It's kind of depressing when you realise you have little to talk about. So, here's my week in nuthsell format:

• I've just had another job interview (will hear next week hopefully, unlike the last set of rude bastards who haven't bothered telling me yes or no 3 bleeding weeks later)
• I had a very nice SMB night out on Wednesday, at which, you may or may not have read, I was in charge of the whip and got served by Connor and Michelle from Neighbours. Now that was weird.
• Tonight I will be going to see The Pipettes at Koko in Camden
• This weekend I will be mostly watching lots of Series 7 of The West Wing

Hey, it's all go in Muppet world. Thank you for taking valuable time out of your busy day to care.

I hurt...

I worked very hard yesterday at an exhibition, well the set up of it at least. It was for a friend of Rod's - he does the lighting for all of her exhibition stands. I knew we were in for fun when she met me at the gate and said "You'll spot our stand, it's the one that looks like a Darkness gig".

Sure enough, it was..um...well lit. But it did look fabulous. The exhibition is for top end interior design and this stand was all movie themed. He's built a 7m stack of TVs in a cage, all different types, all stacked in different ways, showing 5 black and white movies. On the black walls were enormous B&W movie stills (some lovely Marilyn Monroe, Audrey Hepburn type pics) and at one end stood two giant Oscars - at least as tall as me. Among my many many tasks yesterday, was polishing the Oscars. Including their bums.

I never thought I'd ever be stood 3 metres on top of a cupboard polishing an Oscar's (life-size) arse. Still, you live and learn eh?

I don't like grumping about work on here. I always have visions of that La Petite Anglaise chick, who was fired for blogging about work. But anyhoo, I really want to say this, and I'll take them all on if they care.

My friend has been made redundant, and truthfully, why, we just do not know. Although a guess can be hazarded, which I doubt is too wide of the mark. And let's just say it's lucky he isn't pursuing constructive dismissal.

I blogged a little while ago that it was on the cards, he found out last week. On Monday, it all came to a head, and he decided not to work out his notice, so they let him leave there and then. And that was it. One of my best mates at work has scooted, and the office is a much sadder place (well, apart from some people who are doing cartwheels...). It stinks, and it stinks so much, while the official line is that everyone is a happily bonded team (the CEO breezed in yesterday and said "everyone put yesterday behind us? good good"), we're all looking for new jobs. We are bonded - in disgust at the way our colleague (or ex-colleague now) has been treated.

How does it get like this? I detest office politics, but sometimes people seem to be determined to make them desperately unhappy places to work, and right now, I would give anything not to work stuck in one place for 8 hours a day.

I would say perhaps I need to get out more, but I did go to Paris last week, so I'm not a total social leper. I think I maybe do need to get out on some dates or somethng on a weekend though, for this weekend the things that have excited me most are a) being on my own the whole weekend apart from last night, and b) two fabulous documentaries. Life in the fast lane, I tell ya.

I was as happy as larry on my Jack Jones all weekend. Lads, I guess this must be how it feels when the Mrs goes off to visit her Mam for the weekend. I just felt so relaxed, and it didn't bother me one little bit that from 5pm Friday to 8pm Sunday, the only person I spoke to was my Mam (and that was because she'd texted me "Did you just ring me?...and I hadn't). I made risotto, I made curry, I made chilli, I turned my radio on and sang my head off, I listened to the match in peace, no-one woke me up early putting plates away, I didn't feel bad when I trotted home at 11.30pm last night and made loads of noise. Bliss...

Being on my todd meant I had control of the telly, so no-one could complain when I watched a documentary on Saturday night instead of X Factor (bleeeeuuugh). Tony Robinson presented an incredible documentary about The Book of Revelations and how some American (who else?) churches are preaching that the end is nigh, and actively seeking out apocalypse (and funding churches in developing nations to preach the same message). The subject is too immense for me to condense it down, but the jist is that, for example, End-Timers encourage global warming as they see it as a sign of the Second Coming. They aim protect Israel at all costs, in accordance with Revelations, and as such have identified Kofi Annan as The Anti Christ, for meddling with those pesky Palestinians.... It was bloody frightening, and ludicrous, but mainly frightening.

