Immaculate (Mis)Conception

I cannot settle, cannot fall asleep, have been unable to sleep for the last few weeks. Every time I lay down, I feel the heavy unease deep within, the stirring in my belly. Something is not right.

A glance through my diary reveals nothing. I frantically rip through the pages, trying to jolt my memory into recognition. Still nothing. The fast pace of my city life, the hundreds of people I encounter each week, the whirl of my social life – it’s all a timeless blur to me, and I can’t attribute any dates to these events.

Each day is a struggle. I feel the life growing and dying inside of me, the heart beating sometimes with hope, sometimes anxiety, pulsating with the energy of a life that wants to be lived, felt, savoured, experienced… and whose potential I continue to suppress.

I have tested it, just to be sure. It says there is nothing there, but I just know. I can feel it. I am swelling up, rounded and swollen from my wounds, heavy with the burden. It is growing daily and I am powerless to halt it.

My body has become detached from my mind. My hair, a voluminous bouffant of frizz and unruliness, refuses to co-operate with my GHDs. My blood sugar levels are uncontrollable, defying the attempts of the Guggel herbs that have worked so well thus far. Despite my inner resolve, my hand repeatedly reaches for the left-over Christmas jar of Celebrations chocolates, the pile of empty wrappers covering the top few inches of the bin, a testament to my loss of control.

Though perceptible perhaps only to myself, I am beginning to resemble a mid-90s pop star, my rounded belly nestled between the waistband of skin-tight jeans and a tight t-shirt that barely covers the growing mound. I wonder which spineless cad has left me in this nauseous pit of worry and destruction, and it makes me yearn for a long-forgotten time, when sex was still unconditional, non-politicised and altogether more innocent.

The stirring inside me is unrelenting. The contractions and the nausea and the pain and the anxiety, and I am floored by its intensity. Whatever the outcome now, it will have touched my life, etched another indelible trauma upon my soul, added another defensive layer for the next poor sod who may or may not come along to peel off. I will be forever bound to the deluded sod who thought he could project all his fantasies and ideals onto me, who fought to stop me from running, but who then ran himself; sprinted, disappeared, melted, disintegrated, until it was as though his physical self had never existed. Except for the painful, pulsating evidence that remains inside me.

In the morning I awake. The contractions and bloatedness have gone, replaced by intense, crippling fatigue. A familiar sensation of dread I have experienced many times before, but not for nearly 4 months now. I look down in time to see the familiar dark-red droplets stain the toilet bowl.

It is back.

I got my period.

I am not pregnant.

What the *%!@???

I soooo need to rant about this: Lembit Opik and Gabriela Cheeky-Girl??? Huh????? How is that even possible? No disrespect to either of them (except him; he is clearly having a mid-life crisis and can't believe his luck. And her, actually - I mean for god's sake the girl released a song called The Cheeky Song (Touch My Bum) with her scarily itentical twin sister - but each to their own, I guess), but how are they both so loved up after like a week, when they have nothing in common? I mean, can you really see her having fun at the Science Museum, or discussing the future of the Lib Dems with him?

I am normal and functional by comparison (remember, we are pretending the food diary and the vitamins don't exist), and yet I am STILL a living, breathing man-repellent. Why? Why? WHYYYYY???

I'm off to buy my books now, so that I can morph into Andrea Dworkin and pretend I'm not bovvered by any of this.

I Want, I Want, I Want

Right: Time to engage with one of my overwhelmingly many new year's resolutions. I vow to read more literature of intellectual substance - erm, just as soon as I have finished this week's Heat Magazine.

Here's my wish list:

• Cristina Sommers, Who Stole Feminism?: How Women Have Betrayed Women
• Ariel Levy, Female Chauvinist Pigs: Woman and the Rise of Raunch Culture
• Andrea Dworkin, Intercourse
• Andrea Dworkin, Heartbreak: The Political Manifesto of a Feminist Militant (this title sounds like one I could have written myself, actually!

Typical!

So I too have a typical New Year's Eve tale to relate, illustrating only too well the problems of over determination associated with this date about which L and D have both blogged previously. Sydney, my location for New Year, is probably the New Year Eve's capital of the world. They celebrate the New Year with not one, but two firework displays! And, what's more, P, my sister's boyfriend, had bought a group of us tickets to an island in Sydney harbour, Clarke Island, from which one can look back and see the opera house, the city skyline, the harbour bridge, and the harbour filled with boats. It was ridiculously romantic - an island in the setting sun, the harbour bridge in the distance, a live jazz band, doing all the old numbers (Besame Mucho, By the Sea, The Look of Love etc), hundreds of boats with lights twinkling in the harbour, fantastic fireworks, pink fizzy wine to be slurped continiously (parents refused to let me buy pink champagne, saying it was a waste of money buying a ninety dollar champagne to be drunk out of plastic cups. Sometimes I wish my parents weren't so bloody pragmatic about absolutely everything. Still, did manage to buy four bottles of pink stuff for ninety dollars, so hurrah). All was fine til midnight, when my sister, under the influence of pink fizzy wine, and being a sensitive soul really, burst into tears. She told us about a boy she had been nursing this year who died of bowel cancer aged 23, and told us she can't not believe in life after death given her job and what she sees, and that she is very upset with Mum for wanting to give her body away to medical research when she dies! She and Mum sobbed on the ferry all the way back to Circular Quay, surrounded by drunk Aussies chanting "four-nil, four-nil" (I am so unsporty only realised this was an Ashes reference when someone started asking me if I enjoyed cricket).
Mum and Dad then left for their hotel, and we began the long walk home (no taxis to be had). A, my sister, was still a bit tired and emotional on the walk home, which was a bit horrendous (crowds of drunken youths, rubbish strewn everywhere). She and P began to bicker and were obviously building up to a big row, so I left them slightly and walked ahead. Alas, the group decided not to return to my sister's flat for sparklers, as has been planned, but to another friend's flat. I meanwhile returned to our alloted meeting point, A and P's flat. Therefore I was left, sans phone, sans key, in a road full of drunk people, for over an hour, unable to get into their flat, with awful men bellowing at me to "cheer up, it's New Year!". I was able finally to get a security guard to ring my parents' hotel room (at 3:30am!!); my Dad rang P, who ran back home, full of apologies. What a crap start to the New Year and one that felt like a terrible metonym of my life, as I begin 2007 drunk, alone, feeling lonely and upset, as streams of happy people go onto a party somewhere else.

2006: The Round-Up

OK. Have stopped sulking and feeling sorry for self long enough to produce a summary of some of my highlights of 2006. Voila:


Greatest achievement of 2006: (revealing my core vanity and vacuousness here, but) getting down to a size 6. Only 49 remaining aspirations to achieve now on my list of 50

Biggest regret of 2006: I don’t believe in regrets, but if I did, I guess it would have to be the untimely demise of my breasts (see above)

Best fashion moment of 2006: the welcome return of puffballs, ra-ras, fishnets, leggings, legwarmers, fingerless fishnet gloves, skulls, metallics, and various other items that I can foresee looking back at the photos of myself in a year’s time thinking "what the fuck?", but can momentarily get away with

Worst fashion moment of 2006: accidentally exposing my left nipple to a room full of sexually repressed male colleagues

Most careless and gruesome accident of 2006: nearly cutting off my little finger with a kitchen knife while attempting to de-stone an avocado, having bloodcurdling screams ignored by selfish neighbours and having to be rushed to A&E by Male Model

Most fun and inspired Sunday afternoon activity in 2006: hosting a Topshop party at home – shopping, champagne, girlfriends and 2 style advisers, all without stepping out of your front door – it doesn’t get much better than that

Most important items lost in 2006, due to innate – and probably incurable - scattiness: make-up bag (the little one, containing everyday essentials; total value – around £300), running trainers that had run 2 marathons in, Laura Mercier eyebrow brush that I have tried to replace several times, but annoyingly all the Laura Mercier Counter assistants in department stores across London are denying ever existed, mobile phone (in black cab, last week)

Most carefree and childish moment of hilarity and wild abandon of 2006: dancing round K’s kitchen with S, pretending to be Maria Von Trapp, belting out the entire soundtrack of The Sound of Music, while simultaneously taking the piss out of Andrew Lloyd Webber. The entire weekend.

Best magazine of 2006: Grazia, hands down. But hey it used to be Heat Magazine, so I surely deserve some credit for at least ensuring that I have now progressed to reading trashy mags intended for my own age group, and which contain some news items that don’t include Z-list celeb sightings

Celeb sightings in 2006: (excluding MPs): Russell Brand (swoon! – at Gilgamesh), India Knight (also at Gilgamesh, on a separate occasion. I am clearly either v trendy or frequent v pretentious N.London soirees), Michael "utter fruitcake and pointless waist of space" Barrymore (in Hampstead), One of the Maria contenders from How Do You Solve A Problem Like Maria (in Belsize Park), Princess Beatrice (at the Tatler Black Book party)

Most Memorable Diane and Michael Moment in 2006: When they won that award for This Week at that pointless Channel 4 political awards ceremony, and stood on stage gazing lovingly into each other’s eyes, with Michael making some lame joke about people watching porn. Not as good as the Diane-Michael moment on 7 July last year when they were deconstructing the London bombings, and Diane was getting carried away going on about how she bumped into some of the "mayor’s officials" after the Live 8 Concert, and how they – and I quote – ended up "drinking champagne in a top London hotel"… at which point, Portillo interjected, to quip: "just another day in socialist Britain!" It was one of those classic moments you couldn’t script. When oh when will those 2 get it on?

