Countdown to 30

05.00: (yes, my day starts ridiculously early) Pack bag for gym. Waste half an hour on fruitless search for tit tape to wear with new dress. (Birthday is actually tomorrow, but will be taking day off work, so am celebrating with colleagues (ie milking attention) today.) Bought tit tape 6 weeks ago, feeling v smug at time at own supreme organisational skills. Have hidden tit tape in such a cunning hiding place that have bloody forgotten where I put it. Great – will have to go braless (SO not a good look with 30 year old drooping boobs)

08.00: Buy coffee from Prêt on way to office. Promptly spill half of it down new dress

08.15: Enter office. Hair has frizzed up into unflattering bouffant disaster

08.16: Catch sight of self in mirror. New over-the-knee socks with ribbon do not go with dress and are inappropriate for office. Get disapproving stares in lift.

08.20: Remove socks. Shit. Have not shaved legs for a long time

08.30: Pile of bday cards on desk. Unamused by gags about age. Less amused still by card from my mum containing cryptic but pointed message about hoping I finally achieve good things in my 30s (hope “achievement” does not mean production of grandchild)

08.32: Message from mother reminding me to call grandmother

08.35: Call grandmother (who had forgotten it was my bday). Spend 10 minutes explaining who I am, as she is having her hair done and has removed hearing aid (why answer bloody phone?!). She wishes me happy bday, then launches into lecture about how I must buy flat as it will radically change my life “because let’s face it, you’ve got nothing at the moment”

09.01: Have received picture of hire care driving in bus lane with penalty charge notice, in internal mail! Throw it in bin. Raaa!

10.30: Assistant has found tit tape! It has turned up in filing cabinet (how did it get there???)

11.15: E mail from EBS No 1 to say she will not be attending my bday party on Sat night. Probing reveals reason is she does not want to (bitch). She also gives me details of facial hair waxing beautician who will sort out my "little problem"

12.01: EBS No 2 e mails me to veto my gift list. She refuses to buy me clothes as she thinks I am “fashion victim” and need to focus on creating “capsule wardrobe” (She had a weekend job in Kookai while at university and thinks that makes her a fashion consultant)

13.00: Buy wheat free, yeast free, soya free, egg free, dairy free, sugar free bday cake to share with colleagues. They eye it dubiously.

14.00: Cake pronounced yummy by bashful colleagues. Lovely colleagues, as they all present me with Topshop vouchers. Hoorah!

15.00: Call best friend N in LA, who has just had baby. Have hour long conversation about her uterus

18.00: Back to gym (in anticipation of bday overindulgence). Drop weight on toe. Toenail promptly turns black. Oh god, hope can still wear wooden wedge platforms tomorrow.

19.30: Bump into friend J on train. Between my usually excessively loud voice, amplified by my blocked left ear, and his equally blocked ears, I end up announcing to entire carriage that I think a mutual friend of ours is gay and is having secret affair with J’s flatmate. Everyone in carriage v. amused. J v worried.

20.30: Meet my mum in Hampstead for dinner. She spends 10 frustrating minutes parking and reparking care, before accusing me of being “too thin” (when last week she smugly informed me that I would never be as thin as EBS No 2), wincing at my neckline (it’s very low”), and hypocritically declining food, instead favouring a peppermint tea, while I gorge myself on edamame

22.30: Male model returns home and taunts me about being old. I begin to hyperventilate and reach for the carton of duty-free Marlboros I bought S last week (she won’t mind). Male Model reminds me that smoking ages your skin. Raaa!

22.45: Call F in a panic. She is v chirpy and merry, being sickeningly well-balanced person (who has had plenty of time to deal with being 30, hahaha), and full of analyses on this week’s Question Time (shit – have missed entire programme). Turn on TV in time for This Week. Great – will see in my 30th Bday watching Michael bloody Portillo

23.15: Call my other friend F to analyse this week’s Grazia Magazine (friend from law school – trust me to find another budding lawyer who is equally obsessed with clothes). We discuss the current furore over Size 0 models and obsess over our weight, diets and exercise regimes, until Male Model walks in again, presents me with a birthday card I have just watched him writing out to me, and embraces me. I am feeling less ecstatic than I possibly should at being embraced by a 23 year old male model. Hmmm.

