Question Time! (No, Not That One)

Anyone who knows me is well acquainted with the fact that a/ I love a pub quiz and b/ I am BRUTALLY competitive when it comes to said knowledge competitions. I passively-aggressively grab the pen and paper and start smugly scribbling down the answers whilst my team-mates are still arguing over what the answers might be. Especially if there's an 80s pop music round. I'm not having anyone asking me, 'are you sure? That does sound a bit like Clare Grogan' if the answer is clearly 'Strawberry Switchblade'. I don't massively care what the team name is, but obviously I'd prefer it if it's a pun that I've suggested.

Perish the pub quiz, though, which is too tricky and where we're languishing in the bottom quarter after the first two rounds. If I've got no hope of winning, then what's the point in doing it at all? Then I essentially just 'get a face on' and go all mopey and, like, sure, you can put Clare Grogan down if you like, but it's not right. I go totally teenage. I don't really know why I'm such a freak about pub quizzes, but I'd guess that having been awful at all sport at school, and never having a hope of being picked for a team, never mind winning anything, that 'knowing stuff' was the only way I was ever going to win a prize. Especially as one of my key skills seems to be collecting the most random bits of information and retaining them. I couldn't tell you who the current Foreign Secretary is, but I've been able to correctly name a proboscis monkey, based on a really grainy black and white, stamp-sized photo in a pub quiz. (Thanks mainly to a lifetime of watching David Attenborough documentaries. Truly the best teacher I've ever had.)

So it came to pass that a friend emailed the other day asking if I wanted to go to a Literary Quiz. Ooh, tricky one, this. Because of course, working in publishing, everyone thinks you're going to ace the Literary Quiz. But the last LQ I went to was part of a literary festival in Battersea and was so alarmingly intellectual even Jeremy Paxman might have suggested throwing in 'a few easier ones'. All the questions seemed to be about historical novels from the 1780s written by politicians of the time under pseudonyms. We were a whole team of publishing types, including an actual man (very rare in publishing circles) and so we thought we were in with a shot. Turned out everyone else taking part appeared to be over 70 and had spent all their working lives in a library nearby. I think the most recent book there was a question on was published in 1996. I essentially offered up the answer 'Disraeli?' to about 40% of the questions and a massive, huffy shrug for the rest. It was very dispiriting.

But this one looked more my bag. For a start, it was being hosted by Grazia! Wasn't likely to be that dauntingly clever, even if it was to promote the Baileys Prize shortlist. Ooh, now, this is sounding like my perfect evening - likely to get a goody bag with a free mag (nothing I like more than hate-reading Grazia when I haven't actually paid for it myself); some free Baileys (don't judge me, but I ruddy love Baileys. Have you tried the chocolate one? It's like blancmange. Ace); possibly a free book. I didn't anticipate any questions on pseudonymous historical novels from centuries ago. I was in. I was very much in.

We turned up at the venue (another clue as to the likely standards of the questions: All Bar One on New Oxford Street) half an hour before the alloted time. We tried to force our way upstairs, past a guy giving out wristbands who didn't seem to know what was going on. We darted past him up the stairs, to be met by a gaggle of alarmed-looking Grazia staffers. I think they mistook our, 'we don't want to miss out on any of the canapes' faces for 'we want to start answering literary questions immediately' faces. We were hastily ushered back downstairs whilst they carried on plonking branded pencils and answer sheets onto the tables and taking thousands of photographs of different drinks featuring Baileys for their Twitter feed.

We grouched around downstairs, being rude about this week's issue of Stylist, which apparently seems to think that 'Why thoughtful women are falling back in love with make-up' is a statement that makes any sense, and sees fit to put it on the cover featuring a woman's face covered in mad disco holographic eyeshadow and shiny red lipgloss. Finding content every week for a women's magazine must be a trying business, is all I can say. Sometimes, you must just be in an editorial meeting and find yourself muttering, 'how can we fuse FEMINISM and MAKE-UP? We know that our readers are interested in both, there must be a way of bringing these two elements together in one article.' 'Why thoughtful women are saying it's fine to love make-up?' 'YES! Sarah, you are a genius. Call Sali Hughes and ask her for 1,000 words, and call in some of that Mac "Simone de Beauvoir" lipgloss.'

Anyway, we were eventually granted access to the Quizzatorium. We bagged a table and one of our number was despatched to the bar to pick up free drinks. (On our first foray upstairs, one of the Grazia Gals had, on seeing we'd bought a drink, told us not to buy any more, as it was all free. God, d'you know what you're letting yourself in for here? A load of bookish geeks being offered free booze all night? Could get messy, even if it is a Tuesday.)

I, obviously, started to noodle my way through the 'pull-out' section of the quiz, which had tempting amuse-bouche questions (anagrams of book titles; book jackets with the titles and the authors blocked out; riddles. The riddles had the authors' names in them, which seemed to be kind of cheating. The book jackets were of the level of We Need to Talk about Kevin and To Kill a Mockingbird. We fell down on a Joan Didion. Haven't we all?)

There was much discussion of a team name (get more than two women together, and coming up with a team name becomes very fraught.) We spent quite a lot of time trying to cobble something together based on our mutual love for Jilly Cooper (man, we're highbrow). Eventually I suggested 'Donna's Tartts' (literary but still a bit smutty) and we were off. The prize for the best name of the evening might have to go to the three girls who called themselves, 'Well Read & Good in Bed'.

Baileys and Grazia had done the sensible thing of ploughing most of the money for the evening into food, in an attempt to stop us all getting blind drunk within the first hour. I've never seen so many canapes in my entire life. We had quite the picnic table going on. Especially when one of the waitresses, seeing just how bloody awesome we thought halloumi on a stick was, offered to leave an entire plateful with us. We accepted with alacrity.

Having spotted a photobooth in the corner, and thought, 'Oh God, really?', there was a break in the proceedings when of course we had to have a 'team photo'. Everyone immediately regresses to being four years old, then shrieks when shown the result. 'Oh my God, I look like a sweaty ghost!' howled one of my team-mates, who'd drawn the short straw of being nearest to the camera and the flash, and is a natural ginger and thus quite pale. We spent about fifteen minutes going, 'just one more go!', trying to get an arrangement of four people where we all looked sane, if not necessarily 100% attractive.

But, back to the nail-biting excitement of the quiz, I hear you cry! Round one - we were up near the top. Round two - we were leading, but by a solitary point. This could go either way. I was nearly gnawing the table I was feeling so adrenaline-fuelled. (Well, that, plus the Baileys cocktail and two glasses of red. And the excitement of a branded canvas bag and a free copy of Grazia with 30% off at Gap this week). Damn! Why do I not know George Eliot's real name, despite having done an English degree? Thankfully, I knew the answer to a multiple choice question on which was the longest of three books, because a friend had helpfully emailed the day before to say he was still ploughing through the 1,000-page belter that is Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged after about six months.

The results table was being announced. Crikey, this was more exciting than Election Night! (I presume; I didn't stay up for any of that, and so was genuinely flummoxed when I turned on the radio the next morning to find that the Tories had had a landslide win. What the hell went wrong with all those polls, then?) We were in the top two. There were two points separating us. We tried out a variety of 'f*cking hell, we've lost by two points' sore loser faces (this seemed like fun - there were a lot of men wielding film cameras and cameras with proper-looking lenses - where on earth was this stuff going to end up?) Only to find that, yes, WE HAD WON. Donna's Tartts had beaten a load of other geeks in glasses - particularly the bunch at the table next to us, who we were determined to take down. They kept objecting to stuff, and one of them failed a 'spot prize' question on the correct order of the Harry Potter books, despite looking really, really confident about it. I neglected to flag to anyone that we hadn't managed to get the actual Donna Tartt question right, which was a bit of a low.

We were summoned to the bar to collect our winnings (bottle of Baileys each, another free cocktail - this time decorated with pansies - flashy - and a huge stack of the Baileys shortlist. I'd assumed we'd be splitting the six books, [typical publisher - 'You want to give away HOW many?'] but no, it was all of them, for each of us). And many, many photos. I finally worked out why Caitlin Moran gurns like she's been on a 3-day bender every time someone points a camera at her. Having your photo taken for a mag/Twitter feed is mortifying. Especially when you haven't had time to put on any lipstick and have been doing a lot of 'ironic' fist-pumping when it was announced that you'd won. Hadn't really factored that in, when I'd been hell-bent on winning. I looked like some mad child that had overdosed on Haribo, then been given a load of hefty hardbacks to hold, to try to stop them bouncing off the walls.