I have countless resolutions for 2007. Here are a few of them:

1. Get a new job. ASAP.
2. Stop compulsively plucking facial hairs (my friend S is reading this, and I know she will be applauding!)
3. Tone down aggressiveness, not swear so much and develop aura of calm and patience (I give this one about a week)
4. Not argue with sisters (doing v well so far, as they are both abroad at moment, and neither of them is talking to me anyway)
5. Reduce visits to Topshop to maximum of 2 a month. When making clothes purchases, carefully consider practicality and necessity of each item, before making balanced decision and returning to store the following day, rather than calling every branch of every store in London with Grazia Magazine page references, making unreasonable demands for reservation and delivery, then rushing to store, knocking down innocent shoppers in aggressive determination to bag said item, which will invariably lie shamefully in dark corner of cupboard
6. Stop obsessing over weight and never ever ever allow food diary or multi-tiered daily vitamin holder to be seen in public again. Never admit existence of either to any living soul (blog readers aside!)
7. Reduce gym sessions to maximum 5 times a week and for no longer than 2 hrs at a time. Substitute 2 sessions for street jazz dance classes
8. Not run a mile every time a man shows interest in me (it doesn’t happen v often, so shouldn’t be too difficult to achieve!)
9. Stop being complete slave to trashy culture. Read more books and articles that are more intellectually weighty than Heat Magazine. Attend more theatre productions and art exhibitions without having to be dragged there by F (who is cultural goddess)
   

And so begins another year…

(Un)Happy New Year

So New Year's Day is not even over yet, and this is what has happened so far:

1. I have incurred irreversible organ (esp. liver) damage, due to excesses of last night, which ended at 7 o'clock this morning

2. I have - already - managed to drive away a lovely man I was quite interested in, through my innate and irrepressible neuroses (I mean what the fuck was I thinking? It was so lovely to have a date on New Year's Day, and then I had to ruin it by sulking about being in the country (well, Hertfordshire) AND - even worse; I am cringing just thinking about it - I STUPIDLY produced my food diary and vitamin case, and he looked alarmed and took me straight home. Oh GODDDD

3. I nearly got mugged by 3 youths, one of whom tried to grab my bag and push me up against a fence, while the other 2 ran by. Am feeling v smug and hard, as I tripped him up, and ran away as he fell (hoorah for kickboxing training!). Thankfully I managed to escape with a mere cut finger and broken umbrella

Oh well. I can only hope it gets better, otherwise needless to say, I'm a bit screwed!

Happy New Year, Everyone.

Jaded & Cynical

Hello from Jerusalem! Am on ill-advised and thus doomed and fated family holiday, which has ended in disaster and an early flight home tomorrow. My trusty BlackBerry is broken, I am so exhausted from the last year's hectic schedule of working ridiculous hours and constantly travelling abroad for business that I have been sleeping most of the time, which is just as well as it is so cold here and has been snowing. I am visiting my grandmother in her old age home, and am caught in the middle of a pointless feud between her and her best friend of 80 years; and her first words when my mum and I walked into her flat and she saw how much weight I have lost in the last year were "oh my god, it's not anorexia, is it?". My sisters have suddenly become best friends and are both ignoring me, and I am so tired that I think I'm having yet another quarter-life crisis in which I wonder why I work so bloody hard and what it's leading to. A tiny part of me is beginning to question whether I even want to be a lawyer anymore.

After yet another doomed non-relationship a couple of months ago, adding to my growing bundle of emotional baggage and general cynicism (about which I have been too traumatised to blog), I have given up on the men front, and in the meantime have been put in touch with a lawyer for career advice. His advice has basically been "don't do it" - and this from a whizz kid who is bloody good at his job and became a partner in his firm at the tender age of 32. Thing is though that I think I'm really falling for him...

I'm sure things will get better soon, and when I'm back in London, I'll be able to compile a light-hearted, reflective synopsis of 2006. For now, though, I can't wait to see the back of this year.

Happy New Year, Everyone!

2006

So like L I will blog about 2006. I am sat in the lounge at my sister's house, with bright Aussie sunshine outside (although it rained earlier today!) so it is hard to even believe I have just lived through a year in the UK, as I slot into a different rhythm and pace. I loved Melbourne so much, it would be amazing to live there. Such incredible restaurants, cafes, museums, galleries and parks. And also I met Harold Bishop! I am enjoying Sydney too, but it is definitely more of an airhead city - Los Angeles to Melbourne's New York.

Most memorable moment of 2006: Having a song written about me (it's entitled Ballymena Boy. Maybe one day it will be a number one
hit!)

Best meal of 2006: The New Angel, Dartmouth, July

Most idyllic moment: Sat in the sunshine drinking beer with J and J at bar QuatAmare with sofas just plonked on the sand and the sea gently lapping in the distance, watching the sunset, after a wonderful day looking at art and eating pasta, the Lido, Italy.

Greatest achievement of 2006: Touch wood, no broken limbs this year.

Funniest moment of 2006: getting the pilot's beer after complaining about the lack of alcohol on the flight from Bologna to London

Biggest disappointment of 2006: Cancelling my trip to NY just to go to an interview in Reading and then not getting the job anyway. Huh.

Best film of 2006: Tough one this. It's not been a stand out year. I enjoyed Volver very much, and Le temps qui reste, but neither of these are vintage Almodovar or Ozon respectively. I did discover Pauline a la plage on DVD which is a film I adore.

Best book of 2006: Until I Find You by John Irving. I laughed, I cried, it became a part of me.

Best exhibition of 2006: For sheer interest and discovering something totally new, Howard Arkely: Carnival in Suburbia at the National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne.

2006 has been a surprisingly good year, with mucho foreign travel (Italy, New York, Australia) and living for a few months in London. Not much has changed in my life on the surface, but it has been a happy, fulfilling year on the whole, and for that I am very blessed and grateful. It's good to take stock every now and again and realise just how lucky I am.

Wishing you all a very very happy 2007.

Queer Thai for the Straight Guy

My main reflection on life in Sydney is to be amazed that gay men seem to have cornered the market in Thai restaurants! This has lead to many many amusing names for Thai restaurants - they seem to name Thai restaurants over here they way we do hairdressers at home. So, for example: Thai riffic; Thai titanic; Thai M to Eat; and my personal favourite, outrageously decorated with black leather and pink frills, Thai Me Up, Thai Me Down!

Oz celebs

Yesterday, driving a purple Volvo... Harold Bishop!! (aka Ian Smith). Also met Jannelle Timmins(don't know actresses' name). Admittedly I was on a tour of the studios where Neighbours (and Prisoner Cell Block H) is filmed, but still! Harold!

KL experiences

Most surreal KL moment: walking along Jalan Patelang, the tackiest street in Chinatown ("Gucci" bags for two dollars, anyone?), I was stopped by a group of four very earnest Malay teenagers. I thought they were doing some kind of tourism survey, in manner of v boring GCSE geography project. But no! They were doing a survey on -wait for it- sex education!! So I was asked by the one boy in the group (the bravest and the one who had the best English) if I thought sex education in school was a good idea. Apparantly this is a big hot potato in KL at the moment. I tried to get them to tell me what they thought, but they also just nodded and stared at me with big eyes. As if I have any opinion on sex education in Kuala Lumpur! I said I didn't want to say what should happen in their country, but they insisted, so I suggested being informed generally is a good thing. They nodded earnestly then took my photo for the school newspaper!

Most disappointing KL moment: Going into the KLCC shopping centre and discovering the biggest shop in it was Marks and Spencers. Bloody globalisation, did not travel 7,000 miles just to see Per Una clothing. Did like being able to buy a tall skinny Caramel Frappuccino from the Starbucks on site though. Hmmm...

Most interesting sight in KL: On the 'Star' LRT, a woman in a hijab breast feeding a child. No-one on the train paid any attention to her naked breast. Thought how strange it was that a woman was covering her hair, an act read in a v specific way in the uk (esp thanks to Mr Straw), yet breast feeding her child in public, something I have never once seen on the tube in London.

Most interesting newspaper article: there is a huge debate occuring in KL at the moment about the local government's decision in a certain province to fine women who 'dress indecently'. Huge amount of correspondance in the local paper about this, ranging from 'it's terrible to try and control women' to 'men should learn self-control' to 'men are simply trying to protect women.'Such has been the outcry that the legislation has been changed to affect only Muslim women.

