A really big set of Allen keys.

CHWoTaA [with a heavy sigh]: Where do I sign?

I'll Have What She's Having

Despite the ongoing brilliance of Caitlin Moran’s How to be a Woman, these are sad times for ladies, I find. The daily tyranny of the Daily Mail’s online sidebar of shame, cataloguing who is a tiny bit fatter/thinner/happier/more sad/wearing too much and ‘covering up their curves’/wearing a bikini and ‘flaunting their curves’. ‘Curves’, of course, being newspaper and magazine shorthand for ‘unfortunate lady measurements that mean you will never be Gisele, and which, therefore, should make you constantly neurotic about your looks’. Although, confusingly, in fash mags, Gisele is described as having ‘curves’ because in model terms, she has a semblance of a cleavage. There is also a subtext that because she is Brazilian, and all Brazilian women are apparently enviably ‘curvy’ – the Daily Mail struggles with this because they are both curvy and foreign, obviously – she goes in and out in a way that is remarkable. To my eyes, she is as curvy as an ironing board, but there we go. Model standards have changed. I count myself lucky to have spent my teenage years admiring the original ‘supers’, such as Cindy Crawford and Naomi Campbell, who had curves that no-one could dispute. That shot of them all together in George Michael’s Freedom video makes them look like Amazonians compared with the current crop of Avatar-tall coathangers striding down the catwalks.


Other evidence that these are sad times for ladies: Fifty Shades of Grey being dubbed ‘mummy porn’. Well, that and the fact that such a stratospherically bad book has sold nearly 400,000 copies. In a week. Actual, physical copies, not even ‘I could be reading George Orwell for all you know’ Kindle copies! Have you no shame, women of Britain? Given the acres of coverage about what a phenomenon it is, it’s in many ways a good thing that someone came up with the snappy moniker of ‘mummy porn’ for it. (Perhaps this is one of the very reasons that it has totally taken over newspapers, radio and the interwebs – people love being able to use the word ‘porn’ but undercut it and make it seem tame by teaming it with the word ‘mummy’). After all, if they hadn’t come up with that, they’d have had to call it ‘embarrassingly poorly written erotic literature’, which isn’t nearly as catchy. And takes you four times as long to type.

‘Mummy porn’ annoys me in so many ways. Why not ‘mum porn’ for starters? Because women, even mums, for heaven’s sake, have to be infantilised. ‘Mummy porn’ makes it sound like a silly, giggly pleasure. Like sneaking a cream bun when you’re on a diet. Nothing to do with actually getting your rocks off and then subsequently having sex. Probably quite kinky sex, based on the BDSM themes of the books. It’s also, what, porn for middle aged women? Based on what? The dubious ‘heroine’ is in her early 20s. Are blokes reading it? Generally if something’s selling that many copies they are (even if only out of curiosity). What are they supposed to think of the fact that they’re enjoying ‘mummy porn’? What about the legions of women who are reading it who aren’t mums? Is it going to transform them into Laura Ashley skirt-wearing women, fretting about their non-existent children and whether or not they’ve got their ‘pre-baby body’ back? (Again, per the Daily Mail, this is all mums are supposed to be concerned with). It’s all so fecking patronising, like erotica for women can’t really be termed proper porn; that proper porn can only be created by men, for men.

Ugh. Anyway, the thing that made me particularly sad for ladies today was hearing that Nora Ephron had died. Will there ever be another romcom as good as When Harry Met Sally? I could still happily watch that film at least twice a year. It’s brilliant. And judging by the happy relationships of quite a few of my friends who have got together with their best male chums, it clearly had a lasting effect on my generation. I persist in going to see modern romcoms, in the hopes that they will make me feel as warm, fuzzy and hopeful of falling in love as When Harry Met Sally does. Unfortunately, writing them appears to be a lost art. Studios seem to spend all the money on hiring whoever is in them instead of investing in a really corking script. Which means that now we have Jennifer Aniston and her Hair (which I think gets paid a separate fee), just with a different leading man each time. She stands/sits/walks and we look at her hair. And we think, ‘Why is Jennifer Aniston deemed to be our romantic role model? Does anyone still want to be Jennifer Aniston? Her hair is really boring. I am sick of her face. I am sick of the fact that she never says anything interesting in films. Or not in films. At all. I find her utterly emotionally unengaging. Oh god, why won’t she leave me alone?’ I feel persecuted by Jennifer Aniston’s blandness.

My most recent foray into romcommery was The Five Year Engagement. I like Emily Blunt (she seems nice and down to earth, and a laugh). It has a chap called Jason Segel in it, who I think I’ve probably seen in other things. He looks to be tall, with a nice face (I have such low standards! Seriously, why am I still single? I’d probably be happy with someone of average height, with a nice face! Where are they?) Tall, nice-faced Jason Segel wrote the film, which is perhaps where its problems start. Women know what they want from a romcom – a nice man, a likeable heroine, some reasons for the two to be apart, then a big finish in which the man sets out all the reasons he loves the woman in a dramatic speech – usually involving a combination of rain, airports or train stations and/or one of them turning up somewhere massively inappropriate, like in the middle of the Leveson enquiry when the other is presenting evidence, or at the Olympics, right before Tom Daley is about to do his last dive, which might get him a gold medal, something like that. She goes gooey and says, ‘I love you too’. We all melt a bit, wishing life were actually like that. The end. That’s why women should write romcoms. Men like films in which cars/bridges/The Empire State Building blow up and lots of other men go ‘grr’ or beat each other to a bloody pulp. They do not like seeing romcoms, ergo they are not well versed in their tropes.