Sunday, again billy no mates and happy with it, I went to see Al Gore's documentary An Inconvenient Truth at the flicks. A slide show by a politician on the effects of global warming....yeah, ok, it doesn't sound riveting. But it's actually very good, and I urge you to see it. Because it's also bleedin scary, but essential viewing.

Last night I went out with Rodders. He kept me waiting way way longer than a chap should leave a lady sitting alone in a pub, due to traffic, but he bought me dinner, told me good gossip and we laughed lots.

And he suggested, I really should get out on some dates on a Saturday night  All this thinking can't be good for a gal...

So, you'll have to forgive me if I sound a bit evangelical. But I wrote this in my head on Monday night, while standing in the middle of a French sports stadium, surrounded by the jumping masses watching Pearl Jam.

It occured to me during the gig that a path in life might well have started with Pearl Jam. Although Monday was the first time I'd seen them, the oldest songs have never left me for 14 years now. They still give me the tingles that good songs are meant to give you.

I thought back to a music lesson I had in Year 9 (about 1992, when I was 13). After a really bad couple of years, we suddenly got an ace music teacher, Mr Halsey. (Mr H wrote many original school musicals, which were sold on to other schools and after he left my school he went on to be Director of Musical Education for Newcastle Council...anyway, that's not the point). He asked us to bring in examples of riffs to the next lesson.

Next lesson arrives and after an array of girlies try to pass off Color Me Badd's I Wanna Sex U Up as having a good riff (I suspect he was actually looking for Another One Bites the Dust or such like), he slots my tape into the machine.

The thumping opening to Even Flow kicks in, followed by that voice of Eddie Vedder's - you know, the one where you think the devil created his lungs - singing "Freeeeeeeeezin, rests his head on a pillow made of concrete, again".

I turned round to find 32 jaws hitting the floor, all with the same thought "that swotty little shy blonde kid, this is what she listens to?! THIS?!" Some of them were open mouthed about the fact that I obviously had hidden depths of cool. Some of them were open mouthed in disgust that I didn't like Color Me Badd. Mr Halsey was open mouthed that someone understood the concept of a riff.

I think that was one of the seminal moments that led me on this path. I stood in the middle of the gig and thought "this is what it's all about. I'm here in Paris, a city I love, watching a band I love and I don't want it to end. This is why I have no money, no kids, no mortgage, no intention of growing up any time soon. So that I can do everything my 13 year old self would have wanted - this"

I love it when you're just happy - those moments never last very long, but I owe it to my 28 year old self to keep hunting them down.

So, it's been a bit of a week, and it will continue to be so, I hope. I'm realising that recently I've just been waiting for life to happen. Stuff wasn't going so well, I've allowed myself to get bogged down in places I never meant to. But it's funny what a birthday can do...

Sunderland started winning. England started winning. And tomorrow I have a job interview for a job which I'd written off, given how long it took them to invite me for interview (the closing date for applications was four flippin weeks ago!).

On Sunday I took part in the Hydroactive Women's Challenge in Hyde Park. For years I've been making people do all sorts of events to raise money, so it's about time I actually took part. I've been down to support more times than I could count, so it was more than a little odd to find myself on Sunday morning with a running number pinned to me.

I'll be honest, I've really struggled to enjoy running, but now I think I know why. With the race looming, I've been very pissed off with myself for not being at a certain standard, which only sends me into a spiral of "oh well, I can't do it so I'll not try". On Sunday, actual race day, all the pressure was off - all I wanted was a medal.

I'd listen to some of my favourite tunes on the tube on the way to the race, sitting opposite other ladies in trainers, looking a bit nervous. I'm not sure why, but I suddenly got really excited. I wanted to giggle, but then I'd have looked a bit barmy.

The atmosphere in Hyde Park was great. The queues for the toilets were not great however, and my excitement was tempered by a) needing a wee, b) really needing a wee and c) wondering if I'd make it to the start line in time. The field was incredibly busy - 20000 women - and we were held until it was safe to go, while they played motivating tunes. A part of me was thinking "this is mad it's too busy, they'll never let us go, and even if they do, I'll never actually be able to run"

And then it got going. I'm not sure how I got round - I know it was a mixture of walking, running and swearing. The sun came out the second the hooter went off, making bits of the uphill course tough, and giving me sunburn. But round I certainly did get, in a whole 42 minutes, and I collected my medal and goodie bag with pride.