Most amazing thing about KL: The incredibly wide choice of breakfast food stuffs. Loved having dim sum for breakfast. Thanks to jet lag, I had temporarily turned into D, being unable to sleep beyond 4:30 am and watching dawn every morning. i was also starving in the morning (this NEVER happens normally).

Most expensive thing in KL: Proportionally, the beer. A can of Heineken drunk by the hotl swimming pool cost me as much as 1) the high speed train from the airport to the city centre or 2) three times as much as my Starbucks coffee or 3) as much as a two course lunch. Not the place to be if you are a budding alcoholic.

Best value thing in KL: the incredible foot massage I had. It was cheaper than the beer (see above), lasted over half an hour, and my feet felt feather light by the end. It was madly painful - almost too painful to bear - I had no idea someone's hands could prod and poke so harshly! - but it totally removed the sluggish just been on a 13 hour flight feeling. I'm going back on my return.

Most small world moment: The assistant manager in the hotel's Chinese restaurant, Jackie, spent three years living in Manor house, just off the Holloway road. He loved clubbing in Camden. he told me to go the Hsieu Shen restaurant in Holborn, tell them I know Jackie, and I will get a free meal - apparantly! Later when I got the bill, I found they'd left off half what I had and not charged me for the drink. Bless. I think he was worred I was lonely, and told me to come and see him if I needed a chat. Must say as white girl alone I stood out in KL.

Best thing about being in KL: Experiencing properly for the first time being the racial Other. Noticing how much I noticed other Europeans, and how instantly recognisable we were. Seeing how we could all 'look the same' and realising the diversity of Malay looks, clothing and behaviours.

Instant Celeb Spot Report

5 minutes ago

In the line at the cloakroom at the BL

just behind me handing in his coat...

Jeremy Paxman!

Happy Bus Story

On Saturday I went for a walk to my local park. It was a gorgeous afternoon, and I wandered about, happily enjoying the range of colours, the pink trails the setting sun was leaving in the sky, and the crisp, fresh feel of the air. I then went to get the bus back home. I was a bit tired, and just stod at the bus stop day -dreaming when suddenly I looked up to see my bus, the 271, hurtling down the hill at about a million miles an hour. "Shit", I thought, "I've missed it." But, ever the optomist, I stuck my arm out wildly, and to my great surprise, the driver slammed on the brakes and the bus came careening to a halt. The driver opened the doors, and I ran the 20 yards or so from the stop to the bus. When I got on, the bus driver had opened his little cabin door, and was sat there, with his cheek facing me, tapping it! So I went up and gave him a kiss for having stopped the bus! This girl on the bus burst out laughing and asked me if I knew the driver. "No, " I replied, "this sort of thing happens all the time!" Alas, loads of people got on at Archway, and any hope of an urban romance was killed.

More Than The Sum Of Its Parts

I am going to give, of necessity, a v brief precis of my activities over the last week. They have been rather curtailed due to a bit of a money crisis (pay day on Thursday!)
Thursday - met my friend Marty and various others in his favourite pub the Cittie of Yorke. As I was wandering there from the BFI library, I walked down Lamb's Conduit Street, and discovered the Persephone books bookshop (see their website link as one of my favourite things). There, stacked about higgley piggeldy were many beautiful, wonderful books, a veritable treasure trove.
Friday - Met P in Notting Hill. We gossiped wildly, amused other people in pub, and drank copious amounts of wine.
Saturday - Went to local park, which was wonderful (and had amusing bus driver adventure, which will be subject of another post). I went to see a new French film in Soho with L, and then to my fantastic local, El Commandante
Sunday - Met D for brunch. We deconstructed our various neurosis, then headed off to see some great art at the Hayward, with my friend Marty.
Monday - Hmmm. Stayed in library til eight.
Tuesday - Went to water aerobics with L. Felt v virtuous.
Wednesday - In library til v late again, then got home and watched loads of This Life
Thursday - to my friend C in Highgate. She cooked roast chicken and all the trimmings, we had mucho red wine, and I didn't leave til 1:45 am staggering about the road and was only person on bus home!

Fascinating at this minutae undoubtedly is, I had a sudden blinding realisation as I got into bed last night. Nothing spectacular or amazing has occurred in the last week. All these activites are part of an average existence. And yet I am so happy here. Most tellingly, I don't feel lonely, and indeed relish my own company, whereas in Belfast, where I am thrown on to my own resources far more, I find this far more difficult. I haven't felt discontented for so long, I've even forgotten that sense of frustration and hopelessness that characterises the beginning of yet another boring Sunday to be gotten through. My life in London is so much more than the sum of its parts.

If I Were A Rich Gal...

Sigh. If only I could win that Euro Lottery thing. This is my latest Topshop wish list. 20 items, at a total of £729. And that's only because they didn't have any of the other items I wanted in stock in my size. I dream on...
http://www.topshop.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/SharedWishListView?langId=-1&storeId=12556&catalogId=19551&listId=188393

Overheard at the Ballet

Last night, suffering from a self-inflicted terrible sore throat, I left the library early and took myself off to see some modern dance at Sadler's Wells as a treat. It was the Rambert Dance company and they were as always awe inspiringly fantastic - athlectic, graceful, sexy, beautiful, heartbreaking, skillful beyond belief... At the end of the fiest section, the people behind me began to talk. "Well I quite enjoyed the ovewrall effect" said posh man number one. "Euh really?" trilled posh man number two. "I'm leaving, it was god awful." This left posh man number one to invite some young American girls who had been in cheaper seats to come and join him, I presume, because post interval, they were sat behind me. Posh man number one. "Oh yes, I totally love the Holy Land. I quite quite miss not going". Girls giggle. "Oh, I'm a Christian you see, so it's very important to me." The girls say something else. "Oh, you MUST call it the Holy Land. That's what it is to me. I'm a Christian." Girls murmer and giggle. "I say my David's psalm three times a day, you see I'm Christian, and I pray before I sleep...I'm sure I do more than you.." Girls say something. "Oh I adore Jerusalem, shame about the Frummers, but I'm sure you shouldn't call them that" (at this point thank GOD the curtain was raised and he stopped).
The two girls proceeded to comment on the dance all the way through, trying to 'interpret it', giggling, sighing, asking when it would be over. He joined in every now and again. I turned round at one point and hissed "would you please be quiet" in my best teacher tone. This worked for ooh 3 minutes and they were off again.
To my delight, as the curtain went down, and the lights came up for the second interval, a v trendy looking man near me turned to them. "It's very distracting of you when you insist on talking all the way through".

The girls at least had the decency to look a bit shame faced, and mumbled sorry. The man protested that they hadn't been talking all the way through!

I turned and said "Yes you were, and it was extremely rude, especially after I asked you to stop. Just because you don't like it, doens't mean we don't."

The man chuntered "We weren't talking all the way through, how dare you blah blah"

"Yes you were, mate" said trendy man.

"Why don't you just go and stop ruining it for us?" asked his girlfriend.

The Christian and the Americans left, and didn't come back. What a shame one of the commandments isn't thou shalt not be a complete arse at the theatre!

Lost...And Found

My friend J came to stay with me for a few days from Belfast, and I took great pride and joy in showing her all the wonderful things to see and do (and drink and eat) that there are in London. However, our most memorable experience was probably also the least pleasant. J arrived on the Weds afternoon, and after a happy chat with L over gingerbread lattes we headed back to the house. J dropped off her case, and we headed to my wonderful local pub, El Commandante. There is indeed a shrine to Che just off the Holloway Rd, and it is run by two South American guys, who are always very enthusiastic when you turn up and very laid back about how long it takes you to finish your beer. Then my flatmate L joined us, we went to Gallipoli for food, and then J asked to go for (yet another!) pint, so we headed to the Keston Lodge. We sat on a leather sofa and chatted away, then suddenly, J lent down to get something from her bag, that had been at her feet, and that was it. It was gone. We didn't see anything, although the people opposite us had (in hindsight) been suspisciously friendly so maybe that was a distraction technique. But who knows? J lost her make-up, her phone, her wallet, her cards and...her passport. Her only photo ID to get the plane back home on Monday!!

We spent the next day ringing round various places, talking to the police (who couldn't investigate the CCTV footage at the pub because "we don't have the resources" - they actually asked J to look through it herself, if she could get the manager of the pub to let her!!!) and finally trundled down to the passport office at Victoria to get J her replacement passport. Or so we thought. We got stuck in a ridiculous bureaucratic nightmare. First of all, they only agree to give you an appointment to obtain an emergency passport if you can 'prove' your need to travel. J had no proof she lived or worked in Belfast, as hey, guess what, that had all been stolen. (Also the stupid man seemed to think Belfast was abroad!!!!) Then he said that he couldn't get my passport number for the countersignature off the system (though he could locate J's ENTIRE passport) as "it was against data protection. That means it's illegal", he said, as if we were dimwits who didn't know what that meant (and actually if I'm there I can waive this and give him permission, as I have a right to see anything written about me and held electronically under the same piece of law). Then he said the only way to get an appointment was not to talk to him, who was actually in the building and had all J's details on the screen in front of him, but to ring a call centre(!) where they give out appointments for the London office! Un fuckingbelievable! By this point J asked him how she was meant to get home, and he just shrugged and said "I dunno". I wanted to HIT the man, but knew that was not a good idea, so I resorted to my usual tactic, and began to cry (not ostentatiously, just a few tears). At this point, another, older man, not a callow youth, emerged. He was wearing a suit rather than some horrendous UKPassport fleece. It transpired this older gentleman came from Belfast (the whole world and his dog has an NI connection, it sometimes seems), and he suggested to us that we went up to the Coach Station and investigated purchasing a coach ticket, and if that didn't work, coming back, and trying to get an emergency appointment for 7:30am(!) the next day, where you just queue and queue until they can see you. We managed to buy J a coach ticket, and she will get a new passport back in Belfast (part of the UK, if anyone from the passport office is reading this blog, though I expect they are too stupid to read).