Anyway, it was all really good fun, my only disappointment being how many questions there were about JK Rowling. Don't get me wrong, I'm a massive fan of hers (both as an author and as a person). It just seemed a shame that over 6 rounds, there seemed to be so few female authors or books that the question-setters assumed we'd have (mostly) all heard of and could answer questions on. (Gone with the Wind featured quite heavily too.) But then I'm inclined to believe that the two points we won by were afforded by:

1. Knowing the name of Nancy Drew's boyfriend
2. Me being old enough to recognise a clip of The Cure's 'Charlotte Sometimes'

Can't all be intellectual giants...

Tans and Tango, Sequins and Samba

The nights are drawing in and the shops have been full of Christmas shit for at least a month. My local 'department' store put in their Christmas window display before they'd even done Hallowe'en or Bonfire Night. Madness. I'm trying to ignore it (whilst working in the West End - good luck with that). But on the bright side, it means we are in FULL Strictly Come Dancing flow. Which means my Saturday and Sunday nights have televisual entertainment on tap if I'm staying in. Plus I also indulge in all the behind-the-scenes shenanigans by catching up with It Takes Two on a nightly basis. By the end of each series, I feel like I could genuinely do actual dancing, as I have absorbed so much technical knowledge. Then I find myself at the office Christmas party and acknowledge that I still have two left feet and very little rhythm and go back to gazing, slack-jawed, at the telly, where people can segue from a samba to a waltz without tripping over their own ankles. Whilst remembering what they're supposed to be doing with their arms.

So, for fun, as per my Bake Off blog, how did I fare on my predictions as to who’s on Strictly this year?

1/ Really old one who’ll get a sympathy vote for 3 weeks then go – [previously: Johnny Ball, David Dickinson, Dennis Taylor, Paul Daniels, Tony Jacklin]

Bargain Hunt’s Tim Wonnacott was bravely steered around the dancefloor by a beaming Natalie, who looked genuinely thrilled to have him as her partner. Perhaps because she acknowledges the fact that only being in it for 3 weeks affords you (presumably) the same fee, but guarantees a massive amount of free time the moment you’re out. *Lie-in face*

Take note, Aliona, who looked absolutely gutted to be paired with Gregg Wallace (as well she might, he’s always struck me as totally unbearable). She promptly choreographed their first dance to involve as little physical contact as possible whilst staying within the rules, and topped off her outfit with a pair of elbow-length gloves just to make sure. Even though he wasn’t, by a long shot, the worst dancer, Gregg got the boot first.

2/Really overweight one who will either be so disastrous the nation will keep them in for an unnecessarily long time, for a laugh, or who will be surprisingly good – [previously: Lisa Riley, Mark Benton, Russell Grant,  John Sergeant, Ann Widdicombe]

Unlike the year before last’s Lisa Riley, who I thought was a good dancer, Alison Hammond was actually pretty shit (incredibly flat footed), but has seven peoples’ personality wedged into one body, and was dancing with Beaming Supremo Aljaz, which takes everyone’s minds off what’s going on below her waistline.

I think everyone was voting for him; he’s very handsome, works some alarmingly tight trousers, and, as mentioned, is constantly grinning his head off in a very winning way. I love him. Even though I was bored of her, I’d have preferred her to ‘go to BLACKPOOL’, rather than Judy. I also found out, via It Takes Two (yup, as mentioned, I’m a proper geek for this shit) that Beaming Aljaz is TWENTY FOUR. Seriously? I thought he was in his early 30s! He should’ve been paired with Caroline Flack, she loves a younger chap. Twenty. Four. God. 

3/ Young woman you’ve probably never heard of if you don’t watch soaps, who used to be on Hollyoaks/Emmerdale/Eastenders/Corrie – [previously: Ali Bastian, Louisa Lytton, Dani Harmer, Natalie Cassidy, Tina O’Brien, Chelsee Healey]

I don’t think I can really plump for Sunetra Sarker (Holby City) for this spot (possibly because even though I don’t watch HC, I’ve seen her in other things; the usual soap lovelies they get are very young and have risen to fame through the one show that they’re on.) So it’s going to have to be the double whammy of ‘Pop Princess’ (URRRRGH) Pixie Lott and The Saturdays’ Frankie. Who seems to be introduced as ‘From the Saturdays, Frankie Bridge!’ rather than having to be a Pop Princess. Maybe there’s only room for one PP. Plus, Frankie’s married to a footballer, and has a small child, which clearly makes her more of a laydee than Pixie. At any rate, I’ve never been able to stand Pixie Lott (stupid name, looks like a spoilt brat) and she’s been dancing since she was about 5, so none of it seems particularly tricky for her. As I know I’d find it near impossible to do even the simplest step on Strictly, my favourites are always the ones who are a bit shonky at the beginning, then suddenly become ace.

Having said that, even though I think Frankie is a tiny bit bland, she’s great at dancing and is with the lovely Kevin From Grimsby (whose surname is ‘Clifton’ – which has led me to believe that the production team wanted to get a ‘Clifton Bridge’ naming gag going, but no one else seems to have taken this up). I love KFG too and have decided that when I am randomly famous, and allowed to go on the show, I’d like him to be my teacher, please. He seems unfailingly patient and smiley. Plus: unexpectedly foxy when wearing specs, as he’s more slight than most of the others, giving him a bit of a nerdy vibe.  I’d have to be paired with him, rather than any of the more conventionally handsome pros, as otherwise I’d just spend all day blushing furiously, rather than managing to do any actual dancing.

4/ Person who is famous for literally one thing – mainly being in a Bond film/married to someone more famous but who refused to do it – [previously: Colin Salmon, Fiona Fullerton, Penny Lancaster, Jo Wood, Nancy Dell’Olio and I’m going to stick Pamela Stephenson in there too, as they constantly banged on about Billy Connolly, despite the fact she’s got a career of her own.]

I reckon Judy Murray can claim this slot. She does have a career in her own right, but she’s mainly known to The Viewing Public for being Andy Murray’s mum. The only way this could’ve been a better booking is if they’d got Andy’s girlfriend, Kim Sears on instead, of whom people know even less. She’s like a WAG Sphinx, is our Kim. Judy was inexplicably still in the running till BLACKPOOL, despite the double whammy of being partnered by Boredom-on-a-Stick Anton du Beke, and dancing as though she was encased in slowly drying concrete. She seemed, however, on my viewings of It Takes Two, to be loving it all, gamely admitting that she’s a rubbish dancer, and shrugging off the judges’ criticism with a big smile each week.

I think she might be the person who, weirdly, has got the most out of it. She seemed like she was doing it because she was a huge fan of the show, and she thought it’d be fun. I’ve certainly always thought she looked really stern, with no sense of humour (although God knows, Andy Murray has a sense of humour that’s drier than the Kalahari, he must’ve got it from somewhere), so I’m pleased that she’s kind of a quiet hoot. Hats off to her, can’t be easy going out every week knowing that you’re going to be bottom of the leader board and having to take it with good grace. I’d be in floods of angsty, frustrated tears.

5/ Man/woman who is currently on BBC Breakfast/ITV equivalent and thus has to do nearly 3 days’ work every day with the training, whilst promoting Strictly every morning – [previously Natasha Kaplinsky, Bill Turnbull, Kate Garraway, Susannah Reid, Chris Hollins, Christine Bleakley, Matt Baker. Matt gets extra props for being on both The One Show and Countryfile, so having to fit in LOCATION WORK and chatting up farmers, as well as everything else.]

I’m giving this to Scott Mills. Arguably being on the radio is less taxing than being on BBC Breakfast/The One Show, but as he’s still on Radio 1, I’m assuming that pretending to care about Young People’s Music is taxing in and of itself. (I’ve just Googled him – HE IS FORTY. Weren’t they culling anyone over thirty when they got rid of Chris Moyles a few years back? How did he escape the net? Put in a call to the head of Radio 2, Scott, you’ll feel ten years younger.)

For some reason, when I did listen to Radio 1, I always liked him. And even though he was all kinds of dis-aaaa-strous at this, I liked him on Strictly too. Scott not only danced like he had two left feet, but as though they’d both been put on backwards. He managed the extraordinary feat of being a DJ with no discernible sense of rhythm. Sometimes, these types of dancers are literally going through the motions to pick up the paycheque (I’m looking at you, Jerry Hall, and you, Nancy Dell’Olio). But Scott really did seem like he was trying, and putting in as many hours as possible to train. I’m glad he’s out, as it was becoming more and more painful watching him get a kicking from the judges each week (he didn’t have the knack of laughing it off that Judy has), but as my old personal trainer used to say, ‘God loves a trier’, so I hope he enjoyed it at least a bit.