Therefore, despite Lovely Emily Blunt, The Five Year Engagement marks a new low in romcoms in that it seemed to contain neither rom nor com. For two hours! It’s rare that you see a film and think, ‘That should have had an hour taken out of it’. They made arranging a wedding seem akin, in terms of negotiations and compromise, to the Northern Ireland Peace Process. When a friend of mine got engaged in February, and is getting hitched at the end of September. In a church. With a marquee in a field. All of that – proper, organisational stuff, which requires both time and effort. Done, in six months.

The obstacles to them getting married are:

They move, because Emily Blunt has been offered a really good job, from San Francisco to somewhere which snows a lot (the five years that elapse are demonstrated by shots of snow, interspersed with shots of green-leaved trees. That’s pretty much it). This is not, in itself, much of a hindrance. Pick a date in Spring! Or not, I mean, you might want to wear a big cape or something and have a Narnia theme.

Emily Blunt has a better job than Jason Segel when they move to Snowsville. Jason Segel gets a job, but feels it is beneath him. (He is a fancypants chef, who ends up in a less fancypants place). So, do it for six months and then find another job, Jase! That’s what people do! No, Jason decides to be miserable and resentful at Emily having a better job than him and forcing him to move to Snowsville. He also grows the world’s worst stuck-on moustache and beard combo, and takes up hunting, making homebrew and wearing hideous knitwear. Again – a shave, an outfit change and drinking proper booze instead would sort that out. No need to stop planning the wedding.

He becomes so miserable that he has to move back to San Francisco, and break up with Emily. (This, conceivably, is actually a bar to them getting married). They both have to have terrible new relationships, to prove how much they should be with each other. Emily’s is with her boss, played by Rhys Ifans. He is a creepy, patronising, controlling professor. We know he is creepy because he spends quite a lot of the time wearing a poloneck. We get he’s not right for her! Stop making him wear a poloneck! It’s overkill! She has marked the end of her engagement by having an unflattering fringe. Jason is going out with a quite unnecessarily awful 20-something blonde. Who in reality would never have given him a second glance, let alone, from the passage of snow to green leaves and back again, seem to have gone out with him for over a year.

There is then an agonising period of time in which Jason sets up a business (I know! You practically have to sit through him going to the bank and talking them through his business plan and profitability predictions for the next five years). Why he didn’t decide to do this in Snowsville is anyone’s guess. So, he’s running a business, albeit one that involves him selling tacos from a truck. He’s hardly working 24/7 creating the next Apple. He could take some time off. You know, to get married. That bit only takes a day.

The plot also deems it necessary to kill off, I think, three grandparents. For no other reason than to illustrate how hopelessly tardy these two are at organising their nuptials. It is resolutely unfunny, no-one ever refers to the sadness of losing said grandparents (to whom they all seem close) and it does nothing to move the plot forward, other than when one of Emily’s grandparents dies, and she has to go to England for the funeral (she is English, for no apparent reason, and her accent wanders around a fair bit; plus her sister, also living in San Francisco, appears to be American). Thus we have our Dramatic Declaration of Love moment, when Jason makes the effort to fly over there, unannounced. Even then, she’s still talking about going back to Snowsville when the ‘semester’ starts. Despite the fact that her boyfriend is a PATRONISING POLONECK WEARER.

Given the number of deaths, it might as well be called Arranging a Wedding is a Terrible Bore. Funerals? Less so.

By the end, I not only felt as though I had lived through their entire five year relationship, but that I never wanted another relationship in my life as the whole thing seemed so boring and so much hard work. I’d wager that the anticipated result of a romcom is not for the viewer to think, ‘Oh, thank GOD I’m still single.’

The last ten minutes are funny, though, if it’s ever on TV and you fancy doing the televisual equivalent of a child refusing to eat broccoli and just going straight for dessert by only tuning in for that bit. Instead, I am going to indulge in a marathon Ephron tribute session with a large stack of DVDs and dream of marrying either Billy Crystal or Tom Hanks. Here’s to you, Nora, you were really something special.

Plastic Fantastic

The good thing about freelancing is that sometimes you get offered some quite leftfield gigs. When I was a professional loafer a few years ago, I did a stint working on short films for my sister at the National Film and TV School, which was great, other than having to get up horribly early when actually filming. Weirdest thing: having to phone a department at London Underground and ask if we could borrow a load of their lost property for one of the films. They said yes, were lovely about it and gave it to us for free. When I tried asking a supplier of industrial shelving if I could borrow some for a few days for free - bearing in mind we'd pick it up and return it - he gave me very short shrift, despite my protestations that we were students and had no budget. C'est la vie. I also got to meet Phil Daniels, who was in the lost property film, who was lovely. I had to largely avoid talking to him, though, for fear that I was going to get an attack of Tourette's and shout, 'PARKLIFE' in his face by accident.