But! the story does not end there. We spied a pub on our return from the coach station, just opposite the passport office and called (appropriately enough) The St George. So we went there, got a table, and were amused by the sight of harried people at the bar filling in passport forms and saying things like "Do you think my hair covers my eyes too much?" "What's the date today?" etc etc. Gradually the pub filled up with young men in their 20s, 30s, 40s, mostly in suits. Some of them sat next to us. I turned to the one sat next to me, just my type (shy, slim, boyish looking) and screwing up all my feminine intuition said "I don't suppose you work for the passort office do you?" Ha! Correct first time! J and I regaled them with how much we hated them, and they bought us many many pints as consolation. J was particularly taken with the older, rugged, grey haired one (how fortunate, both our types represented - at least the passport office has some taste in choosing its employees). The older one had a mean line in filthy jokes that were v amusing. The younger one told me how his job, travelling the country investigating passport fraud, takes him often to Belfast but makes it hard to have a relationship, meaning he is still single. The younger one left, them came back. I went outside to take a phone call. He came outside. I hung up on my phone call. He said "I only came back to speak to you, and you were outside." He gave me a hug. Then he said "I tell you what, here's my phone number. If you want to go for a drink, give me a ring. It's your choice." Then he disappeared into the night, and J and I went for curry.

Should I ring him?

The Ultimate Celeb Sighting

Went to Tatler's annual Little Black Book party last night at TwentyFour. Lots of tall, shockingly young Hooray Henry types, accompanied by fresh-faced Size 00s in long-sleeved shift mini-dresses. And guess who put in an appearance alongside the usual models, socialites and heirs? Why, none other than Princess Beatrice.

Sorry F, but I think this beats your sighting a while back of Maggot from Goldie Lookin' Chain!

The "C" Word

Just a few (rambling) thoughts on L’s post the other day re children (which has inevitably turned into one of my feminist rants…):

I TOTALLY get what you are saying, L. I think you’ve tapped into a very pertinent point that few people admit: that sex-for-erotic-pleasure and sex-as-reproductive-function operate on 2 different levels. Children are clearly a reminder of the sex-as-reproductive-function type, so it naturally follows that your erotic perception of Freddy (and thus your own erotic pleasure) will be severely compromised (to put it mildly) by any reminder of his having reproduced.

I remember once reading an interview with Gordon Ramsay, in which he said he had refused to be present in the delivery room for the births of each of his 4 children, as he had felt that witnessing his wife’s labour would have destroyed their sex life. The interviewer appeared mildly outraged by this, but I thought he was making a pertinent point. A friend of mine recently gave birth, and at the last minute, decided she did not want her partner to be present, as she thought it would ruin their sex life. By not reducing her body to reproductive function, but, rather, used it to carry a child, she has been able to retain the dynamic of mutual sexual desire between herself and her partner.

Although: I do think that once you have children, other things in your life necessarily take on a different meaning, and cannot be separated from the fact of parenthood. Your body IS different, and DOES take on new meaning and function. Also, examples of 2 friends, both desperate for a baby. One is about to turn 40, and despite a demanding career, is dragging her husband with her on a business trip to China, because she will be ovulating for the duration of the trip. Hardly the hot sex that these newlyweds should be enjoying. The other, aged 37, approaches all new relationships in an almost militant manner. Gone are the days of enjoying someone’s company and seeing where it might lead to; every new man is a potential father for the child she is anxious to conceive.

I, too, strongly dislike children, although I do reserve a certain affection for one or two of the offspring of some very close friends of mine. I can’t do the cooing thing, and that whole show-off thing that children do seriously irritates me (eg “look at the latest Barbie I have got to add to my pointless, spoilt, over-indulgent collection of 8 identical dolls”). Last weekend, I attended my friend A’s daughter’s 8th birthday party, to whom I am deemed sufficiently close to (a) have to endure being called “Auntie D”, which makes me feel old and suburban, and I can think of few worse sentiments, and (b) be summoned to the party to help make beaded necklaces (it was a jewellery-making party) and generally supervise and entertain. Predictably, the whole event was a 3 hour long contraceptive. I mean really, the likes of the Daily Wail would have you believe that 8 year old girls are out there getting pregnant, but really, they are selfish, demanding brats with no social graces, who insist on being served before anyone else.

My friend A’s children are particularly manipulative, and I cannot believe she falls for their transparent tricks. The youngest, aged 3, has a cunning habit of literally screaming every time she wants A’s attention, regardless of what A is doing at the time. She could be on the ‘phone, or talking to someone or cleaning up someone’s spilled drink, and this child will screech “Mummy! Aaaaagggghhh!” until A gives her her full attention. If that were my child, I would seriously have to rethink my staunchly anti-smacking position. The other child, aged 8, whose birthday party it was, is the biggest hypochondriac I have ever come across. I recognise that I am sometimes unfair about this sort of thing – I disapprove of anyone taking time off work for illness unless they are either (a) dying, (b) in hospital or (c) so ill they physically cannot get out of bed, stay awake or realise proper brain function. Anyway, A’s daughter, V, had a jolly old time at her bday party, and the second the last guest had left, she burst into tears and informed A that she had chest pains. Clearly she was hardly having a heart attack; it was obvious she was trying to get out of going to school the following day so that she could play with her new presents, but A went into panic overdrive, and insisted her husband cancel his plans (he was trying to close a business deal he had been working on for weeks), to go out and buy medication. V of course perked up when she was allowed to open her presents, but suffered a relapse when told to put them away and go to bed. Bloody children.

However, one thing I will say in defence of some children: some of them, even the most irritating ones, are actually easier to communicate with than some adults. Example: I am unfortunate to work on the same floor as a miserable, socially inept, intellectually incapable, show-off-to-compensate-for-vast-inadequacies of a prick (male). Although I am very much a “people person” and get on with everyone, very occasionally, someone will appear in my life whom I simply cannot tolerate, and this runt of a man is one of these people. His basic level of intelligence is so low, it is off the scale, and it has now reached the point where I refuse to communicate with him, as I simply cannot bear to waste my time in that way – he doesn’t understand simple instructions. Of course, as he is so incompetent, he ends up having no work to do; he has already pissed off 2 of my clients and countless members of staff, and proved himself so incapable, it is easier and more effective for him to not be given any projects to work on. And so I am forced, day after day, to see this pathetic little sod trawl the internet, check his Hotmail account and draft long, rambling letters to those people unfortunate enough to be deemed his friends (in Word; he then copies and pastes his essays into an e mail). The previous person in his role was female and about 30 years younger than him; of course about 5 of us sat in on her interview as she was grilled on every area of her personal and professional life and the relevance of her degree. This guy managed to land the job (a) because his manager knows him from years ago – and assumed that because he is a man – albeit a stupid, unlikable person – he would be able to do the job, and (b) oh, um, let me think – because he has a penis. Of course he is being paid exactly TWICE as much as the previous (female) person in this role.

Anyway, after my long rant (sorry; my anger has been inflamed this morning by watching him walk in late and proceed to waste time, paper and ink by printing out colour pictures of his inane family), it really struck me last weekend, as I was looking after A’s 3 year old child, this child is not the most intelligent or intellectually stimulated child. And clearly, I am not the most tolerant person (see above!) and certainly not child-tolerant. However, it still shocked me that I was actually able to communicate more effectively and engage in a more intelligent exchange with this child than I am with this dreadful man at work. And I bet that in 70 years time, when A’s 3 year old is at retirement age, she will not have managed to get as far up the career ladder, or earned as much money as this inadequate, incompetent man – simply because of her sex.

I dearly hope I am proved wrong.