I've inspired myself that I'm not a total knacker, and that I can actually enjoy things I find difficult. I've raised £200 for oldies, so it was definitely no waste of a Sunday morning. Now I've just got to keep going...

I'm starting a campaign for (slightly) salty popcorn to be included as one of the major food groups. Today that would make me the healthiest person on Earth.

I'm happily doing very little today (currently watching the England v Andorra game What does Owen Hargreaves have to do to score? Apart from put the ball slightly to the other side of the post maybe) and it's great. Sarah left at lunchtime to go to Budapest to boff a Kiwi, so I have the flat to myself and it took me about 20 seconds for it to gain shit-tip status. Ahhhhh... the joys of being on your todd.

I'm getting quite into the idea of checking where my food is coming from. I mentioned the lack of ethics in shopping at Tesco (www.tescopoly.org) or any of the main supermarkets, and being a good eco conscious chick, it does concern me. I check where my food has come from, and try to buy British when I can to keep my food miles down. I try not to buy stuff with too much packaging. I walk to the supermarket, because I can, though that means lugging it all back myself, and I usually take my own reuseable bags.

I found out there was a farmers market in Stoke Newington on a Saturday, so I thought I'd go have a nosey. It felt, unfortunately, incredibly pretentious. I'm sure I'm not allowed back until I have two children called Seb and Anouska. I scooted out rather quickly, having found nothing useful, and so I thought I'd have a look in Fresh and Wild. Fresh and Wild is an "organic and natural foods retailer", and you know where I'm heading here. I so want to like it. In fact I should be its prime audience - an ethically conscious, vegetarian, single girl. But, not only is it really bloody expensive, it's just plain wanky. I feel like it should have some girl on the door with a clipboard and a radio headset, checking out the clientele before they're allowed through into the shop and turning her nose up at everyone.

Is that just me being silly? I just wanted to be out of there, and I ended up buying some random foods, which although they were lovely, were probably too expensive for what they were.

So organic or natural or just plain good quality foods, whatever you want to call them. The whole market seems prohibitively overpriced - and even worse, aimed exclusively at a certain type of demographic.

I still went to Morrisons and bought most of my fruit and veg (mostly British, but too much packaging) a hell of a lot cheaper. Even the Ecover laundry liquid was 70p cheaper at Morrisons, which just proves you pay for the fact that it's from Fresh and Wild.

Wanky wanky wanky.

I have a job interview next Thursday for a job that I think I'd be quite good at, and I would rather like.

My emotions are flitting between the following:

1. Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeh
2. Oh god, job interviews are scary
3. It's ok, you'll be fine
4. What took you so long you bastards, the closing date was 3 weeks ago and I'd given up on you
5. How the hell am I going to get out of work for a couple of hours unnoticed
6. What am I going to wear
7. What am I going to say
8. Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeh
9. And repeat

I had a crappy journey to work and a crappy journey from work today. Dead trains at Warren Street, dead people at Clapham Junction - it all makes for transport chaos.

On the bus home, a small child in a pushchair kept alternating between kicking me and squealing an ear piercing squeal. I was tired, I was hungry and I have a lot on my little mind right now. I got off the bus, breathed a sigh of relief over being off the bus, pulled out my Ipod and waited for the traffic to move as I crossed the road.

It's now very early Autumn and I can see that we're on the turn. It's my favourite time of year - I'm so ready for long nights, long coats, long shadows long boots and long scarves. The sun was really low in the sky and it was lovely. I put my headphones in, pressed random play and Ride's Leave Them All Behind kicked in.

Sometimes, I think someone is directing a movie of my life, and just occasionally it all comes together perfectly - sound, vision, emotion, everything. The combination of that sun, that bassline and how I felt...it was amazing.

It lasted about 3 seconds of course, but I don't mind.

Where did that weekend go please? No sooner had I set foot on North East soil then it was time to come back.