There is also an annual Random Sports Guy – [previously Mark Ramprakash, Matt Dawson, Louis Smith, Ben Cohen, Colin Jackson, Darren Gough, Robbie Savage]

Once they’ve got over the embarrassment of fake tan, oceans of spangled, very tightly fitting shirts and trousers and having to fling their hips around, the RSGs often go on to win. I suspect because they are used to being coached, putting in hours of repetitive training, pretty single minded and highly competitive. It also helps that they’re generally muscle-bound, thus gaining the ‘gays ‘n’ gals’ votes and can manage the lifts, and start off having never done any dancing, so tick the ‘journey’ box as well.

There are a few of them, though, who are a tad lacking on the personality front, which is, I think, what did for this year’s RSG, Rugby Thom. He was, in theory, ridiculously handsome. But unfortunately he seemed to be only marginally more interesting than Dancing Wardrobe Gavin Henson from a few years back, and remained resolutely unsexy throughout, even though he was paired up with Human Firework Iveta. He got kicked into touch and sent for an early bath surprisingly early on (ha! See what I did there? SPORTS REFERENCES.)

So, even though I’ve forgotten about the first tranche of people to be binned already (Jennifer Gibney, anyone?), it still seems like there are loads of them in the mix. Who’s waltzing to a win or tangoing to the top so far? As per the show, in no particular order:

Caroline Flack. Thought I’d hate her (telly presenter most famous for going out with teen click-bait Harry Styles – this still perplexes me; wasn’t he pretty close to being an actual child at the time?) But she’s a really good dancer, has amazing legs and it doesn’t hurt that she’s paired up with Pasha (swoon). What can I say, she just seems nice and like you’d have a good time if you went to the pub with her.

‘Clifton Bridge’ (I’m going to make this a thing, dammit). As above, nailing the dancing, and is the kind of girl that because she’s just ‘nice’, people tend to vote for. As per last year’s winner, Abbey Clancy. Couldn’t see why everyone loved her, personally, as her voice sounded like the proverbial nails on a chalkboard, but technically she was very good. And: ALJAZ.

Mark Wright. Oh, I know. Believe me, I know. I don’t watch TOWIE, so I don’t know why I’m supposed to hate him (just because he’s probably not very bright? That’s half the people on TV these days). It’s not like I suddenly fancy him, or would vote for him, he’s just surprisingly good at dancing. Points based on that alone.

Jake Wood. I don’t watch Eastenders, so had no idea who he was. He’s sort of bald and gingery, so didn’t look immediately promising. But lord almighty, he is bloody brilliant. He’s the one I actually look forward to seeing every week. He seems quite bewildered by the idea that he’s good, and is generally almost monosyllabic in the VTs and interviews, but not in a dislikeable way. He just seems like a quiet, modest bloke who’s not going to get all excitable because the producers want him to. I’d love to see him in the final, and if he can pull a ‘Chris Hollins’ (ie bang on about how much he wants to win for the sake of his partner), then he’ll probably win.

He’s also being very understated about the ‘OMG, my life is so hard’ aspects of having to learn lines, film all day, learn how to dance, pole up for It Takes Two once a week, get fitted for costumes, etc and be a dad. I do have a slight worry that as he’s really good, but is also so non-jazz hands, that he’ll be a shock ‘bottom two’ at some stage. Hope I’m wrong on that. It’d be nice for another chap to win, and he ticks a lot of the usual Strictly voting boxes: he’s working, essentially, two full-time jobs, has never danced before, seems a nice man, has a family he can wheel out (very cute kids). Go, Jake, do it for the gingery bald blokes! But really, as long as the Midwich Cuckoos pairing of Pixie and Trent don’t win (she’s been dancing since she was five – boooo! They look like they’re brother and sister, so it’s creepy when they have to do ‘sexy’), I’ll be happy whatever the result.

My Business Idea for SurAlan: The Hatewatch Generator

Sweeping vistas of London's shiny, phallic buildings. Vaguely imposing classical music. An angry gnome with a pointy finger. The sound and smell-o-vision of a hundredweight of total and utter bullshit. Yes, hurrah, deck out your sitting room in business bunting, for The Apprentice is back!

It's the tenth series. We have been watching idiots shouting at each other, running around and competing for the chance to win a non-specific job in a backroom somewhere for £100k (and latterly the chance to launch a business with LordSurAlanSugar) for a decade. This year, we're promised, there will be 'differences'. The main one appears to be that, because of the World Cup taking the usual Apprentice slot on the schedule, it was filmed during the summer. So now the firees get to leave in their Redundancy Cab in broad daylight. Yet, so far, perplexingly still wearing enormous coats and vast scarves, which must've added to their discomfort.

LordSurA also claimed that he wanted to do things, 'a bit differently'. In episode one, this consisted of just bringing in an extra four business botherers after the initial 16 had awkwardly arranged themselves in the boardroom. After a year's worth of WWI centenary programming, the phrase 'cannon fodder' was the one that sprang most readily to mind.

Having TWENTY Apprentii means that for the first four weeks, it's going to be nigh-on impossible to get to grips with anyone's names except the PMs and whoever's self-elected to be the week's Major Moron. There are, however, some distinguishing features, with a variety of accents (there's a Canadian, a Colombian and an Australian called Mark Wright. Because having one idiot called Mark Wright on TV wasn't thought to be enough, apparently). There was also Enormously Tall Robert, who professed not to 'give a shit' if people think his clothes are ridiculous. Which is a good thing, as before week one was out, he'd paraded around in a blazer seemingly nicked from Dick van Dyke in Mary Poppins and had made me shriek when I caught a glimpse of his sockless ankles and sand-coloured suede slip-ons. LordSurA, of course, instantly dismissed him as, effectively, a 'Shoreditch Twat' and sacked him for refusing to be PM in week two, when he had expressly told him he was the man for the job. He wasn't even chosen by his PM for the final three in a boardroom grilling; LSA just flipped him the firing finger with no warning. See – cannon fodder.

So. Many. Differences. I can hardly keep up!

Distinguishing themselves so far on the girls' team are Roisin, a tallish blonde Irish woman who I think looks like a cut-price Cameron Diaz; a blonde woman with a bob and 'serious' glasses who looks like a cartoon (Jemma? She doesn't seem to have contributed anything, even, now, four episodes in); a woman whose forehead would give Tyra Banks a run for her money (still haven't worked out her name) and SARAH. Ah, Sarah. Brought in as one of the 'extras', Sarah immediately put herself forward to be PM in week one, just so we could get the full measure of how utterly appalling she is. When faced with selling the most random assortment of stuff from previous Apprentice series (spuds, hot dog sausages, mad balloons, lemons, flowers and T-shirts), Sarah spent ten minutes repeatedly suggesting that they should 'chop up the lemons'.

I wanted one of the girls to stop shouting, 'NOOOOOOO!' at her for just a second to say, 'Sarah, when have you ever bought a slice of lemon?' Unless you are selling them pre-sliced to a cocktail bar (they'd dry out, so you couldn't even do that). Sarah has watched too many box-sets of Mad Men. Her instruction to her team of Business Wimmin was to wear really short skirts and pile on the make-up. Sarah seems to think that the key to Apprentice success is to channel an air hostess from the 1960s. I'd be marginally less offended by this tactic if she were any good at applying her own make up. Learn the art of blending, dear and stop putting on bronzer that looks like mud. She looks like a mad tranny. She seems so moronic one can only assume she's a plant, put there to wind everyone up. Job done so far. She was very lucky the boys made the executive decision to leave all their 'added value, high mark-up' T-shirts at the printers', or she'd have definitely gone first.

Another difference? LSA finally telling one of the teams that their team name is just too ludicrous to stomach. The girls came up with two options, 'Summit' or 'Decadence'. Have they never watched this show before? Surely, on day one, the main thing you come armed with (other than a CV that requires a 2:1 in Disbelief Suspension) is a bunch of whizzy-sounding team names that sit perilously on the fence of 'sounds like a business' and 'sounds like a bunch of tossers'. Try for some Latin, maybe? Team Carpe Diem, perhaps – don't think that’s ever been used. It would also be amusing to make LordSurA say it every week: Car-paaay Deee-'em. But no, the girls decided on Decadence, because, according to Sarah, it sounded 'more feminine and classy'. Christ, you might as well have gone with Team Rosewater or Team LadyMary from Downton Abbey. Brilliantly, half of them (including the girl who suggested it) didn't actually know what it meant.