I also sat in a Brick Lane gallery for the better part of two weeks, keeping an eye on an exhibition which no-one had really given me any information on. People weren't sure if they could come in for free, or what it was there for (if you saw the episode of this series' Apprentice when our favourite money muppets were flogging 'upcycled' furniture and tat in empty spaces to Hoxton-finned numpties, it was in one of those. Large, blank spaces with huge plate glass windows and no signage are confusing).

Despite the fact that all I was doing was sitting behind a table all day, and was free to read books or otherwise entertain myself, it was one of the most psychotically boring episodes of my entire life. It was the closest I've come to solitary confinement. And some bastard came in and stole my mobile while I was trying to fix the perpetually dicky sound on the 'sound installation' that was part of the exhibition. I spent most of the day with it on mute, but would, from time to time, panic that the artist would randomly drop by and have a hissy fit that it wasn't on, which was what used to happen to the guy who was baby sitting the other part of the exhibition in a different space across the road. He spent six hours a day being tortured by horrible wailing noises. The artist came by several times and complained that he'd turned it down.

I spent a day as an extra on a TV shoot (the final episode of White Teeth, which I hadn't read, so the scene I was in, which involved people bursting into a science lecture and shouting, was confusing. Especially as, I seem to recall, James McAvoy was playing twins, so lots of it had to be shot twice). My friend was working on it (hence the gig), and when I arrived merrily informed me that he'd 'put me in with the principals'. I'd assumed I'd be 'milling around at the back', safe from any sort of televisual coverage. 'What, so I'll... be in the shot?' I queried. 'Yes!' he replied chirpily.

I decided to draw on my stellar career of school plays and pretend I could act, despite the fact that in every single school production in which I'd ever featured, I'd played a man. (All-girl schools have a lot to answer for when it comes to feeling like an attractive laydee, when you're typecast as a bloke). Still, I had a costume for this and everything! Yes, as it was set in the 80s, and I was supposed to be an academic, I got kitted out with a navy blazer and a natty Tie Rack scarf. Essentially, we all had to look shocked as a kerfuffle unfolded in the middle of our nice science lecture (being given by nice Robert Bathhurst, from Cold Feet and the like). I looked extra shocked as someone came clambering over the seats and used my left shoulder for leverage.

Despite all this, I still assumed I wouldn't actually be on screen at all. There are, however, two quite lingering shots featuring me, if it still exists somewhere on YouTube. For weeks afterwards, every time I saw my mates, they'd go, 'Ooh, watch out, here comes THE TV STAR'. It's a very good job I never did want to actually be on telly as a job.

However, even with these varied and exciting forays into disparate parts of the arts, today's offer of work was properly unexpected. A friend has put me forward for copywriting (yay!). For a website (ooh! I usually only do six-word taglines for four-sheet ads). The website is for a group of plastic surgeons. I know! The dilemma of course is: should I ask to be paid in Botox and fillers instead of cold hard cash? After all, it's not like I want to be an actress; no-one's paid me to look worried, flustered or frowny since my TV debut all those years ago. With the world going to hell in a handbasket, perhaps it's time to have the top half of my face frozen so that I can just look blandly happy all day.

Children: Much Like Yoda, They are Small and Wise

I have undertaken my first ever stints of babysitting, for my godchildren (twin girls of seven and their older sister, who is 11). I know, everyone else did it when they were 16, but if you live miles away from anywhere in the countryside, then babysitting's not much of an option for you. Either the parents have to come and pick you up then drop you home, or your own parents have to do it. Which is a right old faff. Hence, the idea of looking after other people's children fills me with an undeserved degree of fear.

What if they fall over and break an arm? Or if they somehow manage to mix rat poison in with their post-tea time yogurt? Or, and this is the more likely outcome, I am so devoid of grown up gravitas that they refuse point blank to go to bed, and are still racing around when their parents arrive home at midnight, to find me tied to a chair with a ball of yarn in the corner (trying to teach them knitting, crochet or some other wholesome activity), covered in crayon and bits of drying papier mache? I don't know what it is about being around children that makes me want to revert to the 1950s. I think it's their obsession with computer games and electronic technology.

Mind you, the three I'm looking after are a charming mix of ancient and modern. Whilst they love playing an F1-style game that sees them zapping round a computer screen at alarming speed, they're also fans of curiously old skool films. Their most recent obsession is with the 70s Bond villain/anti-hero Jaws, so the first time I went, I was treated to a screening of Moonraker, in which the metal-toothed monster tried to kill Bond about seven times, then fell in love with a Heidi-style buxom wench with glasses and pigtails before jetting off into space and joining forces with 007 to thwart the planet-annexing ambitions of his former boss.

The girls were thrilled when I said I'd met Jaws at a party, but as it was probably about 15 years ago, all I could remember about him was that he was really, really tall and that he was a Geordie. Yes, he had the teeth in. No, he wasn't very menacing, actually, he seemed rather sweet. It's not the world's greatest anecdote, is it? Especially if you're seven.

So instead, they reverted to their default questions. There are three which they seem to ask me, no matter how short or long a time has elapsed between my visits. They are:
1/ Why do you dye your hair? Their mum doesn't dye her hair. They themselves have beautiful hair. So it is an ongoing mystery to them why I should choose to eschew my natural locks in favour of unnatural ones. I still haven't come up with a better reason than that I find my own hair colour 'boring'. They find this mystifying. I might have to invent a reason like, 'Having red hair gives me magic powers'. Which could backfire.