The journey up was best described by Mr Gilwood, and I fully concur. It was crap. It was like rush hour tube hell, but for three hours. It was not fun. I almost had to kill a Scottish man for thinking it was appropriate to squeeze past all of us in order for him to buy 8 cans of Stella.

All was forgotten once my mam made me soup, and I hit my bed. Saturday I went to see my cousin and his new week old daughter (ohhhhhhhhh so cute and weeny and lovely), and then killed off any broodiness by going out for lunch/lots of wine with my mates. Until, um 11pm. I got the usual "when are you moving home" conversation, which is always fun... I dearly love my friends, but until I'm married, with my own house and based in the North East, no-one will ever believe I could be happy.

Sunday I spent with the parents, and then the grandparents, and then watching the Reading Festival on BBC3 and getting overexcited about going to Paris in 2 weeks to see Pearl Jam. I cannot fecking wait. Eddie Vedder looked and sounded so good. I love it when I'm excited about seeing a band, there's no feeling like it when you're counting down the days till you hear them. I was half glad, and half envious about not being at the festival. The romantic side of me misses being in a field with beer and bands for 3 days. The practical side of me knows that I'd be tired, dirty and be feeling very very old, and possibly rather ripped off given all my previous festival experience. Maybe I'll go back one day. Maybe I'm too old school.

Monday I spent on the required pilgramage to Tesco. I understand Tesco is not ethically sound, so I have some elements of guilt, but I flippin love the place. It's my guilty pleasure - everything is so so cheap. I bought some bedding and a cake tin and a pair of trousers. I could have gone so much worse. It's ridiculous, I turn into a mad banshee spending woman in that shop, I really do. Luckily I can't go too mad as I still have lug the purchases back to London.

Then I went to the match. Enough has already been said, it was marvellous. I love Quinny, I truly do.

I wasn't so happy to return to London this time. But I'm still down here, so I guess something made me come back.

Today, the day-after-birthday fairy has brought me a hangover. (She could bloody pull her finger out and bring me a manager too. *tsk*). Having said that, I don't usually get hangovers if I don't have wine, which I did not last night. What I have got is a serious serious lack of sleep. I think I got about 3 hours, and now I'm a syrupy mess. I usually find that if I can sleep it off, I'm fine. However I can't do that in my office (though I just tried).

Had an ace night at Bar Kick, and realised I am a lucky lady to have such marvellous friends.

I am now going to go back to staring into the middle distance and looking quite vacant.

I had to go up to Oxfordshire to one of our care homes today. Just for a visit and a look around.

As care homes go, ours are good, and the one today was a really fab place. It's modern, clean, bright and most importantly, it doesn't smell. The staff are lovely and the manager is in the old school matron style, so she takes no shit from anyone.

There are 10 dementia beds, but a lot of the residents have some form of dementia - in fact that's the cruelest part; when you have dementia but you're lucid enough to know it. I've been in dementia units before, and I'll be honest, the first time I was scared. I really didn't know what to expect, which is silly really. I've had a bit of training about it, and to be able to care for someone with dementia, well you must have infinite patience, and I have nothing but admiration for people who do it.

I met a lady who had had an amazing life (her name is Alix Stone, google her). We saw her "life book", a book which might help her recall who she is (how sad is that, truly). She'd been a costume designer for the RSC in the 1950s, and had known Alec Guinness, and actors like him. She still speaks fluent German, and said something to the home manager, who didn't understand. I took a stab at translating (she said she forgets a lot) and she grinned and pointed and said "You see, she knows". I felt could have made a friend if she'd be able to remember me 5 minutes later, which of course she didn't.

It's a hideously cruel thing to happen to someone, and it scares me shitless.

No, nothing to do with Gordon Ramsay, or swearing. Though I would happily swear at Gordon Ramsay.

Usually, I am a terrible reader. I can skim read the toss on the SMB for hours, but it pains me greatly that I am not very well read on the whole. The last time I read regularly (I have read books since though, honest) was in Australia, where I read 6 books in 6 weeks (hey, that's a lot for me) and then I got to the States and didn't read a single word of a book for a month.

