Studio Living

Responses to responsibility

The thing that finally tipped me over into buying my own place was not some burning desire to get 'on the property ladder' or being seduced by Channel 4 home shows, but wanting to stop being at the mercy of landlords and to be able to take some responsibility for the place I live in. Which sounds good, except it does of course mean taking responsibility.

Last Saturday I woke up and thought I'd finally get round to painting the fence, something I've been meaning to do for about a year but have been putting off (more on procrastination later). I figured it'd only take a couple of hours; oh how wrong I was, as I found myself painting the final panels on Bank Holiday Monday morning following a second trip to Homebase for more wood stain. So while it is a good thing that I am in charge of the fence, and it is in my power to make it presentable and make vague attempts to stop it rotting away further, it is not so brilliant when such responsibilities knacker up your plans for the long weekend.

It was particularly galling since I'd earmarked the bank holiday to get back into writing the novel. Yes, I'm indulging in that most cliched of pursuits and it doesn't help that I keep catching repeats of Family Guy where Stewie rips the piss out of Brian for his continuing failure to complete his clearly terrible novel. I've wanted to be "a writer" since I was tiny - ever since I realised that books only came into existence after somebody created them, in fact - but the attempt still fills me with a certain embarrassed shame. I think I'm capable of producing 100,000 words of literary merit, do I? Hmm? Honest answer: I don't know, but I sure as hell won't know unless I try. And since I outed my attempts on Twitter last week I might as well make a clean breast of it.

I could probably do with the ritual humiliation of public confession since I am simply abysmal at self discipline. This wretched bundle of sentences has been on pause at the 10,000 word mark since I went back to work because I lack the hard willpower to force myself to sit down in the evenings, or at weekends, or even in the mornings before I get properly get up, to add a couple of hundred words here and there. It was slightly gratifying to read a bunch of writers in the Guardian a few months ago (and which I now can't find), talk about how hard they find writing, and I know it's not just a case of bashing out 300 words off the top of my head on a particular topic as I can do for Londonist every lunchtime. This requires deeper thought, an immersion, if you will. I also know that these are excuses, and that lapses in deep thought can be fixed in the editing and revision processes, and that all I'm doing is weaselling out of completing the first draft. Because, what if it's rubbish? What if it turns out I can't write something of that length after all? What if this exercise exposes my ambitions as pathetic and hopeless? I also know that on the Screenwipe writers' special last December, Russell T Davies said you're not a writer until you've written something. I felt personally chastised. And I know that all my prevarications and self doubts are all just variants on the theme of procrastination and that there is a masterpiece within. Bloated self confidence and self doubt; we are all of us a little bipolar, I think.

And then an entire three day period gets wiped out by fracking garden maintenance. Even my best laid plans get derailed by the delaying tactics of fences.

On poetry

I have a terrible confession. When I stumbled upon news of UA Fanthorpe's death a couple of weeks ago, I had to stifle a little cheer. Not because I'm some hideous bitch who delights in the death of others (though there may be some truth to this, given my reaction), but because she can produce no more poetry. It's an easy get-out to say the texts we study in school are destroyed for us forever, but even now I occasionally flick through a book of Fanthorpe poetry in a bookshop and am struck by how predictable she is. Poetry should surprise. She does not.

As an exercise for A Level, we had to write a poem in her style. And it was so, ridiculously, easy to satirise. Take an everyday object, throw in a couple of references to mythology, a few flowery descriptive phrases, a turn of wry humour, let your sentences run on to the middle of the next line and end it by bringing it back to death. I wish I'd kept my poem, but I burnt it along with the photocopies of her poems on results day. I chose a pier to be my subject, Victorian and derelict, once filled with life and now a reminder to us all of how things pass. I can't remember how I got the mythology in there, but I do remember using the phrase "(Wrought iron filigree.)", in brackets, stylised just like that, after talking about the railings. (You probably need some familiarity with her poems to get that one.) I could never get over the feeling that surely there were poets out there we could be studying, poets who didn't return to the same damn themes over and over and over again and yet never manage to say anything new. (Browsing the LRB's shelves this afternoon I came across a collection from 2003, still mining the hospital waiting room theme.)