This resulted in possibly the Apprentice speech of the decade, as Nick, channelling his Countdown alter-ego, gave them a million etymological reasons for it being the worst name in business history. He finished up by using the phrase 'moral turpitude'. Which, given the girls didn't even know the meaning of decadence, is pretty awesome. They should've gone with Moral Turpitude as the new team name. Or Shrieking Harridans. They’ve in fact gone for ‘Tenacity’, which has led to one of the Guardian Liveblog commenters re-dubbing the team The Tena City Ladies.

LordSurAlan has gone a bit schizo, task-wise, going from inventing 'wearable tech' (ooh, someone on the production team's seen a press release for Google Glass) to flooding the market with Airwick Fresheners. Sorry, 'home fragrances' (ie candles and reed diffusers). A woman who professed herself 'obsessed' with how her house smelled headed up one team, despite the fact she'd openly admitted to buying Glade Plug-ins. The fumes from those are probably the reason why she decided (as per every other series) to ignore the 'market research' which said to make the candles out of soy wax and on no account to faff about with colouring them. Paraffin and custard-coloured candles shot off the production line.

The other team's product and packaging were better, but their approach to business was 'set a price then panic', plumping for a very literal 'slash and burn' method of throwing all their diffusers at a nifty gifty store for £8 a go, when they had a firm sale lined up with a poncey members club for literally three times that if they'd only hung on for a few hours.

I was disappointed that there wasn't a cedarwood/sandalwood epic cock-up, which I was fully expecting. Custard Candles Inc won the day, by less than the RRP of one of the candles. The theme for this series seems to be winning by the narrowest of margins, or 'who can fail least?' Poor Swimming Lindsay got as close as one can on the Apprentice to a resignation - what on earth was she doing there in the first place? She looked like she'd got to week 3 and thought, 'was this really the show I was supposed to apply for? I think there's been a huge admin error.' Credit to her for basically giving a massive shrug and going, 'yeah, I was properly hopeless' rather than the usual, 'I am the one you want, LordSurAlan - I've got drive, I've got ambition [I've got delusions of being something other than just 'adequate at my job'], giving it 110%' pitch, which was what Nurun went for. Which went as well as that usually does.

We'll leave aside what on earth was the point of this week's task (trying to make viral videos on YouTube, which made me want to construct a huge neon sign depicting the phrase, 'OH, THE HUMANITY', to stick over the revolving door at the front of Broadcasting House.) Both teams' concept was utterly unintelligible. One team had two identical brunette women in it whom I had literally never seen before. (And a camera person who looked as though they were wearing an ironic '118 118' ginger wig 'n' headband combo. No-one seemed to comment on this.)

It didn't matter what the task was. They could've been competitive sheep shearing or trying to flog burgers made out of pigeons to Belgians. The entire point of the episode, was to have THE MOST EPIC FIRING IN APPRENTICE HISTORY. The three boardroom burnouts were team leader Ella Jade (business idea: a TV production company. Because the world of business definitely needs another one of those). She'd failed utterly to make a convincing mini telly programme. And seemed never to have seen anything on YouTube, despite the fact that that's how half of us now consume TV. (I wanted to bamboozle her by shouting 'NETFLIX!!' in her face till she begged me to stop and tell her what it was.) Canadian Steven, whose chief talent was speaking the English language as though he were simultaneously translating it from a Cantonese business manual written in the late '80s. Why they allowed him to do a pitch to a bemused team from Buzzfeed is anyone's idea; he couldn't even manage it in the taxi on the way over. (Business idea: something to do with care homes). And, oh glory be, SARAH. Sarah, whose previous career included being a PA and a hypnotist (presumably not at the same time, but who knows) had been so annoying that they'd given her the entirely made-up job of 'timings'.

This led, somehow, to it being her fault that the sub-team had neglected to give their video either a name or any kind of description before uploading it. Seriously, do these people live in caves somewhere, like troglodytes? How have they seemingly never seen a YouTube video and what's on it? How did they expect anyone to find their god-awful offerings?

The Eye of Sauron (sorry, SurAlan), fell first on Steven, who went down in a screaming hissy fit audible only to bats of denials and begging to be next week's PM (you are being fired, you delusional idiot. There is no next week for you. Also, it would have taken you all of the two allotted days to decide on a sub-team leader, never mind actually get anything done).

By this time, I was thinking, 'can’t you fire all of them? They're all abysmal.'

Sarah, what’s your business plan, then? 'I want to start up a really unique dating site'. OH. MY. GOD. Is it called WearAShortSkirt.com, or SurrenderedWives.co.uk or FuckFeminismINeedaHusband.net? Dating websites was even a task a couple of series back, and I’m still getting flashbacks. LordSurAlan, with his wearable tech and his determination to surf the online zeitgeist, is working hard at appearing MODERN, and thus having none of Mad Men (or Mad for Men) Sarah. Deciding that she is clearly another lawsuit-in-waiting, he boots her. Which leaves Ella Jade with nowhere to hide. Will she be allowed to go home to change into her sweatpants and laugh it up with relief? No, she will not. She's still begging to be given another chance, even as LordSurAlan is getting RSI from pointing his firing finger so many times in one episode. He has to basically fire her four times. He nearly has to instruct Karren and Nick to grab an arm and a leg each to haul her out, while she hangs on to the boardroom table. It's actually awful. Especially as for once the winning team have got a decent prize, lolling around in volcanic springs in Iceland (actual country, not cut-price shopping emporium; which, given the first week's prize was a trip in the London Eye, was worth celebrating).  

So far, I think Solomon is my favourite - non-shouty, and appears to have an actual brain, as well as luxuriant hair. I still can't believe that all of these people have a business that they want to launch. James, for example, who looks like a TOWIE escapee and who is billed as being a 'multiple business owner' (does that mean he runs a Costco?) What's his big idea? Wouldn't it be less humiliating to just go on Dragon's Den? At least then you only have a panel of people telling you you're a moron for what amounts to ten minutes on TV, rather than twelve weeks.

Anyway, I'll carry on watching; partly out of habit, and partly because, with the winter nights drawing in, the fires of rage stoked by the contestants' weekly idiocy are keeping me warm, thus reducing my heating bills. Perhaps that's the business idea I should pitch for next year? Hook yourself up to a Hatewatch Generator for all your energy needs. You can start watching this year's X-Factor if  things get really bad and snow threatens before Christmas.

Ready, Set, BAKE!

So, it's been a dog's age since I posted on here. I hope that anyone who used to keep up with this has been living a happy and fruitful life in my absence. I had quite an eventful time of it - I sold a flat and bought a new one (quite a story - I may yet post that experience up for posterity, so that when my new flat inevitably plummets in price 18 months after I bought it at the height of the market, just as I've spent £15k doing it up, as the last one did, I can look back and go, 'ahh, but it was worth a small fortune, once. Maybe it will be again').

I have also taken another step up the Ladder of Adulthood and I'm now an Aunt! My niece has just turned one, and is adorable. Which is a relief, given that I'm generally pretty rubbish with babies. Weirdly, she looks exactly like I did when I was her age (blonde, blue eyes), rather than anything like either of her parents, who both have dark hair. My mum delights in teaching her a crazy new face to pull each week, which she takes to with alacrity. It's often a challenge trying to feed her because she is making me laugh so much. I'm looking forward to when she starts talking, as I think she's going to be even more hilarious. 

But enough of all that big, important stuff, because it's my favourite time of year - fire off a confetti cannon, and hoist the bunting, it's the return of COMPETITIVE REALITY TV. The nights are about to get a whole lot colder and darker (I don't care that it's not even September yet, I've already been sneakily putting on the electric blanket before bed. Don't judge me. I'm a spinster. I live alone. I have nothing to keep me warm at night apart from the electric blanket. Nothing, I tell you.) They're already trailing Strictly, but for the moment, the nation is gripped by the Great British Bake Off. Which, owing to its massive popularity, has been moved from the incredibly-challenging-to-find BBC2 onto the hey-it's-at-the-top-of-the-channels-list BBC1. 