Last week I made a detour into Books Etc on my way back through the station after lunch and came out with a few books, including one I'd heard of by Ariel Levy called "Female Chauvinst Pigs". I finished it this morning and I'm horribly disappointed that I won't spend the next week nodding in agreement every 5 minutes and looking like a nutcase on public transport. Because I loved it, and it said everything I've been thinking lately.

I've read a couple of articles recently about how the word "Feminist" and feminism as a culture are dirty words. They always dredge up the bra burning, which in turn conjures up ideas of dungarees, shaved heads (but nothing else shaved) and man hating communes. Utter bollocks of course, but never let a good cliche spoil our views of what's cool. Yesterday in the Guardian the article spoke about the fact that we've forgotten it was only 30 years ago it was perfectly legal to turn a woman down for a job...because she was a woman. It riles me, and I'm confused as to what feminism is, and should I believe in it? Is it about equality?

The book is about how women today are complicit in their own oppression of other women. It really made me think about how I see myself, how I act and how I view other women. I dismiss things as "girlie" but what's wrong with girlie? It made me think about whether the fact that I rarely wear make up, that I love football, that I drink, that I swear - whether those things are me trying to be something I'm plainly not - i.e. man. And does it have to be about gender? Can't I just love football without having to involve my sexuality in it? I go bananas if someone treats me "like a girl", but not because I don't want to be treated like a girl (whatever that means) but because I don't want to be treated differently. And yet, I still expect my male friends to see me safely home - is that reasonable?

Female Chauvinist Pigs is predominantly about what the author calls "Raunch culture", and I was there every step of the way with that one - almost a hallelujiah of agreement from me. It talks about value, and female role models, and how we're dangerously passing the idea down the line to teenagers that passing yourself off as sexually available, yet not being able to work out yet how you feel about sex yourself is the timebomb we're going to be facing.

It talks about how the idea that freedom for women only seems to mean sexual freedom, and it seems that anyone who takes this too seriously should lighten up a little. Ok, yes, I posted this on the SMB so I was asking for trouble, but I suggested it was about time we got rid of Page 3 and the general consensus was that I should "get a life", as if I can't take a joke.

The truth is, as noble as you want to be about it, the biggest currency for a woman is ultimately her looks (and even better, whether she takes it up the arse). Abi Titmuss - gets caught on camera - OH MY GOD shagging (naughty girl!) her boyfriend and goes overnight from professional nurse to famous late night television starlet, stripper workout video maker, and no doubt flippin rich cow in the process. She was cleaning up people's wee for a living, and so we make her rich and put her value in the fact that she gets her tits out and pouts a lot.

It happened before, and it'll happen again.

I'm a woman on the edge. This is what reading does for you...

...the day we went to Southend.

Well yes, in the grand scheme of things, we did. We had a nice breakfast at Liverpool Street Station. We laughed at the Kiwi girls in flip flops going to the probably very muddy V Festival queuing in front of us for train tickets. We laughed at Sheps and his pea sized bladder. We laughed at the kid from Southend in the pub in Prittlewell asking Sunderland fans for fights. We won back all our money on the quiz machine, largely due to my prowess on Bullseye. We watched Southend's annual parade and the fireworks for the first night of their illuminations. We ran on to the beach for a little bit. We laughed at Epping doing Parque through the streets of Southend, bemusing teenage boys with his leaping over benches skills, and then encouraging them to follow his lead. We ate chips. We missed the last train.

We did not laugh at the football. For it was of an incredibly poor standard.

At the risk of sounding like every day is the same, today I shall be writing about the bane of my life, She Who Is Not Techy. She is a lovely lady, but I have seen polar bears with more IT knowledge. At least they'd be able to press keys.

SWINT inspired my very first blog entry, for then I was at the end of my tether. I kissed my tether goodbye sometime ago, to find it replaced by a weary patience. Patience which other colleagues suggest is saintly.

I shall cut a long story short. She's trying to send out a mail merge, which should be incredibly easy, but when you're not sure which bit of the computer is the monitor, then I may as well ask her to perform brain surgery when she has a bit of time off from her job as a rocket scientist.