Mnnngh. Anyway. I've been considering bad poetry, or at least poetry that winds me up, for several weeks, prompted by a poem on the underground:

Brooch
Menna Elfyn (in memory of Stephanie Macleod)

They have their place, accessories
earrings, the odd necklace,
gemstone bracelets...
and yet, it’s from the soft inner depth
we work the brooch of our lives,
that jewelled keepsake set to outlast us.

Yours, it was a brooch ablaze –
the passion-crafted clasp,
the light chain to keep it safe; 

others, now, will wear your brooch –
this jewel fashioned from a golden hear
It will catch the sun. It will dazzle us.

From my Fanthorpe sneering you can probably guess my feelings about a poem that oh, takes an everyday object and ends up talking about death. It's perhaps unfair - perhaps my extensive exposure to UA Fanthorpe has been an innoculation against this vein of poetry. But when I read "and yet, it's from the soft inner depth / we work the brooch of our lives" I wanted to leap up from my seat and scribble 'tortured metaphor' across the poster. Can poetry do no better than this?

Of course it can. Thank you, BBC, for the Poetry Season. I've been looking for video clips of Lauren Laverne and Phill Jupitus doing their little trails because their performances make the poems live - particularly Jupitus, who makes a jar of honey sound melancholy, when the words themselves don't perhaps suggest so much. And while you may question the populist approach of getting slebs to read poetry in the trailers, another trailer that features Simon Armitage confirms the wisdom of the approach. Don't get me wrong: I love Simon Armitage. All Points North is one of my favourite books, but his voice is so soft and inoffensive and ineffectual that I find it hard to focus on the words when he does a reading. Back when he appeared on the late night Mark Radcliffe Radio 1 show (god, we're back to A Levels again) it was his banter with Mark, rather than the poetry, that made me warm to him. Not all writers are equipped to read their own material, no matter how deeply they might feel it in their souls. Sorry, Simon.

In case you wondered what the Laverne and Jupitus poems are, I've dug them out from the corners of the interweb and here they are for your delight (I suspect I may be breaking Jacob Polley's copyright, but Keats is long dead so hey).

On leaving some Friends at an early Hour
John Keats
 
Give me a golden pen, and let me lean   
On heap’d up flowers, in regions clear, and far;   
Bring me a tablet whiter than a star,   
Or hand of hymning angel, when ’tis seen   
The silver strings of heavenly harp atween:
And let there glide by many a pearly car,   
Pink robes, and wavy hair, and diamond jar,   
And half discovered wings, and glances keen.   
The while let music wander round my ears,   
And as it reaches each delicious ending,
Let me write down a line of glorious tone,   
And full of many wonders of the spheres:   
For what a height my spirit is contending!   
’Tis not content so soon to be alone.

A Jar of Honey
Jacob Polley

You hold it like a lit bulb,
a pound of light,
and swivel the stunned glow
around the fat glass sides:
it's the sun, all flesh and no bones
but for the floating knuckle
of honeycomb
attesting to the nature of the struggle.

Thanks, but no election yet please

All this talk of having a snap general election to allow voters to pass their judgement on MPs in the wake of the expenses scandal is horribly misguided. A general election now would be a single-issue election and inevitably completely bypass parties' actual, you know, policies. Which, in a time of economic crisis, would be incredibly dangerous.

Just a thought.

Bee good

I wishI knew how insects keep finding their way into my living room. It's most offputting. I mean, you know how I don't like insects of the yellow-and-black-stripey-and-stingy variety, right? When it's a wasp I just kill the bastard, but today I was at the computer when I heard a buzzing, looked down and there was a bumblebee flailing around in front of the fireplace, with the cat just moving in to have a good sniff. (Note to cat: don't sniff things that can sting you. We go to the vet enough as it is.)

A bumblebee? I can't kill a bumblebee! We're losing enough of them as it is. So I done being very brave and trapped it in a glass and took it outside. And I'm still shaking. (Sometimes great bravery requires great sacrifice.) But I've got to block up whatever vent is letting these things in - I can't be going through this all summer.