My Favourite Public Service

An excerpt from the online customer complaint form I have just filled out on the Transport for London website:

Incident No 1: Saturday 4 November 2006: The bus driver operating the replacement service between Edgware and Hampstead did not know the route. He missed out all the stops from Hendon onwards, and ended up illegally doing a u-turn on the Finchley Road near Swiss Cottage, thus endangering the lives of his passengers. He then had to be directed by passengers to Golders Green. This is dangerous and UNACCEPTABLE. Your representative was most unhelpful (when I called the travel helpline while still on the bus). Please retrain your staff, as their response to any type of complaint, whether made calmly or angrily, is defensive, dismissive and patronising, thus inflaming customers' anger. I KNOW the disruption will ultimately improve the service - I EXPECT this, as I pay vast sums of money for the service. I look forward to a full and reasonable explanation for the shambolic service I received on Saturday, and your full assurance that you will never again let down your PAYING customers by putting an untrained, unsafe replacement bus driver with no sense of direction or map on the roads again. I also await your assurance that where you know in advance that there will be delays, you will do everything you can to minimise further delay and disruption. As you will see from this and the following 2 complaints, you did not reasonably take actions to this effect last weekend. Any protestation to the contrary would be quite alarming, in terms of what you regard as reasonable service. I would also be grateful for monetary compensation.

Incident No 2: Sunday 5 November 2006, around 11.05 am: Before descending to the underground at Hampstead station, I asked a member of staff how long the wait for trains realistically was. He assured me it was “every 6 or 7 minutes”. On the platform, the information board said 5 minutes until the next train. This information remained for 5 minutes, at which point all times disappeared, and customers were once again left stranded with no information – most reassuring in this age of heightened terrorism alert. I eventually located a group of London Underground staff sitting around socialising on the opposite platform. When I reminded them that as paying customers, we were at least entitled to the basic courtesy of information, I was once again met with the infuriatingly patronising and defensive response that all London Underground staff seem to be so proficient in. In my own line of business, I am considered a representative of the company for which I work. If a customer complains to me about another business unit, it is my job to take responsibility, rather than inform them rudely that it is “nothing to do with” me. This is a basic principle of good customer service, and it is time for London Underground to teach this to its staff.

Shortly afterwards, the announcement was made that due to an engineering fault, Hampstead station was closed, and customers were told to leave the station. I asked a member of staff at the exit about replacement transport (there was none) and alternative bus routes, to which his helpful and articulate response was “Um, I THINK there MIGHT be a bus stop OR SOMETHING, SOMEWHERE round the corner, going down to Camden OR SOMEWHERE”. It surprises me that given the frequent delays, engineering works and engineering faults on London Underground, coupled with the advance notice of severe disruptions to the Northern Line last weekend, your staff are apparently completely ignorant of alternative local public transport links. I would be grateful for your assurance that staff will be trained immediately to improve their knowledge, so that they are able to help paying customers, rather than standing around redundantly and sharing their unhelpful attitude with paying, confused, delayed, inconvenienced customers.

Incident No 3: In general (but in particular, at Belsize Park this morning), it is disconcerting to arrive at various Northern Line stations in the mornings, to discover NO staff, but a sign – usually supposedly written 5 minutes ago – reassuring customers that a “good” service is in operation. Especially when the train then takes in excess of 7 minutes to arrive, and then stops inexplicably between stations in the freezing cold, sometimes with no update or explanation from the driver, while other members of staff march self-importantly up and down the carriages, clutching walkie-talkies and ignoring customers. I would be grateful for your reassurance that your staff will be visible and available at all times, and will ensure that ALL travel information is up-to-date at ALL times.

PS, please sort out this online form, which is flawed; I was unable to select the subject of my complaint as you do not have an "other" option. No doubt this will further delay any action you intend to take to improve the inadequate service I have suffered.

How to watch fireworks: a guide

On Saturday night, I indulged in my top top activity of all time. I went to see some fireworks. I have very few things that I am anally retentive about (you should see the state of my bedroom!) but how one watches a firework display is very important. Here are my viewing rules:

1 It is a communal event, necessitating a crowd. It is not the same watching from your house, by yourself. You must be able to 'ooh' and 'aaah' in all the right bits, and enjoy feeling part of some primeval human response to loud noise and bright colours.

2 Linked to this, you must be outdoors. Watching through a screen of any kind, such as a glass window, takes away from the purity of the experience. An ex-boyfriend of mine, whom I will call Jean-Claude (he was French, I'm not being madly poncey), once tried to avoid taking me to see fireworks by arguing we could see many displays from his (high rise) flat. Yes, as small, dull lights in the distance, through a window!! Not the same AT ALL. I yelled and cried and FORCED him to take me to the Eiffel Tower to see a proper display.

3 You must be able to see the whole display. Arriving late, hurrying along, watching sideways, all detracts.

4 It is preferably cold. I will indulge in fireworks anywhere (and am v keen on seeing the NYE ones in Sydney) but fireworks in mid-summer does feel strange to me.

5 The whole experience is enhanced by the following: sparklers (monster ones!); flashing lights; toffee apples; mulled wine.

6 Watching fireworks on TV is anathema (see point 2). It simply reminds you of what you are missing. Better one solitary green rocket in a back garden than a £1,000,000 display on television (as I had last NYE in fact).

7 While not all firework displays are equal, all of them should be appreciated for their inherent aesthetic beauty and thrilling appeal. At a post fireworks gathering, Steve opined he thought Blackheath's fireworks rather disappointing this year. No such thing. They are always fabulous.

8 Having said that, the ideal display should be a mix of high flying fireworks and ground ones. We never seem to see Catherine Wheels or those flaying head ones any more.

9. I slightly drunkenly opined at gathering that watching fireworks is better than sex. My friend Marty whom I had been watching the fireworks with suggested that I should try having sex while a firework display was going on, and see how I coped with that particular combination. It would have to be a position where I could see the sky, obviously, but maybe I will try this next year! (though see point 3: I don't know if I would enjoy it really). Actually I have in the past chosen fireworks over sex. Yet another ex boyfriend Bertrand wanted us to stay in bed togther and have sex to mark the Millennium!! As if! There were fireworks going on. I went to see the fireworks with some friends, and I don't know what he did, and quite frankly, it wouldn't have been as good.

Why I Wear my Poppy With Pride

I am opposed to war in general, and fiercely against the illegal war in Iraq, and do not see war - or pointless deaths – as something to be celebrated. However, the poppy reminds me of where I come from, particularly thinking of my paternal grandparents.

My grandfather lost a leg fighting in WW2, and the poppy simply makes me think of him. I think about how he overcame the prognosis of never being able to walk again to walking, driving – until the end of his life – and even playing football with his sons. I really admire that stoic drive, determination, ambition and absolute refusal to be beaten, which he passed on to my dad, and I try to let that live on in myself, and I think there’s something very transcendental in that.

It also makes me think of my grandmother (happily still with us; quite the social butterfly in her retirement home). Her escape from Nazi Germany, via many alarming but fascinating adventures, culminated in her eventual relocation in the UK. She never tires of telling me of how, having had all her possessions taken away from her – twice – and forced to share a single outfit with her sister, one day she was in Selfridges (I have never quite understood what a penniless teenage German refugee with only one shared set of clothes was doing in Selfridges, but whatever), using the loo, and she saw another woman putting a roll of toilet paper in her bag. She confronted the woman, who reasoned that as a penniless refugee, she could not afford to buy toilet paper, and this roll would go unnoticed, so she was taking it. At this point in this often-recounted story, Oma launches into a long monologue about how she would never have taken the toilet paper, despite having no money, because that would have been theft, and it was important to recognise that this country let her in when other countries had turned her away, and she feels forever indebted to Britain for this.

So the poppy to me is a symbol of how my grandparents fought hard – in different ways – to survive and to enable their future generations to live, teaching them the values of hard work, humility (I need to work on that one) and cultural and spiritual betterment. The fact that I sit here today, university-educated, independent, with a decent career (writing this blog post, free to practise my religion, and with a bright future ahead of me (I’m sure it’s out there somewhere), is testament to the fighting spirit of my grandparents’ generation. None of us celebrate this or appreciate this enough, and that is why we should wear the poppy.

Now, apparently – according to my grandmother – all I need is a nice husband to share my life with…

On Customised TV Viewing

I’m not a big TV fan – largely because I am rarely at home to watch it, and by the time I eventually stumble home around 11pm, laden with bags, dirty gym laundry and files for the following day’s meetings, I am so exhausted, I fall straight into bed. I only really ever watch political programmes and then I pick one trashy reality TV programme to watch religiously each season (Big Brother is my absolute favourite, and when it’s on, I am so addicted, I even watch the live feed of the contestants sleeping), and maybe a good series, such as Desperate Housewives. Happily, though, Male Model, being a typical bloke, is well into his TV, and has installed Sky Plus, which you can do all sorts of clever and exciting things with, including recording all your favourite TV series.

I’m not that into the X Factor this year, though. Laura Craik, in her column in Grazia Magazine a couple of weeks ago, was v amusing: she made a v funny comment about how annoying it is to hear all those teenagers tearfully proclaiming how getting through would mean the world to them, all edited to the strains of Westlife’s You Raise Me Up. Makes me want to gag.

Wearing your Poppy with Pride?