To keep things as simple as possible, I've asked her to fill the same value into a field on every record on the database she wants to mail, so that I can pull all of the records with this value in common and merge the mail. (The field I asked her to fill in is a sort of "miscellaneous facts" field - things like dietary requirements, interests, committees sat on etc etc  You can have more than one of these facts on your record, and I use them to group records together...they're important)

So far, so simple. To make things even simpler, when she needs to add a new record, I created a default set which will automatically fill in all of the required fields with the same info, if you simply press Shift + F2. Easy peasy lemon squeezy.

I had not envisaged the following things happening:

1. She does not know where the shift key is
2. She thinks pressing F2 means pressing F, then 2
3. She doesn't know how to press two keys at once

And 4. SHE'S GONE AND OVERWRITTEN ALL THE  INFORMATION IN THE FIELDS I ASKED HER TO FILL IN, INSTEAD OF JUST ADDING A NEW LINE LIKE ANY NORMAL PERSON WOULD.

AND THEN SHE'S PRESSED SAVE.

Annnnnnd....relax.

Being a girl is shit. And don't let anyone tell you otherwise.

The only thing that will help is blueberry muffins, which handily, I baked a ton of yesterday. I'm going to make some more, and if they don't help with this yucky feeling, then I'm going pretend they do and use it as a good excuse to eat more muffins.

They say sex is meant to relax you, and your muscles and make you feel better. Quite frankly I think men made that up so that they get their end away uninterrupted by the decorators.

So Plan A - spurious baking - it is.

PS: Actually, it's just occured to me I've been posting about girlie shit for weeks now. I'll stop now. I promise.

And I'll go to the doctors to suggest two whole weeks per month of hormone-related emotional and then physical rollercoaster is a bit off.

PPS: Look, everyone else talks about their poo. At least I'm not doing that.

Had an odd few days. Gone from feeling absolutely wretched on Thursday night (a combination of factors, not least....wellllll you don't want me to talk about it.....it's a girl thing...but it was more than just that) to feeling pretty cool yesterday (football results notwithstanding).

I had thought I was about to have a quiet weekend. And then I didn't. So that's ok. Friday at work was almost dead, punctuated only by one of the managers astonishment at me being able to do Ken Bruce's pop quiz on Radio 2, and know that Long Haired Lover From Liverpool was a hit in 1972. She now thinks I'm some sort of Rainman when it comes to dates. Which I am a bit.

After a hellish (in the "like hell" sense, not the "aw that's great" Geordie 80s sense of the word) journey on Friday night, I met Sarah and her friend Paul in the Light Bar in Liverpool Street. Sarah and I had been driving each other nuts on Thursday - over terrorist threats, and then fat beauty queens. Bless her, I love her, but sometimes she drives me barmy because she can't see past the end of her own nose. Luckily we both agree that The Light Bar is a wanky hideous nonsense of a place (at the weekends). So many City Suits, wafting their cards at the bar and ordering rounds of 20 drinks. To get in there, I had to queue, which goes against every grain of my being, but I had to find them to get them out of there. Which I did. We had a decent enough night, but Shoreditch makes me feel stupidly uncool, even though I think the idea of Shoreditch cool is wanky. Go figure...

I discovered on the way home that the reason a nearby street had been cordoned off a few weeks ago was because a bloke had been shot, at 4.30pm on a Sunday, or so the police witness appeal board said. Added to the fact that 3 streets away, the pregnant wife of one of the plane terrorist suspects had been picked up on Thursday, I'm starting to wonder about my little corner of Stokey

Yesterday was spent at another Saffa barbecue. I should say Braai really, for that it is what it is. It was at the same house in Balham as the last party - a really lovely little flat, which I would like to own, thank you very much. Mostly different people from last time, but still a few I knew. (Kim had told me two of the guys who were at the party last time, when she met with them recently, exchanged knowing glances on mention of my name and said I had an "earthly sensuality" whatever in gawds name that means. I laughed, it tickled me. She suggested they were dirty buggers for discussing it )

Somebody found a CD with Yeke Yeke on it and the whole place went nuts, it was hilarious. After a discussion on George Michael and his Hampstead Heath antics, Roger found a Greatest Hits, and Kim, Dave, Patrick, Roger and I danced like it wasn't really raining on our barbecue. This upset a couple of the other guests, who couldn't believe we could dance to George Michael - idiot, does he have no soul?? The GM was replaced by some terrible reggae, but a compromise was eventually reached through the medium of The Pixies. The neighbours mustn't have been amused at 30 people singing Debaser at the tops of their voices. Followed later by The Clash's London Calling. I say neighbours - I mean the ones upstairs. The ones next door were 4 absolutely stunning blokes, who we waved at all night (well, me Kim, Patrick and Roger - Dave, being the straight bloke, wasn't  that interested). They still didn't come round.