Creepy

After just sneaking under Cineworld Trocadero's cut-off point for cheap afternoon tickets to see In The Loop on Friday, m'companion in the Arts and I found the only place we could tolerate being in for more than five minutes was The Maple Leaf bar in Covent Garden. And since it takes more than five minutes to drink a beer, The Maple Leaf it was. We'd claimed a table with the consummate skill of women in need of seats and were happily oblivious to most things. Including the bloke who'd asked if he could sit at one of the spare seats on our table. Yeah, whatever mate, knock yourself out.

An unremembered amount of time later he asked if he could borrow one of our phones; he'd just flown in from the States, you see, and for some reason this stupid American iPhone wasn't connecting to his British friend's cell. M'companion in the Arts has an iPhone with a free calls package and handed it over, because she has more compassion than I do. We were slightly peturbed when the guy then threw what looked like an Oystercard holder on the table and walked out the door, but on investigation (apparently I have no shame) it turned out to be the driving licence of one Dr Paul Friga and about $200 in cash. Oh, right, security.

You know when you just want to catch up with a friend? When you threw on a random t-shirt and cardigan that morning, and haven't washed your hair for slightly longer than it requires to get completely manky? And you've sidestepped the fact that you're in central London, the location's incidental, you just happened to be here and the last thing you want is some management guru from North Carolina trying to ingratiate himself into your evening? He bought a round of drinks to say thank-you for the use of the iPhone, which m'companion in the Arts and I made nervy rohypnol jokes about while he was at the bar; but, like, dude. We're very sorry if you're alone in London and your friend isn't around, but how about bonding with the weird journalist you brought over to the table instead; yes, yes I really do have to be going (never have I been so grateful for feline diabetes) and no, m'companion is not of the mind to go dancing with you tonight. Shouldn't you be on the phone to your wife or something?

After refusing another drink we actually legged it while he was elsewhere. We've probably given him a terrible impression of English people now but I don't care; we'll give offence in exchange for creepy and uncomfortable. Sounds like a fair deal. In fact, we were so creeped and uncomfortable that we had to head into a place that sold pizza and alcohol to scrub the incident away. And possibly, the internet being what it is, the next time he exhorts someone in a bar to Google him, this post might just pop up.

Shahid Malik: a one million percent idiot

I really don't know if Shahid Malik - now former Justice Minster - is more deserving of my ire today than any of the other MPs that have been exposed as avaricious and arrogant, but he had the misfortune to be on BBC News while I was having my breakfast and severely pissing me and (£92k a year) presenter Carrie Grace off. In particular, his repeated assertions about having sought advice from the fees office over expenses:

The particular clip I want doesn't seem to be online, but he spent some time saying that when he was elected in 2005, all the new MPs had a little chat with the fees office and they given advice about what they should and shouldn't and could and couldn't claim for. This, he seems to believe, clears him from spending over two grand on a 40 inch plasma telly (the fees office, incidentally, don't recall him asking about limits according to the Telegraph).

But let's suppose he had asked about maximum limits, and he did receive bad advice. Is it acceptable that an elected representative didn't bother to exercise his own judgement and just went happily along with what he was being told?

Ah, so that's how we ended up in Iraq.

MPs' expenses

Stephen Fry says that the MP's expenses row isn't that important, that there are bigger issues to get angry about and that for journalists to be outraged about expenses fiddling is massively hypocritical. While he's got a certain point on the hypocrisy angle, he seems to be forgetting that journos' claims aren't funded by the public; and I think he's also missing the much bigger problem. Namely, that when we have a bunch of career politicians who view the House of Commons as a place to make some money while they're droning on about whatever issue they think will get them some headlines, we're less likely to get politicians who do care about war and poverty.