2/ The oldest god-daughter always asks me if I was 'chunky' when I was a child. I'm not sure where this comes from - if her mum has disloyally informed her of how utterly dreadful I was at sport when we were at school together, and, things being as they are, it is still the fat kids who are picked last for teams, so it's her assumption that I was more bag-of-potatoes than french fry. Either way, I never know quite what to say, and why she wants to know.

Yes, I did feel I was chunky when I was younger. Albeit with small arms and perfectly OK legs; I used to routinely refer to myself as 'an orange on cocktail sticks'. Heck, I felt like I was pretty chunky up until I paid Cheerful James to whittle me down a bit. But I didn't get bullied for it or anything. The only real issue I had was people who hadn't seen me for a while, ironically, asking me if I'd lost weight. Which gave me the impression that people always remembered me as fatter than I actually was, which wasn't great. I think next time, I'll just have to ask her why she wants to know.

3/ Are you married yet? The girls' parents aren't married, so this has become a pressing question, to be asked at regular intervals of everyone. The fact is, if a man so much as meets my eye on a crowded Tube, I tell anyone I know about it, so a secret, speedy marriage is never going to happen. I must impress this upon them, that they will be amongst the first to know of any impending nuptials that would involve me as an active participant. Perhaps they're just desperate to be bridesmaids. Perhaps my single status opposes an Ark-like world view that everyone should go around two by two. Or perhaps they're just worried that I'm messing with the natural order of things, and instead of me having to look after them if anything happens to their parents, they will be left to care for me because I Have No Husband.

Anyway, Question 3 reached a particular high point when I was babysitting on Valentine's Day. Yes, that's why people get spinsters to be godmothers - you know they'll have no plans come 14th February.

Seven year old godchild: Are you married yet?
Me [faux jaunty; it is, after all, hard to be properly jaunty when faced with the barrage of Everything's Great if You're in a Couple! messaging that goes with Valentine's Day]: No, not yet!
Seven year old godchild [sagely]: Why, doesn't anyone like you?

I laughed my arse off*, as her sister told her she couldn't say that, as it was rude. All the money and time that could be saved on self help books! All you really need is a seven year old girl to get straight to the heart of the matter.

* The following evening, however, I went out, got a bit drunk by accident and threw myself a miniature pity party. 'WHY DOESN'T ANYONE LIKE ME?' I snivelled, as I Weebled my way home from the tube. Red wine can be a very poor friend to a single lady on occasion. I had luckily recovered my equilibrium by the time I was going out for drinks with three friends and I was going to be the only one who wasn't in possession of a fiance. Equally luckily, a gaggle of additional single chums joined us. Crisis averted!

Analyse This

I know there's no reason for anyone who doesn't know me to read this blog - it's not, after all, about anything important, it's just me wittering on for my own entertainment, really. But that's not to say that I wasn't unreasonably excited when I received a comment from someone I didn't know (that wasn't spam written in Chinese! It was a bona fide comment!) I was giddy with pleasure - and Commenter, if you're still reading, then have no shame about being a thriller fan - I'm about to read about my fifth in as many days. Admittedly, three of them are for work purposes (not that I'm planning to 'retrain' as a serial killer or anything - I'm doing some freelance copywriting for a website), but I'm enjoying them thoroughly and have abandoned Proper Book Birdsong in the process.

But the other thing that gives me a geekish thrill is checking out the stats which Blogger helpfully provides. If you're the sort of person who Tweets like a canary, then you get all your thrills through seeing how many followers you have, and being re-tweeted. As I don't, I get my ego jollies through noting how many page views I've notched up in a week, and seeing where the traffic's come from. In the last few months, I've had hits from Russia, Taiwan, Latvia and Slovenia! Madness. Goodness only knows how they came across this and what they made of it. *Waves at foreign countries I've never even been to*

I'm imagining that most of them have looked up the poem I took my blog's name from, and that's the only reason they're here. Once there is no mention of me eating sausages or spitting, in verse form, they probably go back to reading Dostoevsky.

However, a recent new thing is that it tells you what search terms people put in, to find themselves washed up on these shores of waffle. The best one so far is this:
'Average women wearing purple bikinis'

I'm really hoping that that was a search put in by a Daily Mail hack. There's surely no other reason for it, is there? I think it's the 'average' that pleases me so much. I mean, that's quite a specific fetish, isn't it? I don't want to see any photos of one of the Kardashians wearing a purple bikini. Nor do I want a morbidly obese woman sporting a two piece in a regal hue. And actually, come to think of it, do I want Gisele or one of those Victoria's Secret models in their swimwear? No, I want an average woman wearing a purple bikini.

The internet has its drawbacks, for sure, but you can't fault it for delivering results when you're looking for something really, really specific. (Shame, in this case, that the average woman I undoubtedly am, chose, for her first ever bikini last summer, a black one. D'oh!)

Otherwise Engaged

Oh, how could he? How could he keep me dangling for years, practically as long as this very blog has been in existence, no less, letting me believe that there was a chance, that I could keep on hoping, that if only I laughed enthusiastically enough at his jokes and talked him up to all my friends, he'd notice me, ask me out and then marry me, thus completing my odyssey?