I first started noticing the red blooms on people's coats and jackets about two weeks ago. It struck me once again, the small idiosyncracies that mark out life in Belfast from life here. In N.I., wearing a poppy is so fraught with symbolic associations (with Empire, Imperialism, the disputed and debated role of Ulster soliders during WW1 and WW2, the Easter uprising in 1916 deliberately taking advatnage of WW1 etc etc), that as an English person, I don't wear one. Plus they are very hard to find! Last night, I ended up discussing poppies with my flatmates, L (a friend who has also lived in Belfast) and C. C said she never wore them, as she found them militaristic and jingoistic, and her sympathy for present day soldiers was v limited, although she did think WW1 was different, and the men who fought there had little if any choice. I thought about how, all through my childhood, I had unquestioningly bought a poppy every year at school, never really thinking about its wider connotations. I thought about how just because I am back in London, all the unfortunate meanings of the poppy that inhibit me wearing it in Belfast don't just go away. Yet when I walked into the BL and saw some for sale, I popped a pound in the box and bought one. I don't know if I will wear it on my coat. I hate the hypocritical political rhetoric that claims our 'freedom' is dependent on highly powerful weapons, a standing army, and a nuclear "deterrent". I hate the fact that we are prosecuting an illegal war in Iraq and threatening to do the same to Iran because these countries dare to (want to) have those things too. Does my poppy symbolise support for this? On the other hand, I am profoundly grateful that I live in a country with freedom of speech, where I have been highly educated, where I have the right to vote, where we have a (reasonably) tolerant attitude towards diversity, where we have freedom of conscience. People have sacrificied their lives for me to have this. So I buy my poppy, and let it sit at the bottom of my bag, a symbol of my own conflicted attitudes towards these issues.

Top of the Shops?

I love few things more than discovering a great new uber-cool bar, restaurant, club or boutique that no one else knows about, tucked away in the back streets of London. So imagine my delight yesterday when a dear friend of mine who works in the fashion industry took me on a jaunt to some of London’s best vintage clothing stores. Having deemed me suitably serious (ie obsessed) about fashion, she decided to let me in on the secrets of a select few.

It was fantastic. As I danced around the stores, grabbing brightly coloured dresses, belts and beads – and simultaneously wearing quite a few of them as well – my companion reclined on a leather couch with a black coffee, nursing her hangover and imparting the odd piece of advice. I was in my element. Until… somewhere between the ra-ras and the ruffles, there it was. A beautiful vintage dress from the 1980s, with unique pleated high neckline and elasticated sleeves. Except that it was not unique. The unmistakeable cut exactly matches a gold top I bought 2 months ago from Topshop’s Unique range; part of its favourite fashion-forward, limited edition line. Of course, having read Fashion Babylon, I know that everything is ripped off from vintage stores and cyclically rehashed from eras past, but to see it in all its glory in front of my very eyes – for the princely sum of £8, I might add – was quite disconcerting. There are 49 other people walking around in the same limited edition Topshop Unique gold top as me, but no one else has the similarly-cut £8 vintage dress (especially not after tomorrow, when I have it altered by my dressmaker).

So, vintage dressing is now my new thing. It’s not the end of the road for me and Topshop, though. However, I shall be limiting my Topshop visits to 2 a month.

Autumnal Chills

I woke up this morning and found that my feet were freezing, and a kind of chill had entered my bones. I dragged my little electric heater out of its place under the table and plugged it in before I could bear to face the day (3 pints and 10 cigs last night also probably added to this general torpor). So, girls, Autumn is here. So much to look forward to - buying big, woolly jumpers; not leaving the house all day on a Sunday but sitting in front of the TV watching American trash, and not feeling guilty; bracing walks in the park; fireworks night!

Copy-Cat Hair

It's all over London. Everywhere. Suddenly, everyone has a version of my fab haircut, a long version of the Pob. Most of them are v bad versions. When I had mine cut, I was so thrilled with it that I called the salon every day for a week to tell my hairdresser, T, that he is a creative god.

Marie Antoinette

A bit of a theme seems to be emerging here, as I, like L, went to see a film about a Queen recently. This one was about a rather more resplendent and tragic figure, Marie-Antoinette. I have been obsessed by Marie-Antoinette ever since I did my talk on her in my 'A' level French oral and have always thought her a particularly sad figure, someone who was totally overwhelmed by events entirely beyond her control: married off to a prince she did not know aged 15, feted by the world, then brutally thrown out of her gilded cage, sent to the Conciergerie, forced to watch her son being turned into alcoholic and accused of incest, then finally beheaded. She was always nothing more than a cipher - either for the dynastic ambitions of the Habsburgs, or the revolutionary enthusiasms of the infant French Republic.
I, like L, am a staunch anti-monarchist, and for the dual reasons that L outlined: it naturalises class privilege, and places unfair burdens on normal human beings. However, watching Marie-Antoinette, I reflect again upon that fascinating woman and the way in which her life path was entirely dictated by historical circumstance. And maybe this is the function the royal family serve; to remind us all that really, we are all dictated to by historical circumstance. Perhaps really my life is as determined by my birth and the socio-historico-political habitus in which I live as Marie Antoinette's. Maybe we are all really victims of fate and the idea we influence our destiny is a necessary illusion. The film, while showcasing the decadence, and gorgeous to look at, finishes early, on the (what was to be unsuccesful) flight to Verdun. Sofia Coppola, so good at investigating the vagaries and insecurity of post-adolescent women, doesn't send her heroine to the guillotine. The film then shies away from its ultimate message, that its throughly modern Marie-Antoinette couldn't have her cake and eat it, not in the end. And neither can we.

Sex In This City

Now that I am "in my thirties", having become increasingly cynical, single-minded and self-obsessed, with no money, assets, or man, I have decided to - tentatively - begin the search for the latter: a Man.

My doctor kindly reminded me on Friday, during an appointment he summoned me to in order to discuss my unresolved gynaecological issues, I am (and I quote) "already" 30, and "one wouldn't want to leave such issues until one is 39, has travelled the world and got to a good place in one's career and changes one's mind and decides to start having children" (he has never let me forget the time I waltzed into his surgery, aged 18, and begged him to refer me to have my tubes tied, following some article I had read in some feminist journal. He talked me out of it).

And I am 30, and despite being blessed with a v wide, ever-expanding network of friends I love dearly, I have never had a relationship. (There are several theories behind this, all of which will no doubt come to light as I relate my dating disasters in the coming months on this blog.)

So I am on a mission to see if I really am too independent, self-obsessed, obsessive-compulsive, neurotic, argumentative, intimidating control freak (for I really am all of these things) to ever form a functional relationship, or if I am just plain unlucky.

Watch this space.

Joining the Size Zero Debate

Well in case you were wondering – or are indeed bothered – I did it.

Three-and-a-bit years of food diaries, calorie-counting, superfoods and supplements, not to mention the kickboxing, marathons, spinning, weights, squats, lunges and running down (thankfully not up) Haverstock Hill at 5am, beginning a 15-mile run to the gym for more training.

I have lost 35 kg. I have dropped 5 dress sizes. I weigh less now than I did at age 13 after I had completed a series of sessions with a dietician my mum used to send me to for weekly sessions (nothing else could ever as effectively instil a sense of unattainable perfection in your teenage daughter, believe me).

So last Saturday night, as I sashayed into P’s engagement party (aka The Naughty One Who Never Blogs – there, we’ve all said it now), wearing this lovely 60s-style animal print shift dress from Warehouse (I love my leopard print so much) in a Size 6, I should have felt a sense of smug achievement.

I did not. Life was so much simpler when I was a Size 16 and resigned to the fact that having been big all my life, I would never be thin; the best I could hope for was a Size 12, and the diet would start tomorrow. I could eat what I wanted without appreciating the significance of carbs or calorie counting. I could just be. Now, a substantial part of my day is taken up with ensuring I have a stock of low-fat, low-GI food on me at all times, so that I am never tempted to reach for the chocolate. If I have to eat out for dinner, I make sure I book the table myself, so that I can fit in an intense training session first, and work out how to burn off more fat. Much of the rest of the time is spent obsessing over whether my tummy is more rounded than it was yesterday, or wondering if the muscle group I trained yesterday is hurting me enough, or if I trained hard enough this morning. Oh, and I somehow fit in a full-time career and social life around all of this.

And I defend both my sanity and my right to live like this. I may go over-the-top sometimes, but that’s symptomatic of my obsessive personality. Ironically, it is the same drive that has enabled me to lose 6 stone that is now striving for what is perhaps a spurious perfection. Dress size and weight loss are the zeitgeisty issues of our time, and yes, I admit it: I am a fashion victim, a stalwart subscriber to popular culture, and I want to be in on the action.

The whole Size Zero debate has spiralled out of control. I am with the columnist who wrote about this in last week’s Sunday Times (can’t remember her name). Models have always been thin (and Size Zero refers to the American Size Zero, which is actually a British Size 4). We have to make a distinction between a full-blown eating disorder, and using diet and weight loss as manifestations of our own obsessiveness and neuroses. In the case of the former, this article pointed out, the issue for an anorexic woman is about control, so she is hardly going to be affected by what others say/think/do about their own weight. Regarding the latter: how offensive to be told, sympathetically, that I am a victim, a weak woman who falls for society’s idealisation of what a woman should look like. Well, yes, I do. Many of us do. I cut and style my hair in a certain way. I wear particular clothes. I use make-up to present my face in the way I wish it to be seen. I mean for god’s sake, I am just as much under the influence of bloody fast food advertisements and outlets as I am Size Zero models everywhere I go, and I would never set foot in one of those places (which incidentally I think ought to be banned on health grounds).