Let's take a look at some of the politicians who are so adept at doublethink that they shouldn't be allowed anywhere near the parliamentary system. Take Alan Duncan:

He thinks "every MP should feel ashamed that they've let the system grow up", "the whole House of Commons has to apologise for the mess that has arisen". But look how awesome he is: he's "been calling for this allowance to go for years". He's "in favour of total transparency, [he] got the government to change its mind about publishing these receipts in the first place, [he] was the first MP ever to publish [his] receipts". Yay for Alan Duncan, MP freedom of information fighter! But hang on a moment... Alan Duncan claimed over £4k for gardening. He claimed nearly £600 to overhaul a ride-on fucking lawnmower. He claimed almost the maximum allowance for his second home over the last six years. And now he's paying back almost £5k. So he thinks the system was terrible and shaming, but it didn't seem to stop him using it to its fullest.

Or Hazel Blears. Hazel Blears, who in a recent interview with George Monbiot, denied being a career politician, despite never having voted against the government. That's just co-incidence apparently. No, she's just an honest Salford girl, concerned with housing and health. This downhome honesty didn't stop her repeatedly switching her designated second home and avoiding capital gains tax when she sold her London flat - because she told HMRC it was her main home, while telling parliament it was her second home to claim expenses on it. And now - while she insists she's done nothing wrong - she's dashed off a cheque for £13k and waved it in front of TV cameras. As Justin at Chicken Yoghurt says, how lovely to have that kind of money lying around. How lovely to be so in touch with constituents that she can't see how waving a cheque for more than a year's income for those very constituents is obscene. And still she can't apologise.

Other politicians keep bleating about how they haven't broken any rules, and how maintenance of their second homes is completely necessary if they're to attend to their constituency and their London business. This is true: MPs do often need two homes, and shouldn't be left out of pocket merely for fulfulling their parliamentary duties. This is the point of expenses. When, however, you're claiming for a fucking housekeeper because "for most of the working week my wife and I are in London", or when you try to weasel your way out of the row by saying your house actually costs more to run than the expenses maximum, then I would respectfully submit that these houses are not just little crashpads to enable you to do your constituency duty and that perhaps the taxpayer should not be subsidising your cunting country pile. It's just a thought.

The sheer thoughtlessness of some of this stuff - elephant lamps, glittery bog seat - has served to highlight the reality gap between some MPs and the people they purport to represent. And it's this that I think is the most damaging aspect; not so much the money as the impetus behind it. I know it's hopeless wanting politicians to be in politics for sheer love of public service, but is it too much to ask them to be satiated with power and privilege, without adding enrichment to the list?

The upshot of this is going to be an enormous skewing of the European elections in a few weeks. The main fear is the BNP doing well but Channel 4 News had someone on from Searchlight last night, saying their polling indicated a swing to the Greens and UKIP rather than BNP. We can only hope.

The other, extremely irritating, thing about the expenses fiasco is that I'm finding myself agreeing with David Cameron. Nooo! Of course, he's loaded so his expenses are fairly straightforward and he can afford to take the moral high ground. But at PMQs this afternoon his suggestion, of publishing expenses claims online as soon as they were made, was the first time I'd heard this mentioned and it seems like a good idea. Better than wading through an independent investigation that will surely only slow down full publication even more? Something immediate and transparent. And simple. Damnit, why did it have to come from the Tories?

The 'M' word

Back at the vet on Monday for the three-monthly blood tests and quick panic over a weird lump on the cat's back. I can't watch them take the blood any more, it's too damn traumatic with the struggling and the rowling, so I turn away while they pin him down and stick a needle in his neck. Then, when it's all over, the vet nurse hands El Mog back to me with the words "there you are, go back to your mummy".

Ah. The 'M' word. Being completely ambivalent to children of the human kind, my cat is not a baby substitute (though I suppose it might be possible to construct a convincing argument that it's a boyfriend substitute, but that would simply earn you a punch in the face). Flatmate, fuzzinator, lap-warmer, arse-pain and terrifyer, yes. But I don't think any of these earn me the moniker 'mummy'.

I avoid using 'mummy' at all costs. In conversations with my cat (because that's what happens when you live on your own, you start talking to your cat) I use 'you' and 'me'; when I'm forced to refer to myself in the third person (say, because I've got a hangover and have stayed in bed much longer than I should've and am late for an injection) it's along the lines of "yes, I'm a terrible cat owner" (and before anyone says anything, I'm aware that 'cat owner' is an oxymoron. Did I mention I'm usually hungover when such things slip out of my mouth?).