Only to dash my poor heart into tiny pieces on the stone-flagged kitchen floor of reality by ANNOUNCING HE'S GOT ENGAGED TO SOMEONE ELSE. IN THE PAGES OF THE BLOODY TIMES, FOR CHRIST'S SAKE. DO YOU WANT TO HUMILIATE ME ON A NATIONAL SCALE, YOU SWINE?

Yes, David Mitchell - my comedy husband - is a cad of the first order. As long-term readers may remember, not only did he render me a tedious, mute numpty on the one occasion at which we met (by, um, tricking me into ordering a glass of water when he asked what I'd like to drink? Yes, that's definitely what happened), but he has also chosen to have a totally under the radar (other than to telly and newspaper types, presumably) relationship with fellow telly regular and Observer columnist Victoria Coren. To whom he is now engaged.

What chance did I have? They say [include random statistic of your choice here] percent of people meet at work. Not only do they both write for the Observer - which no doubt affords at least a drink together at the office Christmas party, as I presume they actually write from home, in their pyjamas (just as I currently am - oh, the cruel irony) - but they're both regular fixtures on panel shows, being funny, behind a selection of desks, playing for points. Together. 'Work' doesn't just mean an office, you know. That's only for us plebs.

I was *this close*. One of my friends is going to be working on his book later on in the year. (Launch party! Surely I could redeem myself at that?) I was getting used to the beard. (Ugh, beards - why are so many otherwise attractive, nice young men sporting beards these days? Is shaving really that much of a hassle? I don't understand why they all want to look so much like a dad from the late '70s - and 20 years older than they actually are in the process). I even moved back to London to be closer to him.

All to no avail. Ah well. I have come up with a new plan. Given that the only chaps I seem to come across these days weren't even born when I was doing my A-levels, I have decided to go full cougar and focus my attentions on someone altogether younger. I am playing the long game, marriage-wise. Yes, I am now going to start stalking trying to track down a junior, ganglier, marginally less beardy version of Mr Mitchell. I've stood across a crowded room from him at last year's Edinburgh Festival, so we're practically going out already.

Jack Whitehall, prep yourself for the attentions of a ginger, speccy girl who's old enough to be your mum. You will be mine.

(No) Card Carrying Singleton

So, as the years trundle on, I find myself less and less bothered by Valentine's Day. When you're a teen, there's little worse than the fact that no-one fancies you for 364 days of the year has to be reinforced and rammed home in such a specific and humiliating way on this particular day. It's totally crushing. Luckily, I spent most of my teenage years at an all-girls convent school and the only boys I knew at home were the vicar's son (a goth whom I suspect would have scorned declarations of love in favour of hanging out in the graveyard with a stuffed crow or something) and a very studious chap who was a whizz with an organ. No, not that kind. So there was no expectation of a card, and thus not much disappointment. It was only properly bad when I went to a boys' school for my A-levels and there was a massive disparity between The Pretty Girls and The Rest of Us Who Looked Like Sacks of Potatoes But With Late 80s Perms.

In fact, I've only received one genuine Valentine's Day card in my entire life, and even that led to a row when I chucked it out a few weeks later. (My thinking: it's a nice card, with some kisses in it. It is not a Jane Austenesque declaration of a long-held affection for me and a list of all my greatest attributes which I will treasure for ever, even when a spinster at the age of 41. His thinking: YOU THREW AWAY MY CARD. WAAAAAAH. Needless to say, that didn't last).

I am spending the morning in an office (when you spend all your working life in an office, it's hard to imagine you can miss being in one, but having actual people to natter to is fun, and someone just made me a coffee, which is also one of those little rituals that make one's day nicer). There are two young fellows in the office who have actually spent proper money on getting their lady friends flowers (one's spent £65 as he had to have them delivered to Manchester). They are in their early 20s. Valentine's is definitely for young people - once you're past 30, you have to be cynical about it, if you weren't before. Now I just find it an irritant that the minute you're done with New Year's Eve (another pressurised date when one's supposed to have fun/herald a year of excitement and romance), the shops are cluttered up with Valentine's Day cards, everything is red, pink or a cuddly teddy until February 15th and one is required to have an opinion about whether it's a good thing that there has to be a national day on which couples are obliged to be nice to each other.

On the other hand, this is how single I am:
1/ On the District Line, nothing gives me greater pleasure than securing one of those single seats. A seat! All to yourself! This could be the greatest possible indicator that I am destined to remain unpartnered for life.
2/ When my friend texted to ask if I was free to babysit my godchildren tonight, I didn't even have to check the diary. The main advantage of appointing a spinster as your children's godmother is that she is guaranteed to have absolutely no prior commitments on Valentine's Day.
3/ I actually bought the 'Valentine's Meal for Two' at Sainsbury's, in the full and frank knowledge that I would be eating the whole thing myself. Yes, that's a main meal, a side dish, pudding and a bottle of wine, all for a tenner. See, one can turn this 'being single in a recession' thing into an advantage! I've had a massive slap-up meal for two nights  running (and counting - the side was a potato gratin that was frankly excessive, so has gone into the freezer for another night) for a fiver a go. Let's face it, you couldn't even buy the wine for that, in general. I  felt as though I was committing a fairly major subterfuge at the checkout, though. I almost declared that I didn't have a 'significant other' in case I wasn't actually allowed to buy the stuff if I didn't have a partner. I've managed to stop short of buying the M&S version for £20 (with free box of chocolates), but only just.