And so that was my weekend till now.

And it's stopped raining. Sunshine and showers - kind of sums up my life right now.

I've discovered someone else on the board is a Mitch Hedberg fan, and consequently I decided to read this page of quotes, and I've only just recovered from laughing so hard snot came out of my nose. Attractive eh? Such a horrible tragic shame the bloke died last year, about 10 minutes after I'd first heard of him (same week IIRC), I'd have loved to have seen him live.

There is no-one in my office today. Well hardly. Just me and Giles rattling around. And by "rattling around", I mean "pissing about on the internet". Coman occasionally wafts in an incredibly gay grump, due to the fact that my opening line to him this morning was "aren't you glad you're not getting on a plane today?" and he said "I was supposed to be getting on a plane today". Ooops. That's his plans to go back to Ireland for the weekend scuppered somewhat.

I have some tidying up to do. I don't want to do it. I'm such an unmotivated cow. Honestly

For once I'm not going to rant on my blog. I suspect the PMT is subsiding

I had a marvellous time at the hands of London Transport this morning. I couldn't be fached to get together a whole new trainer based outfit (the joy of having to be "smart" at work, means I have to change when I get to work if I've been walking. You look a tad silly in a posh skirt and pair of trainers) so I got the bus. And it's a school holiday, even in Jewish world, so the buses are, dare I say it, pleasant. I got a seat from Kings Cross on the tube. It didn't stop anywhere it shouldn't. No-one hit me. All good. How it should be.

My entertainment for the journey was the Chris Evans Best Bits Podcast. I'm loving podcasts - I wish the BBC would do more, because I'm crap at listening to the radio. The Now Show one is one of my weekly highlights - though it does turn me into the local grinning lunatic. I don't think you're supposed to randomly laugh out loud in the middle of Morrisons, even if you are wearing headphones.

Whatever you think of the Ginger One, he's a flippin good broadcaster, especially condensed into 30 mins, and he has some interesting guests. One of whom last week was Professor Heinz Wolff, who is apparently interested in inventing things to help older people stay independent. I duly flagged this up at work, so that would be nice if we could do something with him - he's cool.

Job application forms completed (save for a bit of tinkering) - 1. V good.

Number of times I have trained for my 5K run in 3 weeks 4 days - ummmmmm, yeah. Not good.

As Cat Stevens would say. Well, sing rather than say I suppose.

It would seem easier to kill off Tuesday now, at the ripe old time of 10am before this day gets more arduous. It was the tube what done it. You know instantly your day has gone downhill before it's begun when you skim down the board at the entrance to the station and it says "District Line: Good service; Picadilly Line: Good service; Victoria Line: Severe delays". It makes a very rude word pop into my head.

We had the works this morning - an overheated packed tube, 3 trains before I could actually squeeze onto one, some idiot who blatantly shouldn't squeeze on but does anyway, another idiot with a suitcase the size of my flat travelling at rush hour (tourists), getting stuck in the tunnel for 10 minutes 200 yards away from my station. But this morning topped it; a woman actually managed to smack me in the face at Oxford Circus. She held onto the rail above her as she stepped of the train, and her trailling arm managed to clip me right in the mush. And she was wearing a handful of sovereign rings.

I'm stupid enough not to have shouted. I was a bit too shocked to be honest. No one asks if you're ok, no-one apologises, no-one really cares.

When I was little, and my mam went to Eldon Square to shop, Marks and Spencers was my most hated place on Earth. There were days when it all got too much, and I'd sit down on the floor of the shop and just refuse to budge. No "we have to leave, please can I go and play on the pencils" demands, just "that's it, I've had enough". One day I'm going to do that on the platform of Finsbury Park.