And so I am 30.

Passion For Fashion

I love fashion. LOVE it. High waistlines, rock band t-shirts, metallic hues, the colour grey, tulip skirts, skinny jeans, empire line dresses, flowing headscarves, wooden wedge heels… hell, even egg-shaped silhouettes, dog tooth print and navy take on a new, aesthetically pleasing, must-have air with the onset of the new season. (I mean navy! What’s the point? Either produce items of clothing in black, or choose a nice colour, not muted, drab, “I-shop-at-Next-or-somewhere-equally-boring” navy.)

When I walk into a clothes shop (esp. Topshop – see most of my posts!), something happens to me. I am possessed by a mad, panicked desire to buy everything, and all sense of budget and restraint escapes me completely.

Every week, I scour the pages of Grazia, ingest all the information, then scuttle off in search of the latest hot items (last week, it was high-waisted jeans and a funky little bag-belt thing from River Island (the jeans look vile on me, and I have nothing to wear with the belt, so spending the relatively small amount of money on the belt would inevitably be a false economy).

And it’s not just clothes (and shoes and accessories…). I am a complete skin-care and make-up junkie. My bathroom looks like Selfridges make-up hall (although sadly smaller and with far fewer products, but you get the picture).

And so 2 years and some £10, 000 (so far) into law school, I am left wondering: what is my real vocation? Do I want to stay here, a cog in the corporate machine, climbing the endless ladder, working 12 hour plus days, only to bang my head on that glass ceiling, destroy my social life and put an end to any remote possibility of ever managing to have a relationship? Or, should I dust off my quill and return to the barely-started path (a few years ago) of writing, go down the creative road and combine it with my love of fashion and beauty?

No: I am definitely doing the right thing. I want all of this; it’s a perfect channel for my innate workaholism. I enjoy the thrill of being intellectually challenged every day, of being pushed to my limits, of having a huge ladder to climb. I even derive a perverse pleasure from fighting (against? Within?) the patriarchal corporate order.

And I can do it all without batting so much as a mascara-coated eyelash.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to Topshop to view the new collections.

Dear Gordon

Dear Gordon,

So it looks like you're finally going to get to be Prime Minister. How you must be nearly sick with the excitement. No longer having to be the also ran, you can move your wife and two wee boys into the flat at number 10 - oh, but you've done that already. Still, you care a lot about working families, don't you? Indeed on Breakfast at Frost you said, "we have created stability in this country, and now we must ensure that the benefits go particularly to young couples who want to own their own homes, who find that house prices have been high, who could benefit from low interest rates, but they need some help to get on to the first rung of the housing ladder."

I'm just wondering, Gordon, since when has being attractive to a member of the opposite (or even maybe the same - but I doubt you include those couples) sex been a criteria for government help? Imagine the dole office - sorry love, you might not have a job, but you're a bit ugly, so we can't give you any dole money.

I'm also a bit puzzled as to why young couples need more help than young single people, when they at least have the benefit of a joint income? Oh, I get it. Single people are so tragic they can just rot away in bedsits. After all, they haven't discovered the joys of family life yet--unlike you, Gordo.

And why might those house prices be so high? You're Chancellor so maybe you could tackle that one? You've kept the 1996 deregulation of the money markets, only count inflation on things like baked beans and trousers rather than houses so you can pretend we live in a low inflation economy, you preside over tax relief for multiple home ownership and the buying up of good quality housing stock for investment rather than to be a home, and then whitter on about the government helping out, when it created the bloody mess in the first place. Those who bought 10 or 15 years ago have done very well out of the arrangement, but if I want a home, I guess I should lose some weight, get down the local nightclub, and pick up some dodgy bloke and get him to impregnate me. Never mind that I pay £1000s in tax each year, the only way Gordo will think I'm worthwhile is if I shack up with someone because then I won't be a hard-working individual but part of a 'hard-working family'.

Yes, Gordo, can't wait for you to be PM!

The Penalty of Honesty and Frugality

10.30 this morning; my office, London. The phone rings. It’s my managing director:

MD: Uh, D, I’ve got H here from Accounts. Apparently you hired a car back in August for company business?