I have no idea why they do this. Wouldn't it be better for BBC2 to have a super-popular show which might then result in people remaining tuned in to whatever's on afterwards, thus boosting the channel's ratings? Do they really think that viewers think of BBC2 as, what, hopelessly elitist and too intellectually challenging? It's a programme about cake, leavened with massive measures of innuendo, for heaven's sake. Anyway, this year, I've joined in the office sweepstake for added excitement and am now avoiding any social engagements on a Wednesday. Here are my thoughts so far.

Week 1

It is always fun seeing which ‘characters’ have been drafted in, who mirror the most popular/controversial ones from yesteryear. Strictly tends to do this as well (‘really old one who’ll get a sympathy vote for 3 weeks then go’; ‘really overweight one who will either be so disastrous the nation will keep them in for an unnecessarily long time, for a laugh, or who will be surprisingly good’; ‘young woman who used to be on Hollyoaks/Emmerdale/Eastenders/Corrie’; ‘person who is famous for literally one thing – mainly being in a Bond film/married to someone more famous but who refused to do it’; ‘man/woman who is currently on BBC Breakfast and thus has to do nearly 3 days’ work every day with the training, whilst promoting Strictly every morning’, etc).

So, we have:

This year's Ruby: Martha. She's only 17 (she should just be the oldest one on Junior GBBO, surely? It's practically child labour). She is unnervingly good. She's less obviously gorgeous than Ruby last year, so hopefully should avoid any Twitchfork mobs online accusing her of flirting with Paul.

This year's Brendan: a Scottish man called Norman, who is excellent. (I think he keeps bees; expect everything to have honey in it, even in Pork Pie week).

This year's clear winner (whom I have in our sweepstake - YES): Nancy. She came prepared with a cake guillotine which her husband had fashioned for her. She is the Marie Antoinette of baking.

This year's token weirdo: Jordan. A man who is so ugly he makes my eyes hurt. Yet, inexplicably, he HAS A GIRLFRIEND. He was sporting a shirt that was uncannily like a duvet cover I had in the 1980s. He looks like God collected all the different sorts of teeth and decided to jam them all in one person’s mouth. Entirely haphazardly. He has a cackly nervous laugh, which he deploys after saying anything at all. In summary: URGH, get him off my telly. He should've left first. His mini cakes looked as though he'd taken on board the nation's efforts to commemorate the First World War and created a homage to the Battle of the Somme in sponge.

This year's potentially most annoying woman: Kate-from-Brighton, who apparently refuses to weigh anything and has, I think, slightly wacky curly hair (looks to have pink streaks in it). She's very, very thin, which always makes me mistrustful in a baker. She looks a bit like Kate Garraway.

This year's 'oh, I suppose I'll have to fancy him, there's no-one else': Iain. Who originally hails from Belfast (and so sounds exactly like my erstwhile trainer, Cheerful James), but now lives in London, and so has an alarming ginger hipster beard, a mustard cardigan, tight trousers and gravity-defying hair. He was also revealed to be, when the camera pulled back for the 'group hug' shot at the end, as tall as the Shard. Depending on how next week goes, he might make it to week 3.

There was, however, a (funny to me) cut directly from Lovely Richard (who is a builder), who is only about 38 but bald in a way that looks physically painful, to Iain's luxuriant bouffant. Cruel, but amusing.

What, if anything, has changed, in the switch from BBC2 (cult audience of millions) to BBC1 (mainstream audience of millions)? There’s still an abundance of puns. Squirrels have been replaced by black lambs (diversity edict, now they've moved to BBC1?) The Rain of Judgement dutifully cascaded onto the tent halfway through, drenching the bunting. The incidental music was cranked up very high for an opening episode. The 'technical challenge' was cherry cake, which seemed a bit basic. Someone CRIED OVER A SWISS ROLL. Which, for week 1, was a bit X-Factor.

Week 2 & Week 3

Biscuits vs Bread. Neither was particularly dramatic (and I’ve never made either, so both are a bit lost on me), but high/low points were:

Norman heroically eschewing any kind of flavour in anything he makes. He proclaimed pesto, which the average middle-class two year-old these days consumes by the bucket-load, ‘exotic’ and literally didn’t add anything to his savoury biscuits other than the ingredients to make them technically ‘biscuits’ (flour, butter and lard. Yuck). I’m not sure if the producers have put him in just to see how much he can rile Paul and Mary by cooking food that is so plain it’s indicative that he’s not only Scottish, but also has some kind of digestive condition that’s led him to a really extreme exclusion diet. A bit like being at the Mayr Clinic, where the only thing you’re given to eat for a week is dry bread, which you have to chew about 100 times per mouthful.

Nancy produced a second baking gizmo made by her husband, which was kind of like a tiny Iron Maiden (torture device, not metal group) for pricking holes in biscuits. She is morphing from Marie Antoinette to the Marquis de Sade. I was surprised she hadn’t commissioned him to make her a biscuit jigsaw, given that most of the others were making tiny horses, and even a Biscuit St George and the Dragon, which were actually slotted together.

Enwezor got booted out just as a Guardian Liveblog commenter had finally revealed who he sounded exactly like: Moss from The IT Crowd. Dammit, that’d been bugging me. He got binned for using shop-bought fondant. Mary’s expression when he ‘fessed up to that could’ve created its own sourdough starter.

Kate is growing on me. There seems to be little evidence for this idea that she doesn’t weigh anything or use recipes, and my worry that she was going to be ‘whacky’ seems to be unfounded. Apologies for being knee-jerkingly judgy, just because you have curly hair with some pink in it, Kate.

Someone should, however, tell Iain that if he’s going to get really hot (he will, there are ovens blasting away for hours on end in a fairly enclosed space in the middle of summer) and thus go quite a violent shade of red all over, he shouldn’t wear a scarlet cardi. Which also clashes with his ginger beard. Also, is he doing a bit of a Samson thing with his hair/beard and refusing to trim either for fear that it’ll be his downfall? We reached Peak Beard some time ago now, and I can’t help thinking that under that lot is a really handsome man. Liberate your chin from its ginger hair-prison, Iain!

Jordan decided that for a bread showstopper, he’d fuse a cheesecake with a loaf, and then stick what looked like a whole jar of strawberry jam into it. Um, even I can tell you that’s going to give you a soggy bottom, and is going to look like something Carrie would’ve baked for her GCSE Home Ec assessment. Mary could take no more: bye, Jordan!  

Week 4

Week 4 will henceforth be known as Alaska-gate. It was Pudding Week, and the showstoppers were Baked Alaska. A pudding which even I and my friend Dawn, who are hardcore sweettooths, have never actually eaten, and we’re both children of the '70s. It seems like it’s only there to be difficult; why would you try to bake something that has ice cream in it? If I really had to make one, then I reckon I’d just buy a Swiss Roll and stick a Viennetta on top of it, then crumble a meringue nest over the top. Ta-da!

Anyway, to add to the impossibility of the task, it was the Hottest Day of the Year when they were filming (in June, so about 25 degrees. Feel free to laugh, people who live anywhere other than Scotland or, er, actual Alaska). Though, having been in a marquee on a really hot day a few weeks back for a wedding, I can certify that the temperature inside, especially if you add in a load of hot ovens, would’ve been appreciably higher than that. You might even have been able to fry an egg just on the demonstration table.

Things were Not Going Well. No-one was allowed to use an ice-cream maker, even though quite a lot of ‘home cooks’ have them. Probably more than have a ‘proving drawer’, which the cooks are provided with, at any rate. Everyone was running around like headless chickens, trying to do fancy sponges and get their ice-cream to freeze (with seemingly one freezer too few – is it like musical chairs, GBBO – every time a contestant leaves, they take away two freezers?), whilst also panicking about then having to blow-torch a meringue on top of it. Really, this is the world’s most ridiculous pudding. Richard should’ve been at an advantage, as his was a Tiramisu version, and the technical the day before was a Tiramisu cake, but he was worrying that he was going to be marked down for essentially doing the same thing twice. (Don’t see why, it wasn’t his fault that’s what the technical was; although maybe he should’ve done better on that, given he’d essentially been practising making it all week.) Chetna was clearly wondering how to get mango chutney into hers (she puts it in everything), whilst Norman was wondering if he could get away with my Swiss Roll/Viennetta idea (a vanilla one, no exotic mint choc chip aberrations here, thanks very much.) He seems still not to be in receipt of the memo that Bake Off is about flair as well as technical baking ability. Iain, on the other hand, was making ice cream with a paste of black sesame seeds, which looked more like tapenade.