Let’s get one thing straight: the truth is that most women want to be thin. I have learned an enormous amount about the bitchy, coveting, competitive nature of all women throughout my experience of losing weight. Everyone is very happy for you until you become thinner than them. I recently bumped into a friend of my mum’s, someone I have known since birth. She ignored me – something I suspect had much to do with both her daughters having ballooned since they gave birth a year ago - until someone said to her “look how much weight D has lost”, to which she replied “Oh? Have you lost more?” (I had lost 12 kg and dropped 2 dress sizes since I last saw her), and then added, crossly “do you eat anything?”

This is the other interesting issue: no one can entertain the possibility that you have got off your arse and worked hard to achieve something; if you have lost weight, you must surely have an eating disorder. Two people in the last week alone have complimented me on my weight loss, and then asked me – in public – if I am bulimic. Can they not entertain the possibility that I have just worked bloody hard? When people ask you how you’ve done it, they don’t want to hear that you have cut out refined carbohydrates and sugar, and that you have spent the last 3 years getting up at 4.30 am to train, that your body is in constant agony or injury. They want you to tell them that it can be done easily and immediately, simply by settling down on the sofa with the remote control and scoffing cream cakes. Bloody hell – if it were that simple, I would sell my secret. Could this be yet another manifestation of our collective disdain for hard-working women whose dedication results in some achievement? After all, it would be socially unacceptable to go up to someone who is overweight and ask them if they overeat.

Don’t assume that losing weight transforms your life for the better. It hasn’t in my case. I have always – generally - been a confident, outgoing person. But I am definitely more insecure about my body now. Before, I couldn’t compete using my body, so I didn’t. Now I have one more thing to be judged on, and while in the past, an extra bulge was the least of my body hang-ups, now the tiniest sign of bloating is cause for major stress. It is also difficult to break old patterns of thinking. My friends S and S are getting married in December, and as soon as they told me the date, my immediate thought was “shit! Only 3 months to lose weight for the wedding”, and then I realised that actually, I’m at my target weight/size and do not have to crash diet (to no avail) 2 weeks before the wedding (as I used to do), to fit into my dress.

The greatest lesson I have learned throughout the whole process, though, is that anyone can achieve anything, but it takes time, dedication, perseverance and patience. Most people are not prepared to nurture that drive and put in the work. And therein lies the real problem: in our culture, we are programmed to want everything now: fast food, drop-in nail bars, even lunch-time plastic surgery – it’s all about a quick fix and making things easier. Look no further than the modular, coursework-heavy education system in Britain for an example of the steady erosion of good old hard work.

I may be obsessed with my weight, but ultimately, I am always obsessed, paranoid and neurotic about something (it’s in my genes!). This was the case long before I ever picked up one of my beloved fashion magazines, and will no doubt continue long after the Size Zero debate has subsided. My diet and exercise regimes, while incomprehensible and much-criticised by others, have nurtured my drive, determination and work ethic, and this has impacted positively on other areas of my life. The real victims of current societal trends are those who think everything can be solved with a quick fix. So next time you feel the urge to criticise Size Zero-ism, consider what you are really rallying against: is this perhaps something you secretly aspire to? Or do you fear other women’s achievement?

If Only....

I was listening to You and Yours on Radio 4 this am(I need to interject here and say Radio 4 was on form this morning, from Belinda and Mark Oaten on Woman's Hour to a piece on how hedgehogs have been affected by global warming) and they had a feature on the teaching of history in schools. Apparantly it is going through one of its periodic crisis and there is worry that children are being taught the 'wrong' history, not enough history, etc etc. I cast my mind back to my own days studying history at school. It was always one of my favourite subjects, and I can still recite all the Kings and Queens from Henry VIII to Elizabeth 2 (I'm very hazy pre Tudors, and I get a bit muddled up about how many Georges there were). But I do remember the most pointless, stupid, annoying, misguided exercise we were forced to do at GCSE. One of the elements of my History GCSE was "History Around Us" which involved going to Berry Head to 'study' the Napoleonic fortifications there (or rather the ruins that remain). Fair enough. The worst bit, though, was an 'empathy' exercise we had to do, where we imagined we were a solider living in the barracks and writing back to our loved ones about how wet, cold, miserable etc we were. What exactly was the point of this? If only I could do this piece of coursework now, I would write the following:

My Dear Eliza,

So I am up here a -shivering on Berry Head fort, waiting to fight that old Frenchy Napoleon. But it is really a bit of a miracle I'm writing to you, isn't it, considering that I am a poor farm labourer drafted into service here, and that I've probably never had any formal schooling whatsover, considering that the barracks in these forts were only manned until 1805, and the First Education Act didn't make primary schooling compulsory until 1870, and even then it wasn't free. But my darling I love you so much I somehow miraculously acquired literacy! Also of course, I'll have to sell my body to send you this letter, considering that before the introduction of the penny post on 5th December 1839, postage was hideously expensive. As a labourer I'd probably earn about 4p a day - the same as it costs to send a letter 7 miles! Any furtherafield and it would be 6 pence. Stil, telling you how cold it is and how I'm playing cards with the lads is worth that expense, even if it is a tad anachronistic.
Of course, I am a bit disturbed that a 20th century schoolchild is entering my head. Can't imagine schools encouraging 'empathy' dairies for Holocaust victims, or getting kids to pretend to be Pol Pot. But hey I'm just a soldier in some war no-one remembers very well. In fact, let's not tell the kids anything about the politics of the actual war, or why and how what Napoleon was up to mattered, as long as they show they can imagine what it was like to be in a cold stone building before the invention of radiators, TVs, and I-pods. Cos, yeah, that's history, and that's how to make it cool.

With all my love, Jamesxxx

At school, to make these letters extra authentic, we smeared the paper with cold tea bags and dried them in the oven, so the paper went all crinkly and brown. I'd do that with this letter too.

for a detailed explanation of what when on at the forts (really) see www.torbytes.co.uk/op/tm7/lv2/item370.htm

Small World

I know the director of Everything is Illuminated! she is a colleague from work! Does this count as a virtual celeb spotting?

I Do, I Do, I Do

On Saturday, my good friend C got married, in Wales, at Llansteadffread Court. We all traipsed out to the countryside from London, where, as the poem I read says (Wordsworth The Prelude) we were "free/free as a bird to wonder where I will." The setting was fabulous - very Jane Austen, complete with water feature, haha, cows, misty mountains, and small churchyard (and devastating graveyard in which one family lost FOUR children in the same month - January 1836). Autumn is more advanced out there as well, and there were proper big huge shiny conkers around. P, C's brother, has finally cut his hair and shaved off his sideburns and looks about a 1,000 times better. He became my pseudo other half for the duration, as I had thought would happen, as we were one of very few people who had not a significant other to bring.
Weddings are funny things though, aren't they? C is into her alternative, bohemian thing (charity shop shopping, non-matching plates, composting) and wanted her wedding to be as laidback and informal as possible. It was lovely, but in the end, fairly traditional: I don't think there is anyway these things can escape tradition. I used to think maybe you could reinvent the tradition from within but now I am more hardcore and don't really see how you can reconcile feminist consciousness with marriage. When P complained to me that he was fed up with people asking him when he it was going to be his turn, I told him he should tell them it was a bourgeois instrument of patriarchal oppression that he refuses to perpetuate. His 2nd cousin, a particularly haughty blonde girl said "yeah, and everyone would just think you were sad, and no-one would know what you mean!"Then P pointed out at least you would know who you were going to spend New Year with. So this is what the argument for marriage has boiled down to: not looking sad to silly blonde girls, and not feeling lonely on 31st December. Having said that, once she'd got over her terrible nerves and anxiety, (she hadn't slept for over a week worrying about it!) C looked incredibly happy. I really wish her all the best.

Mid Week Kulcha

Saw excellent production of Everything is Illuminated at the Hampstead Theatre last night. I did buy the book by Jonathan Safran Foer when it came out in 2002, but I only read about 2 pages before I became frustrated by the dense, arrogant prose. It has been gathering dust on my bookshelf ever since. Must try to read it again.

Celeb Sightings

Spotted, in Belsize Park, en route to my colonic hydrotherapy appointment: Abi from How Do You Solve a Problem Like Maria, looking v theatrical and studying a script with another girl.

The Devil Wears Prada

Made a rare trip to the cinema last night to see The Devil Wears Prada. (You'd think I would make the effort to see something a little more high-brow for my annual visit to the cinema, but no.) At one point, S noticed that I was literally drooling over the clothes. And I am so inspired by Emily Blunt's fabulous eyeshadow collections that I was up until 1am searching for my green eyeshadow, so that I could recreate the look for myself. I shall be taking myself off to Shu Uemura later today to recreate her gold eyeshadow look.