I rack my brains. Oh yes, I did hire a car. I would have happily taken the train to the back and beyond of the English countryside, but every time I do so, I end up spending ALL of Saturday taking long, circuitous routes around the whole country as every single railway line apparently needs to be repaired on the days I use the train. When the tracks themselves are ok, the train usually breaks down. So yes, I hired a car.

MD: Apparently, you were caught driving in a bus lane? You have incurred a penalty charge of £85.

Me: WHATTTT???????

MD: There’s a picture here of the car.

Me: Splutter! Rant! Bloody penalty charge people!

MD: Uh, I’ll just send H down to you. She will give you the notice, and you can, um, uh… appeal or deal with it or whatever

“…or deal with it or whatever”?????? £85? Eighty five pounds? EIGHTY FIVE POUNDS? I am NOT paying it. I am NOT paying £85. I have not got £85. I am very sorry, but I travel the world sans cesse for this bloody company, and when I submit my expenses, I never charge so much as an extra apple to the company. I have a (male, middle-aged, of course) colleague who openly watches porn in hotels he stays at and charges it to the company. I rarely take taxis on company business (in Hong Kong last week, I took the Metro everywhere). I will happily (well, unhappily actually, but fairly graciously) take indirect flights if it means I will keep within my travel budget. I don’t eat dinner or drink alcohol, which saves the company an enormous amount of money, especially compared to my gluttonous, bordering-on-alcoholic colleagues.

AND THEY WANT ME TO PAY AN EIGHTY FIVE POUND BLOODY PENALTY CHARGE?

No bloody way.

Overheard at the B.L.

Tuesday lunchtime. I am sat on the British Library terrace listlessly eating my salad.

In front of me are two men. Man number 1 has his back to me, so I can't see him well. He appears to be 60 something. He is called Paolo. Man number 2 is wearing motorbike leathers, has a small beard, a shaved head, a pierced eyebrow, and tattoos. He is an OUT GAY man. And doesn't he want the world to know it.

Man number 1: mumble mumble.
Man number 2: is this a round about way of asking me how it's going?
1: Yes.
2: yes, I'm very pleased with it. The shoot went really well the other day.
1: Shoot?
2: You know, I'm taking photos to promote it.
1: mumble mumble.
2: It's a toy.
1: mumble doll mumble?
2: No, a sexual TOY. It's a TOY.
1: (even more quietly) mumble mumble.
2: Well, you can just explore what you want to do with it. Men and men can use it, or women and women, or men and women. Individuals OR GROUPS can use it.
1: (choking now) huh huh mumble.
2: yes, they all got really excited on the shoot. It was beautiful to see.
1: Huh? (barely making a sound).
2: It's actually very GOOD to STIMULATE the PROSTATE. All the medical research shows that gay men are LESS LIKELY to die of prostate cancer. It's because they play with their PROSTATES (practically shouting by now).
1: silence
2: Yes, of course, they are more aware of sexual health, but EVERYONE should PLAY WITH THEIR PROSTATE. My toy will help them, it's not just about fun, it's such a great invention...
1: has a drink of water
2: is that a spot on your face?

I left to go and consider the health of my prostate, even though I am female, and in no doubt whatsoever about man number 2's sexual preferences.

Pinch, Punch... First Day of the Month

So it's now September. Summer is officially over. I always feel that the onset of autumn heralds changes and new beginnings.

For me, it is turning 30 later this month (oh god, it still makes me want to cry). For F, being in London for the next few months, working on her latest masterpiece and working up a cultural storm in her usual manner. Also, as per her last post, coming to some very sound realisations about her ex-boyfriend B. (Although frankly F, I think you are v forgiving - I saw B on a Northern Line train the other day and hid behind a pole so that I wouldn't have to talk to him). P - on the other side of the pond... well, we'll wait and see what new beginnings emerge.

But perhaps the biggest and the best new beginning is reserved for L. Today, at the tender age of 32 (yes, I know, but it's all relative!) she is officially crowned Professor. Well done darling; we are all thrilled, and so proud of your fantastic achievements. Champagne all round!