Tempers, and possibly bunting, were fraying, when Diana embarked on an act of sabotage so grievous that in days gone by she’d be stoned in the middle of the village for being a witch. She took Iain’s cake’n’ice-cream-combo out of the freezer. And left it on the side. According to Twitter, which nearly broke under the Avalanche of Alaskan outrage afterwards, Iain’s not-so-icey-cream was only out of the freezer for 40 seconds. But 1/ I don’t believe it’s possible for something to be that ruddy liquid if left on a counter for less than a minute, even in the extreme heat of the Bake Off tent on The Hottest Day of the Year and 2/ even if it is true, if you take someone else’s shit out of a freezer, you surely CALL THEM OVER and say, ‘hey, Iain, is it OK if I move your stuff out of the freezer? I think you were originally using some other freezer, is that right?’ Rather than, when your fellow contestant has a (rightful) freak-out that his Santorini ice-cream has gone all lava-like, blithely telling him that he should’ve been using ‘his’ freezer.

Iain went mental, lobbed it all in a bin and strode off across a field. Probably to have a spliff or something to try to calm down and avoid decking Diana. I did think he was a tad hasty, chucking it in the bin, although, being a dramatic and flouncy type myself when something goes wrong, I’d have done exactly the same thing, whilst screaming ‘FUCK IT!!’ into a waiting boom-operator’s mike at close range. But if I hadn’t been swelteringly hot, in a tent and stressed to hell, I might’ve thought, ‘well, I’ll scrape the ice-cream off, shove on some meringue and serve the ice-cream as a sauce, in a kind of inversion of a Baked Alaska’ (which, given no-one was actually ‘baking’ theirs, merely blasting them with blowtorches, like something out of Alien, wouldn’t have been such a major deal. Spin it as a Heston Blumenthal idea, Iain! Tell Mary you’ve ‘deconstructed’ it!)

Major props to him for not dobbing in Diana, though – he is a man with way more honour than I could’ve possessed. Also, the air would’ve turned blue if that’d been my sh*t she’d messed with. Did she really not apologise to him at all, or was that editing? I’d like to think if that was me, I’d have defended him and spoken up about it, and, if I’d had the wherewithal to make an appeal to the judges, reminded them of the time 2 years ago when John cut half his hand off and was given a free pass on the judging when he couldn’t produce anything because he was bleeding profusely into a KitchenAid...

Whoever’s paying the string section on that show really got their money’s worth, though, the Violins of Doom were going mental. I was shrieking at the telly and my heart-rate didn’t go down for about an hour afterwards! Poor Iain, Norman should’ve gone (someone on the Guardian blog or Twitter, can’t remember which, posted the most hilarious comment, saying ‘if Norman gets any more basic, next week he’ll be presenting a bag of flour with a smiley face drawn on it.’)

I’m hoping next week they’ll have a ‘double eviction’ and get rid of Norman and Diana. A Baked Alaska Swan FFS. Surely only the Queen can eat that? Also, Martha should’ve been star baker, not Richard. And Nancy needs to get her husband to produce more S&M baking gadgets; she’s slipping down the ranks, and my £24 sweepstake money is looking in danger. I think Richard and Kate may be battling it out in the final. Possibly with Luis.

Farewell, then, the Russet Gandalf – you’d only just earned a nickname, and now you are gone. But at least you’ve guaranteed an audience for Friday’s rubbish Bake Off spin-off show, and made sure EVERYONE is talking about it. I also liked Mary’s comment that, re: the ill-advised binning, thus giving them nothing to judge, ‘It’s a moment of madness in your life, that you’ll just want to forget about’. Um, yes, Mary, it’s on national telly, and about 7 million people have just had the entire thing seared into their memories and are taking to social media to spread the word even further. The morality of ‘a woman taking a thing out of a freezer’ will be debated across acres of newsprint and online for the next 3 days. Make friends with the editors on your show, Mary, they clearly wield more power than Pol Pot and Stalin put together.

Is next week's pie-fest going to turn Sweeney Todd, as the contestants all round on Diana? Or will she compound her villainy by surrepticiously turning down Norman's oven or lobbing a handful of Scotch Bonnet chilies into his steak and kidney when he's not looking? 

  

Texting, Texting, 1, 2, 3

In an age of online dating, where everyone’s laying (nearly) all their cards on the table, and you can while away happy hours window shopping for a mate via the Guardian, Match or whichever other virtual shopping mall you’re frequenting, I’m still no clearer on the etiquette of Being Asked Out.

Friends of mine who’re internet dating face a daunting array of winks, pokes, prods, the vaguest of emails saying, ‘Hi’ or, if unlucky, really basic propositioning. Which is pretty shit – if someone just winked at you in a bar, and then left it at that, you’d ignore them. Why do men online think this approach is going to net them a different result? I know it’s a numbers game, and god knows, numbers games are exhausting (especially for anyone as numerically challenged as I am – if given a £5 note and asked for change based on the fact the item cost £4.50, I can just about manage), but really, wouldn’t it be easier all round if you just put in some initial effort? Like, send an actual email – something along the lines of, ‘you seem nice/interesting/there, would you like to go for a drink?’ Because this is the other thing that my friends have said happens a lot – you email for a while, and they still don’t actually ask you out. Which is surely the point of all this – I doubt anyone’s going into it to get a virtual pen-friend. Emails are exchanged, to the point where eventually, someone says, ‘so, shall we meet up?’ Then it becomes a lengthy back and forth of saying, ‘yes, that would be nice’ and then seemingly it’s a huge effort to get them to actually say, ‘Thursday is good for me’. And then, of course, there’s the supplementary, ‘Where shall we go?’ discussion.

I keep telling one friend to just suggest a date and a venue, because a lot of men seem too shit to get it together on either front. Given the numbers game element, and the likelihood there will be little to no ‘spark’ (or one or other of you has lied about your weight, height, degree of hair loss or actual face in the photos, rendering even a second date pointless), I’d imagine it’s best to set up a date asap, just so that you can move onto the next one all the faster. If you’re on a dating website, the aim is clear: find someone to go out with. So why this endless hesitation and procrastination? It’s mystifying. You’re all there wanting to be asked out. So ask people out. Given that men seem to be so backward in coming forward, is it thus OK if us girls effectively do all the asking? If they’re not acting on their hunter/gatherer impulses and pursuing you, then does that mean generations of conditioning viz women not being ‘forward’ and sitting around like Jane Austen spinsters waiting to have their dance cards filled has also disappeared?

It’s a quandary for the modern laydee. We’re used to being pro-active in most spheres, even if we don’t necessarily get what we want all the time (I’m thinking in particular of pay rises, which are notoriously difficult to achieve, ironically, in the female-dominated arts and media business in which I ply my trade). But when it comes to being asked out, I’m still really, really old fashioned. I have read The Rules (I read it for work; I laughed at it; I couldn’t help still thinking that some elements of it were probably true). I’ve also read He’s Just Not That Into You, which is terrible, and how it became a book is anyone’s guess, when it’s a 5 minute section of dialogue in one episode of Sex and the City. (Don't get me onto the film, which I have inexplicably seen about three times now, and which is even worse.) But, I do think the premise that, if someone’s into you, then they’ll call/email/text you is sound. But how long does one wait to be called/emailed/texted, before you think, ‘sod it, I might as well call/email/text them’? And is it worse to beat yourself up for being spineless and waiting, or beat yourself up for being ‘a bit full on’ and getting in contact with them first?

Generally speaking, this isn’t a problem for me. I very rarely get chatted up, other than by cabbies, who, the minute they establish you’re single (the last one I had went through, ‘So, are you married? Kids? Boyfriend? Girlfriend?’ – the whole gamut) declare merrily, ‘Oh, but you get chatted up all the time, right?’ Umm, what alternative London do you live in? Just because you talk to people all day, doesn’t mean that anyone else does. If there’s one thing that London’s famed for, it’s the fact that no-one here talks to each other. But recently, there have been a couple of instances where I’ve had to decide whether or not to break my own (daft, old fashioned) rules.

So, first off, I have finally moved out of The House of Tiny Tearaways and back into my old spinster pad up the road. I was actually a bit sad about it, as I was, despite all assumptions to the contrary, really enjoying living with a bunch of people I didn’t know, several of whom were men. Men who were all modern, and did things like cooking and ironing. (Things that, by the way, I very rarely do; I became famed for my adherence to only cooking omelettes). They were chatty, they were nice, one of them was endearingly weird. It felt as though I almost had some friends who were blokes. (Well, I went out to a party and a club with three of them, once – that counts, right?)