Pyjamarama

Today's question: can one call oneself a freelancer if one's not doing any actual, y'know, work? Or should I just be calling myself 'unemployed' - much in the way that when asked once what my natural hair colour was, and I replied 'dark blonde', a friend looked at me witheringly and said, 'Oh, come on, it's mousey, isn't it?'

I may not have any work currently, but I have sorted one of the major requirements of the freelancer: a really excellent pair of pyjamas. Yes, if you're 'working from home', the biggest temptation isn't to raid the biscuit tin on an hourly basis, it's not getting dressed in proper clothes and remaining in your PJs all day. Which leads inevitably to sticking a pair of jeans over the bottoms and a large coat over the top in order to dart out to Tesco Metro for more biscuits.

My PJ 'wardrobe' needed updating - the winter ones I had were bought from Monsoon last year in a mad dash through the sales. I didn't try them on, and assumed I'd need a medium size (having never fitted into anything classed as 'small' in my life), then got them home and they were vast. But I couldn't be arsed to take them back, so have just been rolling them over at the top about four times to stop them sliding off.

My fondness for PJs became legendary at work when a night out ended in an unexpected fashion and proved conclusively that I Have No Clue when it comes to matters of romance and, especially, seduction.

It was a Monday night in Edinburgh. I had gone out to a friend's leaving party (she and her husband were relocating to Harrogate, which was highly annoying, given how few people I knew in Edinburgh). Her husband was a doctor in a local hospital (insert ER, Gray's Anatomy, House or Holby City fantasy here, according to taste), so I was hopeful that he might have some stereotypically heroic doctor friends. Or at least friends who wouldn't balk at a string of dodgy stethoscope entendres from me when I got drunk. I got talking to a non-doctor (damn!), who was perfectly nice, but a bit... meh. My friend was clearly trying to set us up, so I chatted away obligingly at the bar. Then, late on, a man appeared. He was ridiculously handsome. He was a doctor. He was joining me and Mr Meh! Whoop! However, he and Mr Meh were having a lovely chat, whilst I was just kind of sitting there. I went to the loo and came back to what seemed like a full-on Bromance. 'Ah well', I thought, 'I'm quite drunk, this is fine, I'll just sit and stare at Dr Dish over there'.

By this stage it was rather late. The bar chucked us out. Dr Dish was driving. I lived about ten minutes' walk away. He offered me a lift, so who was I to say no? We arrived back at Purple Towers. I asked him if he wanted to come in for a coffee (yes, I really did. And I actually meant a hot beverage. I am a person in Abigail's Party who is not even Alison Steadman). He said yes, at which point I panicked because a/ my flat was in its usual slatternly state with stuff everywhere and b/ I had no milk. I never have milk, unless people are coming round, whom I have invited three weeks beforehand. We get in. I apologise for the mess and confess that I have no milk and offer him A Proper Drink (he is unlikely to accept this, given that he is driving.) He accepts tea, and tells me that the lack of both milk and tidiness are fine. We repair to the sitting room and chat about this and that. For a long time. I am still drunk and he is still sober. There is much confusion on my part as to what he is doing here. I mean, he is an insanely handsome (and sober) doctor, whilst I am a drunk woman who has now started telling him that the tenants in my flat are being bastards because they claim the flat has a flea infestation and are thus not paying any rent.

Once I have said the word 'fleas' for about the fifth time, he suggests that I sound stressed about this situation and that him massaging my shoulders might help. This, whilst nice, is still not helping me to ascertain quite what is going on. There is seemingly no suggestion that he might snog me. By this stage, it's about three in the morning, on a school night. I ask him if he wants to stay and he says yes. (Still no lunging). We get to the bedroom. (I'm assuming the good doctor just can't be bothered to drive home and wants half a bed, given that there has been no discernable flirting for the entire evening - well, I'd probably been trying in my usual ham-fisted way, whilst he'd just seemed to be being polite.) OK, brace yourselves, this is where it gets mortifying. He says, 'Right, I'll go to the bathroom and leave you to get changed'. 'Get changed!' I thought. 'Right, that means "put on different clothes", doesn't it?' So I raced around the room, throwing off my existing clothes, and putting on a vest top. And pyjama bottoms. Because that's the kind of thing I 'get changed into' when going to bed.

Dr Dish strolls back in and merrily reveals that he gets terrifically hot in bed, and it will be 'better for me' if he takes off all his clothes. WHAT? No! You should have said that before you told me to 'get changed'! So he is now sober, off-the-scale-handsome and unexpectedly naked, whilst I am drunk, average looking and wearing what can only be termed SAFETY PYJAMAS. I feel that as he's shown no interest thus far (friends have agreed subsequently that him taking off all his clothes might've given me a clue at this point), I might as well commit to the safety pyjamas and so just climbed into bed, immediately becoming, as he'd so sagely predicted, volcanically hot, but not in an alluring way.

We did eventually have a bit of a snog, but the PJs remained on. He practically ran away in the morning and didn't ask for my number. My work colleagues, after laughing for about an hour and a half at my idiocy, waged a campaign trying to convince me to track him down and bully him convince him into asking me out. 'Turn up at the hospital and be ILL, so he has to see you!' they shrieked. 'He's doing a rotation in obstetrics - it could be tricky', I replied.