What is it about this Rainy City?

Julie Burchill once famously observed (if you are an avid JB reader like self) that London is a city full of people who are so busy reading Time Out and neurotically hurrying to exhibitions that they haven't the time to fulfill the simple things in life, like finding someone to shag. I have to say based on the last few months I would be forced to agree, having lived a celibate yet cultural London existence.

I came back to Belfast this weekend for my friend J's B'day. I got a taxi straight to the pub,and we stayed there for a few hours, and then headed back to the flat for a party. I was already pretty pissed by this point,and enjoyed dancing about to Abba and flirting shamelessly with this random boy who was there (a friend of a friend). We ended up snogging to Avalon.

Now, this is where the story gets complicated. By about 4am, everyone had left, apart from myself; J; D, J's boyfriend;random snog boy; and G, a friend of D's who is staying, as he, his wife and baby live far away and he has to crash. Random snog boy wants to stay and have sex with me in the lounge. G also has to sleep in the lounge. I have to sleep in the lounge. No-one knows what to do. J and I go for a conflab in the bedroom and D joins us. J has dug an inflatable mattress from somewhere and is halfheartedly unwrapping it, saying that G can always kip on that in the bedroom if I want the lounge to have sex with random snog boy. I'm not sure. We start to giggle. Then G enters and smiling his most charming smile says, "F, are you sure you want to sleep with this guy? He doesn't even know your name". (If that was one of my criteria, I wouldn't have a sex life, but anyhow). By this point I've lost interest in random snog boy anyway, and know would just be going through the motions. So I say no, not really, and G says, don't worry, I'll handle it, and leaves the room to go through to the lounge and tell random snog boy to go home, sans shag. G and I then retire to our separate sofa beds in the lounge. I'm ready to drop off when G starts asking me what I saw in random snog boy. I tell him it's flattering to have someone pay you attention. He said he thought he wasn't good enough for me. He then most randomly asked me if the fact I had a PhD made me less likely to sleep with people! I said no. He then reached out of his sofa bed and reached out to my sofa bed with his arm across the 2 feet of floor that divide us. We held hands. The tension was fizzing. We were looking at each other, silently holding hands. He begins to rub my hand. Still, we say nothing, just squeezing hands and very gently touching plams. I can feel a kind of nervousness in my stomach. G whispers to me, "Can I come and sleep in your bed", and the tension breaks. We are all over each other, it is so sudden and urgent, and (cliche though it is to say) we just click with each other. We seem to know just what to do and how, and it is sexy and fun and uninhibited and silly and great. We proceed to have sex all over the place for the next hour or so, as quietly as possible, as J and D are asleep next door (though as I told J the next morning and now she has told D, maybe such discretion was wasted). As we lay in bed together the next morning, G told me he felt many emotions, but not guilt. He sends me saucy texts through the day, making me giggle, esp when I am in posh restaurant having dinner with J and D. I feel guilty though. The boy has been married for all of 2 months, has a baby girl, and another on the way. What is it about Belfast? There must be something in the air, because these things just seem to happen here. So now I am heading back on a plane to a far more cosmopolitan city, one where I can indulge my love of art and theatre, but I can guarantee that won't happen.

Making a Tabloid Tit of Myself

Oh god, cannot believe what I have just done. Is veeeeee long story (obviously), but have just agreed to (shudder) be interviewed for a feature on gynacological health in a tabloid newspaper. Do not know what I was thinking or how I could possibly have agreed to it. But they are paying next to nothing, AND they will print a bloody photo. Am completely mortified. Must find way to get out of it. At least it's not in the Daily Wail.

Life in SW3

So this am, v early for self, and practically half way through day for her, I met the mysterious one who never blogs, aka P, to do a SHOP at Sloane Square. This was shopping with a mission, as we had 1hr 45 mins to find me an outfit to wear for a friend's wedding next week. Well, Monsoon is my new best friend. Though I had already bought a skirt in Ted Baker, so now have two posh skirts for this winter - how madly extravagant. P and my's taste in clothes is diametrically opposed. I am basically incapable of wearing anything other than jeans, boots, and oversized jackets, and tops that are 2 years old. My hair is always a frizzy mess because I can't be bothered to do anything other than shampoo and condition it (occasionally it freakily looks vaguely normal, but is nothing to do with me). P was v strict with me today, not allowing me to try on any cardigans (not even slim fitting black ones), and making me buy a jacket that I thought was too small but apparently fits me fine - hmmm. Actually it is always v affirming to go shopping with P, as is sort of opposite of going with mother. Mother: You'll never wear it/ it's too tight/ it shows your huge stomach/it's white, you'll dirty it in two minutes. P: it looks gorgeous, you should definitely get it/ Or (if looks hideous) no it's cut all wrong, what bad dress making!
I left P to rush back to her normal job rather than being wardrobe consultant to self and carried on wondering down Kings Road by self. This was a mistake, a girl from Devon/ Belfast cannot cope with on rush of consumption possibilities. Was suddenly madly desperate for Greek Korres shower gel (bought some of that actually), fine Merino wool tights, funky hair clips, new glossy hardback books, white and blue be ribboned bras, bright pink ski jackets, chocolate tankinis etc etc. Found self in kind of daze at 3:30pm staring at the hairbands in John Lewis thinking "mmm, I need some of those for swimming" when was jolted back to reality and realised that I'd already spent £100s.
As I was having a restorative latte I witnessed a slice of SW3 life. A young woman with long blonde hair and a Catherine Deneuve esque trench coat was pushing a Bugaboo and had a small blonde haired boy with her. He, aged all of about 3, was wearing a bottle green blazer and a CAP. All of a sudden he stopped running and ground to a halt and began to wail. "Henry, you're jolly well walking. You've been walking BEAUTIFULLY til now and you're JOLLY well going to carry on. " Henry simply jumped up and down on the spot and wailed some more. "We're just going to JOLLY WELL stand here IN THE RAIN until you stop." Henry didn't seem particuarly perturbed by this, and carried on jumping up and down and saying "No no no". "I'm NOT carrying you". "Pleeeese." This carried on for 10 more mins. Time for the big guns. "Mummy. IS. Going. TO....RING. DADDY in a minute." She whips out her mobile and dials. Have sudden hilarious vision of top flight banker/lawyer being interrupted in meeting for wife to tell him she can't get his son to walk down the street. "Daddy wants to talk to you now." Unfortunately, Daddy's patriarchal authority was somewhat undercut by it being delivered by mobile phone, as Henry refused to speak into it, and just carried on wailing. LOVE Henry, think is great child, and poor kid, if you are going to force him to be hothoused from aged 3, is it any wonder he is bloody knackered and can't be arsed to walk? Mummy eventually put him in his raincoat and marched him to the bus stop, saying "You'll JOLLY well know we can't get the BLOODY bus everyday."
By the way, I am now celeb spotter extraordinaire. I saw Bob Geldof wandering down the road. He was wearing yellow trousers and a big blue coat, and had his arm round a girl who looked young enough to be his daughter (maybe she WAS his daughter). They went into Boots, and I felt v ashamed of self for posh Greek shower gel. I expect Bob buys Boots own and gives the difference to the African poor. Well, I *hope* he does.

celebrity sightings

On Saturday night, we were out celebrating (if that is the word) D's 30th birthday. Now at least she is vaguely in the same ball park as me. (Though was v sweet of L to suggest I am Samantha because of raucous lifestyle, also think the fact I am somewhat older than the other girls also counts).

Well imagine our shock and surprise when it was revealed to us that none other than uber trendy stand-up comedian and Kate Moss shagger Russell Brand was at the table just along from us at the restaurant where we were eating! I managed to take a bad, blurry photo of him snogging a young blonde thing (not Ms. Moss) but alas my camera on my phone is so crap Heat magazine would not be able to publish. Various other cameras were offered to me, but I did not have the necessary chutzpah to walk right up to him and snap him, as would be a bit of an invasion of privacy. My friend J has a huge crush on the Brand (she is going to have him on her post nuclear apocalypse island) and so was v jealous.

In honour of this sighting, I am now going to list all the 'famous' celebs I have seen during my London sojourn, this highlighting the vibrant and cosmopolitan nature of the capital (or the low rent nature of celebrity these days, take your pick).

1. Maggot from Celebrity Big Brother walking down Holloway Rd.
2. Jenny from Teachers (the one who got to snog Andrew Lincoln) in Brown's, Islington Green
3. Craig from Big Brother 6 on the tube, Piccadilly Line.
4. Rob Brydon (well back of his head as my friend said "that's Rob Brydon") walking down the street near the BFI (Charlotte St, I think)
5. The man with the multi coloured beard who does voice training on Fame Academy, walking down the same bit of street - it is obviously a medja mecca
6. Russell Brand in Gilgamesh snogging a young blonde girl.

This is in just two months - all I managed in 4 years in Belfast was Andrea Corr and Tim Robbins (though I guess at least Tim is 'A' list).