A few months before I moved out, a new chap moved in. Every time there was a new chap moving in, all my single friends would be nudging me in the ribs and going, ‘Hey, what if your new house mate is HOT, eh? HAHAHAHAHA’. I would think, ‘Well, it’d seem even more like I was living in a Channel 4 sitcom. Or a chick fic book in which I fancied him desperately and he didn’t really know I existed, other than when we ran out of milk and I offered to go to the corner shop to get more.’ The New Chap looked about 22, so let us refer to him henceforth as The Youngster (he is actually 31). He was super smiley. We had Chats in the kitchen. It was all very nice. It came to the day I was moving out, and he came up to my room, to say goodbye, as he was going out for the day. I was, as per usual, being awkward (I hate goodbyes anyway, plus I was feeling in a bit of a fragile state – moving always makes me burst into floods of tears. I think it’s to do with things ending). The Youngster suddenly surprised me by saying that we must, ‘definitely, definitely, definitely stay in touch’. Really? THREE ‘definitelys’? I was so thrown that I idiotically replied that I ‘definitely, definitely, definitely’ would. We made noises about meeting up ‘for coffee’ when I got back from holiday in a few weeks’ time.

Ah, but who would initiate this coffee? And what did it mean, I pondered at length with my two friends, as we wandered around New York, undergoing the kind of heatwave in June that one would more normally expect in Athens in August (ie mentally as well as physically discombobulating). I decided I would send him a message via Facebook (this is as modern as I get; also, I didn’t have either his phone number or his email, either of which would’ve been preferable), as it was his birthday while I was away, and I knew they were having a house party. Much debate over the wording of a ‘breezy’ message. I’m sure men have no idea that you can spend an hour and a half composing a three-line message. (‘Do I start with ‘Hi’, or ‘Hey’ – which is more casual-sounding? Is that too casual?’, Do I put a kiss on it?’ etc).

We then messaged backwards and forwards for a bit. I was still mulling over the ‘definitelys’. Is that just how young people express themselves (over-emphatically), or was it possible he fancied me? I thought it seemed unlikely, given that most of the times we’d chatted, I was red faced and wild-haired, having just come back from the gym, and dressed in jeans and trainers. Eventually, I suggested meeting up for a drink, and spent three days debating whether or not it was a date, with anyone who’d listen. ‘No need to put a label on it,’ advised one friend, ‘it’s not a flipping Excel sheet’. Geezerboy at the gym, who I felt sure would see things in admirably black or white terms, (he’s a geezer, after all), asked me a lot of questions about what had happened when we were living together (‘Nothing! Just chatting in the kitchen, and he smiled a lot – then all these ‘definitelys!’) before professing himself mystified as to The Youngster’s intentions. It is weird, going out on a potential date with someone you’ve lived with for three months. What on earth does one wear, for a start? Especially when you don’t know if it’s actually a date or not.

We went out (to a bar I’d suggested - following my own advice). We drank a bottle of wine and had dinner. It was nice. We walked home together. He invited me in for a cup of tea, which I accepted, as I needed to pick up some post (I am, indeed, the Last Great Seductress, no?) We drank tea. I headed home about midnight, with both of us agreeing that we’d had a ‘really really [really] nice time’ and should do it again. So, it seemed like we’d been on a date (drink, dinner, um… tea?), but I was no further forward as to whether or not this was a ‘just good friends’ scenario.

On the next outing, I upped the ante. We went out on a Saturday (surely a date?) We went to a pop-up bar on the South Bank (totally the setting for a Richard Curtis film). We walked a long way trying to get into two different branches of Wahaca, before ending up in Polpo (grown up yet fashionable dining – plus more wine). We came back home and had another drink in a bar round the corner from both of our abodes. I invited him back to mine, based on a super-spurious excuse. We sat on opposite ends of the sofa, drinking more effing tea (I don’t even drink tea usually) until 1.40am, at which point he said he ought to go home. Friendly peck on the cheek, and off he went, into the night.

The next week, he offered to come round and cook me dinner. I mean, really, I’ve had someone cook me dinner about four times in my entire life. I got all paranoid as I was putting my flat on the market (whole other story) and had bought a white tablecloth to try to minimize my rather gigantic and ugly dining room table. So we ate our dinner with the plates resting on pieces of newspaper, in case of spillages. We then went to the cinema (could this be any more of a date?) We walked home afterwards. I ended up back at my old house. Can you guess what happened? Yes, we drank tea – sitting on opposite sofas. (I sat down first – the fact we weren’t even sitting on the same sofa was not my doing, so surely I can’t be blamed for ‘giving off the wrong signals’, viz-a-viz any romantic desires).

Subsequent to that, I didn’t really hear anything from him for a month (having previously received quite a few texts asking me how my day had been, etc) – he went away to a wedding in Italy, I had various things on. At which point I thought, ‘Dammit, I like hanging out with him – I don’t really care about this whole non-snogging thing. At this point, it’s going to take a team of sherpas with crampons to excavate us from the Friend Zone, so let’s be friends. I don’t have enough male friends to let one disappear’. So I texted and suggested a drink. We went out on a Tuesday and got pretty hammered (the bar we were in has terrible food, so I refused to order anything more than hummus and halloumi with pitta bread). By the end of it, he sounded a bit surprised about what a nice time he’d had (perhaps he had forgotten just how great I am, having not seen me for a month?!) It felt like there was A Moment. But because I’d suggested that we meet up in a bar which is literally two minutes from either of our houses, and because I also didn’t want to go the full Jane Austen and suggest he ‘walk me home’ (as I couldn’t face any more hot beverage action), there we were, right outside the bar, at the traffic lights where I cross the road and go right and he goes left. We both went our separate ways. If this carries on, I’ll at least be able to claim that I have a Platonic Boyfriend. Or perhaps that I am now a Semi-Spinster.

Anyway, after all this near-miss stuff, I then got ver’ ver’ drunk in a trashy bar in Clapham with some mates on Friday. It is a place we go to expressly to get drunk, dance to terrible 80s music and cop off with unsuitable men. I somehow managed to cop off with someone who seemed – whilst drunk and in a very dimly lit arena – to be quite tall, dark and handsome. He was also 31. Everyone is 31 – ‘Six Degrees of Separation Angus’? 31. The Youngster? 31. Thirty one is clearly the new 28 (which was the age of men I generally used to attract. Not that I’m complaining – it’s better than getting blokes who are 51). So, it came to pass that he suggested that we ‘exchange numbers’. Which is another really annoying modern thing – can’t men just say, ‘you seem nice – do you want to go out for a drink sometime?’ What is this ‘exchanging numbers’ thing – you might as well give someone your business card and suggest ‘meeting up at a networking event’.

So, then you’re twiddling your thumbs, hating waiting on a text in the same way that you waited by the phone when you were 16. (Well, you did if anyone was asking for your number at 16; personally, they absolutely weren’t. I had the social skills of the bag of potatoes that I so acutely resembled). ‘Do blokes still do the 3-day rule?’ I thought. ‘If so, why? All communication moves at a lightning speed these days, it’s stupid to leave it that long out of some sense of being cool’. But then, could I text him? Half of me thought, if he doesn’t text, then he doesn’t want to see you. The other half thought, oh, be proactive, what’ve you got to lose? Mainly, I wanted him to text me because I wasn’t entirely sure what his name was. Well, it’d been noisy and I was, as we’ve established, not altogether compos mentis.

By Tuesday, I decided to go for it, spent half an hour composing another ‘breezy’ text, (it’s exhausting, this necessity for breeziness), sent it, then spent the rest of the afternoon chiding myself for being a dick and wishing I hadn’t. However, he replied, and we are going out tonight. As he lives in Clapham and I live in Streatham, I suggested meeting up in Clapham, Balham or Brixton. He picked Brixton. I have still ended up suggesting the actual meeting point. Oh, and turns out, he’s one of those people who doesn’t sign his name at the end of texts, which could be somewhat awkward...

Does Kevin Bacon live in East Dulwich?

Is it finally Spring? I don’t want to get lulled into a false sense of security on the basis of one day when it didn’t rain and I felt bold enough to leave off all three layers of thermals when leaving the house. The Winter of Discontent has now lasted for so long that I have come to the conclusion that in order to try to sort out the nation’s dire financial problems, the Coalition have in fact sold us to the White Witch, and we are now living in Narnia.