One of my leaving gifts from work was a voucher for a company I love, called Hush, to enable me to buy new safety pyjamas to keep me from harm in the Big Smoke. They arrived on Friday and they are awesome - brushed flannel with a cherry blossom pattern on them, they are the freelancer's weapon of choice. And possibly, going on previous form, the spinster's too.

New Year, New You. Again.

January. A month in which a nation binges on self-hatred - 'I ate/drank/spent too much through the whole of December' - and denial. Editorial meetings around October for every newspaper and magazine in the land must be when editrixes put their Louboutined feet up on their designer desks and decide to take the next three months off. 'Find me a new angle on detox!' they bark to their minions, before falling asleep, exhausted by worries as to whether the maxi skirt is over and why no-one took to last year's much vaunted Navajo trend.

So in 2012, we have a diet and fitness plan with an Olympic edge (Sunday Times Style). Fighting the flab with a patriotic spin. Never mind that the reason most of us admire atheletes so much is that they can do it and we can't. I don't want to be able to cycle like Victoria Pendleton. Or tackle seven sports - all of which involve speed, accuracy and strength - at an international level like Jessica Ennis. All I really want is a way of motivating myself to go to the gym and work as hard as I know I should, now I have the distractions of an actual social life and am denied Cheerful James's weekly monitoring and tuition.

The alternative to becoming a budding Olympian is to aim, as one of the papers is offering this weekend via a special supplement, for 'a body like Pippa Middleton's'. Can everyone in media land's New Year's resolution be to stop going on about Pippa Middleton? She has a body that, whilst enviable, is, I suspect, more down to good upper middle class genes than what she eats or how she exercises. It's also ferociously generic - you see hundreds of Sloane girls who look exactly like that (for evidence, watch as much as you can bear of Made in Chelsea). They all look very hearty and as though they were a permanent fixture on the hockey/lacrosse team at school, but they have no distinguishing features. I preferred it when we were fetishising Christina Hendricks from Mad Men's abundant curves. Sadly this happened at exactly the point where I was spending a great deal of time and money getting rid of half of mine, but that's the irony of fashion: if you're a normal person, you're never getting it right at the right time. The latter is probably more crucial than the former.

I'm trying to avoid booze for January, but more, I suspect, for fiscal reasons than for health ones. Lime and soda is appreciably cheaper than Merlot, with the added advantage that it's so dull you can't bear to drink more than three of them. Why has no-one invented anything more exciting for teetotallers to drink? I've never liked Coke and more than one of those horrible synthetic orange juices makes me feel ill; you'd think given the gigantic mark-up on soft drinks in bars and pubs that they'd have given it some thought.

Anyway, New Year's resolutions - according to one of the astrologers, 2012 for me is going to be all about stamping my foot and shouting, 'NO!' a lot, as it seems I've had to be 'understanding just one too many times and have never been thanked for it'. Better yet, I'm going to 'begin asking the question: "What is good for me?" And without guilt.' Wow, I'm going to be fun to be around, aren't I? So, what do I currently think would be good for me this year?

1. Find a job that I like doing, which pays me decent money. Or several of them, if I'm going to do this freelance thing. My 'career' to date seems to have been composed of 5-6 year stints in companies which I liked, having fun for most of it and enjoying what I was doing, alternated with year-18 month interludes in jobs where I was miserable and reduced to crying in the loo most days. The cycle dictates I'm due another of the former, which is positive. I am, however, bored to death of doing the same thing I've been doing for the better part of 2 decades, and am waiting for inspiration as to what job I could possibly apply for, never mind get, in the current climate.
 
2. Stop focusing endlessly on an imaginary life. As I have no job, will this finally be the year when I stop wasting hours of my life looking at flats I'll never own on rightmove.co.uk? Some people are addicted to checking Facebook, or gazing at porn online in a glazed-eyed stupor - for me it's one-bedroomed flats with a small garden, which are theoretically within my budget on rightmove. Offer me a floorplan, a sitting room of about 14 foot and a decent sized kitchen (preferably with nice units that I could live with) and there's my fix. Is owning a flat the be-all and end-all? No, it is not. I've had nothing but bother during the last 6 months from the flat in Streatham that I've been renting out since the Edinburgh move (tenants who haven't paid, with whom I'm still in dispute; endless expenses; the current tenants have bed bugs, which are apparently impossible to shift, and so are only paying 50% of what they should be because of the inconvenience, etc. Every day seems to bring a new problem from the estate agents who are supposed to be managing it). If you're renting, everything from the floorboards up is your landlord's problem. The only disadvantage at the moment is how ridiculously high rents are, especially if you prefer to live on your own. So, if I can sever the ties to the Thatcherite dream of home ownership, I might also be able to stop myself from hoarding pages from interiors magazines of 'looks' that will never come to fruition and endless recipes that I'll never host the necessary dinner parties for, which would be a massive bonus when I have to move again.

3. Keep doing new things. If there's one thing I'm proud of over the last 18 months or so, it's that I did push myself out of various comfort zones. I moved to a city in which I knew literally no-one. I managed to get a bit excited about new technology (ie I'm debating whether to buy an iPad; I'm still having '3G' explained to me, mind). I finally proved I wasn't a total failure at exercise and could actually stick at it. I bought my first ever red lipstick (previously deemed too dauntingly visually shouty and attention-grabbing for my personal tastes.) I joined a book club (bit of a 'coals to Newcastle' manoeuvre given my job, but it was enjoyable). I quit my job and decided to move back to London - not a new thing per se, but brave given I had no job and no flat to go to. I suggested the world's daftest date and it turned out quite well. I don't know what the new things are yet, but I'm ready to say yes to them and give them a go.