As my friend Claire pointed out, this would make George Osborne the Edmund of the outfit, keen to barter everything he owns for the promise of some Turkish Delight and untold power, which pleased me greatly. Who will be our Aslan? Only time will tell. Perhaps we need an actual lion running both the economy and the weather.  Oh God, is that why Boris Johnson has that terrible hair? Is it a subconscious attempt at a mane?

Anyway, these hopeful attempts at a change of season are accompanied by new shoots in the House of Tiny Tearaways. Yes, it is all change on the home front, with a recent slew of departures and arrivals to rival Heathrow on a Bank Holiday.

Firstly, Beautiful Couple Canadian David and Kim have moved to the coast (Plymouth? Portsmouth? Somewhere like that). Kim had family down there, neither of them seemed to like living in London, and David finally managed to get an actual, permanent job, working for Canadian beer company Molson, after a succession of jobs that included being a builder, a charity mugger and packing dildos in an Ann Summers factory. (Is this the 21^st century equivalent of the ‘butcher, the baker and the candlestick maker’, one wonders).

They have been replaced by less beautiful (but even younger) couple Chris and Natalie, who both hail from Hull. Chris works on oil rigs off the coast of Aberdeen, so spends two weeks there and then two weeks in London. He gets flown to work (from Aberdeen) by helicopter, which beats most commutes. He also has an even longer trip down south than I did when I lived in Edinburgh, and that was bad enough. Natalie wants to be an actress, but is making ends meet by working in fancypants bakery chain Gail’s, which means that she regularly comes home loaded down with free baked goods which would otherwise end up in the bin at the end of her shift. I can confirm that the Gail’s hot cross buns are definitively the best in the world. Thank God it is only the Easter period for a short time, or I would now be the size of a killer whale.

Asha (fan of Holby City and making elaborate meals for her boyfriend, which they then insisted on eating in her room – weird) has made way for Mysterious Neil, who I have literally seen about eight times since he arrived. Despite a comment from Ben soon after he’d moved in that we were now living with ‘the 40 year-old virgin’, (he is, conversationally speaking, what could best be termed ‘a bit awkward’), Neil seems to have a social life that requires him to be out every night and all weekend. To the extent that I think he may be living a double life and is actually a spy. He has lived in Streatham for a very long time and has an exhaustive knowledge of every bar, pub and eatery within a two-mile range. We have yet to meet any of his friends. The only time I see him is when he is en route to bed, having come home at 11pm, and I am still in the sitting room watching shit telly.

Handsome-yet-dull Ben has also moved out, taking his Abercrombie and Fitch biceps and his protein shakes with him (and also freeing us of his annoying habit of draining food in the sink, then leaving most of the stuff that’s escaped over the side of the colander, because, what, it will eventually all break down and go down the plug?) He has yet to be replaced, so I live in hope of recruiting a man who is equally buff but who has developed a personality as well as his quads.

Terribly Tall Chris has moved to Brixton; his slot in the house has been taken by South African Will. I’ve never been a fan of South Africans, owing to the abrasively clipped accent. And the only one I was a fan of is currently suspected of shooting dead his girlfriend in the middle of the night. Which brought my habit of mentally singing, ‘happy and glorious, Oscar Pistorius’ to the tune of our national anthem every time he was mentioned, abruptly to a halt.

However, South African Will is the exception to the rule. I think he looks a bit like Aaron Eckhart, I’m getting used to the accent and he has very good manners. The other evening, for example, I came in and fixed some dinner. He was sitting on one of our two sofas. He spotted me coming to sit down and asked if I’d like to sit where he was sitting, ‘as this is your favourite chair’. (I’d never stated a preference, it’s just the one I usually sit on). How nice is that? I thanked him for being gentlemanly, but insisted he stay where he was.

He is also uber-sociable, which led to an excellent, random night out on Saturday. I’d been to see the early showing of the new Ryan Gosling/Bradley Cooper film, The Place Beyond the Pines, which is good, if overlong, and with a welter of clichés. But heck, RYAN GOSLING – even with bleached blonde hair and a collection of horrible tattoos – and robbing banks – you still would. He also sets back the no-smoking cause about 15 years by permanently having a fag on and looking gorgeous. My friend and I, after spending most of Friday afternoon gathering all the different Ryan Gosling Tumblrs, have decided that because he is so universally popular (and seems kind and generous – plus I think he saved someone’s life not that long ago – so is also HEROIC), he should be the world’s Timeshare Boyfriend, and every woman should get to go out with him for a night.

I digress. I got back about ten-ish to find South African Will, Weird David and Oil Rig Chris playing Wii Golf and hammered on a wide variety of ill-advised booze. Will, for example, had produced a litre bottle of some Austrian rum that was 60% proof and tasted like floor cleaner. David fixed me a mug of prosecco (we only possess one wine glass in the entire house), then Chris insisted that I drink a combination of Disaronno and Jack Daniels.

After about an hour, Will announced that an Irish ex-flatmate was having a house party in Tooting. All agreed we should definitely go. Ten minutes later we were piled into a cab (me having changed my trainers for boots and bunged on red lippie as a concession to Going Out). We arrive at the house party which, despite having been billed as an Irish rave up, is not very well populated. I get offered a Mojito by a very drunk Irish man, who alternates asking me my name and then telling me I look hot on a permanent loop for five minutes. 'This is fun, isn't it?' I think. Ten minutes in, the entire house is suggesting going to some bar in Putney, which will cost £15 each to get in, plus cab fare. Will, thank God, vetoes us going, so the four of us, plus a friend of Will's that we have picked up, called Angus, go round the corner to some barn of a bar, called the Tram Shed, filled with drunken young people.

There is a huge queue and it's deemed unlikely we'll get in. Will somehow manages to charm the door staff, who let us in for a £20 bung. There is a lot of rubbish 90s music, to which we all dance around like lunatics (the boys are, after all, shitfaced to a man, whilst I've only had a small glass of red, a glass of prosecco, a shot of Disaronno/JD and a very small amount of a mojito served by a drunk amnesiac leprechaun). Chris (newly back from the rigs, and without Natalie – she's away in Paris), is chatting up everyone. Girls, boys, probably if there was a dog there he'd be talking to them. He eventually falls foul of some bloke, nearly starts a fight and gets escorted outside by burly bouncers. Which, as he is the world's most mild mannered man, is a bit alarming. I decide that given Angus is the only man I don't currently live with, and seems nice, (and Chris has informed me that Angus fancies me – I'm more of the opinion that I'm the only girl in the party and Angus is just dancing next to me, so doesn't obviously fancy me), and that Chris, David and Will are clearly going to get themselves into some sort of drunken trouble, that Angus and I should leave. 

So, we end up in his (very nice) house-share in East Dulwich. I find out on returning on Sunday that Will and David had gone on to the Electric in Brixton and not got back till 6.00am (David having forgotten both going to the house party and the fact we were in a bar in Tooting – I do worry about him). They'd lost Chris, who finally made it back at 7am having had to pay £30 for a taxi from Brixton to our house (which is a 15-minute bus ride). He said he was so drunk he couldn't even see the bus numbers, ergo having to get the taxi. I was just pleased he was alive. He had, however, managed to get hit in the face when Will hoisted someone trying to nick his phone from his pocket. All in all, quite the night out.

But it doesn’t end there. I got in this morning, and obviously it is EXCITING that I have managed to score, and also with a younger man (31. Although, as has been noted previously in these parts, there is rarely anyone who is over 35 on a night out). I was regaling my two colleagues about my escapades and saying, 'yeah, it was this really tall guy called Angus'. At which Nicole, the PR Director, said, 'Oh, I knew a tall guy called Angus at uni. Good looking, kind of lanky, dark hair?' 

Me: 'Um, yes, but surely that's not him? He's 31'. 

Nicole: 'Yeah, I'm 31. Sort of intense, bit in his own world?'

Me: 'Well, we didn't really talk about a lot of culture, but he did have a number of Noam Chomsky books on his shelf.'

Nicole: 'What else do you know about him?'

Me: 'Er… well he's not Scottish at all – he grew up in Kent.'

Nicole: 'YES! He grew up in Kent too!'

Me: 'Right, this is weird.'

Both colleagues: 'FIND A PICTURE OF HIM.'

So I Facebook stalked him through Will, with whom I am not friends, but who is on our house FB group. God, I am so modern.

Me: 'Right, here he is.'

Nicole: 'THAT'S HIM!!!'

All: MASS SHRIEKING

Jesus. How small IS the fucking world these days?!