4. Throw off my spinster shackles. Related to point 3 above, perhaps one of the 'new things' I should do is 'try to find a boyfriend'. I managed a few dates with Rock Climbing Boy before I left Edinburgh, and he was there when I went up at New Year, so we saw in 2012 together. However, as he hasn't replied to the email I sent him subsequently, and we now reside at opposite ends of the country, I'm assuming that's the end of my Highland Fling. But it's made me think that I should at least entertain the possibilities of a suitable gentleman caller, give that my oxymoronic love life to date has been, to quote the fantastic Lauren Laverne in today's Observer, 'all pumpkin and no prince'. After all, though it didn't exactly pan out well, even Miss Havisham got proposed to.

To this end, I have purchased the ideal 'upmarket date dress'. It is also my first ever designer frock. I know! 'Investment dressing'! I went into Liberty (my new spiritual home: it has replaced Selfridges. Sorry, Selfridges - your lighting's a tad harsh and it's all a bit lacking in personality. And I feel, in a Mary Portas way, that Liberty needs my support more). I thought, 'I'll look at Vivienne Westwood dresses. Just, you know, because they're there'. I have an obsession with Westwood frocks. I love the idea of having most of your assets on display, via the medium of Nell Gwyn-style corsetry. (Posh cleavage!) There's usually some sort of bustle at the back (I'm a fan of looking interesting as you leave a room) and Dame Viv seems one of the few people in fashion who doesn't want women to be akin to overpaid saplings.

I found a black dress. It looked interesting on the hanger. I thought I'd try it on, for a laugh (trying on designer items being nearly as good as buying them, in my book). I put it on. It fitted. It looked interesting. It was a dress that would provoke discussion because of its slightly odd drapery. It had three-quarter length sleeves and a knee length hem (my ideal length - you've no idea how hard that is to find - everyone assumes that all women hate their knees, for some reason) with a split. Ooh, it was good. 'Damn you, frock!' I thought. 'You're half price at £200, but I have no job! To buy you would be a reckless indulgence!' I regretfully put it back on the rail. But I heard its siren call all that night. And then I got invited to a 40th party. I had an excuse! 'I've probably spent £150 on a dress before that wasn't even a Westwood one', I thought. 'This will be a talking point - "Yes", I shall say, when someone compliments me on my frock, as they surely shall, "it's a Vivienne Westwood dress". Screw the lack of job! I can wear it to an interview! Which will definitely get me the job!'. I raced back. It was still there. Reader, it is mine. Now I just need a date to the opening of an exhibition at the Tate Modern or somesuch at which to wear it.

5. Read proper books and have opinions about things. For someone with an English degree and a 2-decade career in publishing, I still don't feel very well read. I am widely read, but I've never read Anna Karenina or War and Peace. I'm pretty sure I've only read Great Expectations, and an abridged version of Oliver Twist at school in terms of Dickens. I carted a copy of Vanity Fair through 4 separate house moves until I decided it could remain unread no more, and took it to the charity shop. The Odyssey? Nope. Dante? Untouched. I haven't even done any of those big American modern classics, like De Lillo or Updike. I think I need to pick one a month, and have my own personal book club.

Perhaps this will go some way towards having opinions about things. I am also wanting on this front. I flick through the paper to get to the bit with the celeb interviews and the reviews (even then, I only read the film reviews, and the theatre ones if it's got someone I've heard of in it - shameful). This must be the year when I endeavour to understand the Eurozone crisis and have an economic opinion that is more well informed than, 'Christine Lagarde is the most stylish brainbox I have ever seen. She's a total fox! She looks like she's always thinking something fascinating, yet slightly naughty, and she claims not to give any thought at all to what she wears! We should be worshipping her.' Is it worth having an opinion on Nick Clegg and Ed Miliband? Probably not, but I should at least be able to hazard a guess at who makes up the Cabinet these days. If only so I can keep up with Have I Got News for You.

I also need to do all the boring things, like save money - a friend and I have decided that for January at least, we should be cultural freegans. So far, I've visited the National Portrait Gallery, and been to see The Ladykillers courtesy of a new chum who is a theatre critic for the Evening Standard. I'm going to beg, borrow or steal books from all my friends instead of buying them (sorry beleagured book trade, needs must) and I think I may enter a barter economy with other mates. I'm thinking of offering free baby sitting services to a couple who are good at craft things like sewing, in exchange for being taught how to wield a sewing machine.

Inthe meantime, there are vast swathes of newsprint to be got through: today I have bought both The Sunday Times and the Observer. I'm going to swot up on Sarkosy, Merkel and Miliband. I'm going to form an opinion on Diane Abbott being racist and whether detoxing is a waste of time and effort (doctors all say it is, largely, I suspect, because it doesn't lead to any lasting changes, you just go back to whatever you were eating/drinking/doing before). But first I need to find out some crucial things about the filming of War Horse and whether or not Benedict Cumberbatch thinks Sherlock Holmes is gay.