I have a real, knee-jerk aversion to being called 'mummy'. It's probably deeply Freudian but I don't give much of a shit (Freud again, hello). Just wanted to you know this. Thanks for listening. It's appreciated.

(Where did this 'mummy' stuff, in relation to pets, come from anyway? Does everyone do the mummy/daddy thing? And if you do, don't you find it just a bit, you know, weird?)

Aporkalypse not quite now

It looks like we're highly unlikely to see millions of people dropping dead in the street from swine flu. We're lucky; a vicious pandemic is going to happen one of these days, but our total apathy and inclination to disbelieve in possible seriousness (even my parents forwarded me the joke about 'I called the NHS flu helpline but all I could hear was crackling' 'joke') is, I'm hazarding, a lot to do with the media immediately going into overdrive.

Now, I'm not here to say that the media hyped up a non story. There was risk, and it needed reporting. But instead of a measured analysis of that risk and waiting to hear what the epidemiologists were discovering about relative virulence and person-to-person spread, we got headlines like '140 million could die' and '40% of population could be infected' (note: I tweeted this article in the Independent last week citing an overblown headline; curiously, the headline is now more representative of the article's real message).

Of course, as noted by Ben Goldacre, millions could die in a pandemic. 40% of the population could be infected. Similarly, a tiny fraction of those numbers could be involved. At that stage last week, nobody knew the facts. But those rationalities were being buried beneath hyperventilating headlines and standfirsts, and terrifying introductions to news bulletins. And as new infections emerged slower and slower, and everyone who wasn't in Mexico - where, in all probability, there is less access to decent testing labs and swift doling out of anti-virals - developed merely non-life threatening symptoms, it felt like the media decided it had been cheated. It didn't get its pandemic with Sars or bird flu and now it didn't look like it was going to have fun with the piggies, so it started contacting people with a reputation for media naysaying to see if it could get them to blame the media for stirring everything up.

Make up your fucking mind. Either report sensibly, or don't. But don't go into overdrive and then blame each other for crying wolf.

What's really annoying is that the media didn't actually cry wolf over the core of the story; this had the potential to be serious (still does, if the virus, which is still out in circulation, takes a nastier mutation). But in their need to fill hours and hours of rolling news and the public's 'desire' to be told everything! now! with their/our apparently three-second concentration span, the media thrust the worst case scenario into our faces in big, bright, flashing letters. And then wondered why the normal reading and viewing public looked at the coverage, then looked at what was actually happening, and decided to make its own mind up thankyouverymuch.

The result of all this is another chunk out of the public's respect for the news and, ironically, a public that is less informed about the real risks. There's only so much wide-eyed staring at equally wide-eyed reporters and waiting for the aporkalypse that one can do. By placing parmageddon at the top of every bulletin and scaring the bejesus out of people, instead of running some thoughtful coverage in, say, the third or fourth slot, swine flu has been dismissed as a joke. Precautions we should be taking will probably be ignored. Even I, writing this post as I am, know that I should have bought some antibacterial hand gel by now. I keep meaning to, but there are two conflicting voices in my head: the sensible one that's read the sensible science blogs and is aware of the genuine risks, and the other one that's pissed off by overreaction and doesn't want to feel influenced by hype. I know which one I should be listening to, but it's the same way smokers know they shouldn't smoke and we all know we should eat healthily and exercise. Fuck it: I can't see any immediate danger to my health, so I'll carry on as normal because I'm now desensitised.

Has our media become completely incapable of stopping for a moment and thinking? Is the need to compete for eyeballs in this multi-channel, multi-platform world making it utterly impossible for any reporting other than shouty, attention grabbing predictions of doom? Is it that 'hmm, well, it might be more complicated than that' doesn't play well in focus groups? If you didn't watch Charlie Brooker's Newswipe you can now catch it all on YouTube; sort of a Daily Show for the UK, it's genuinely upset at the state of the news in this country (and the US, because where they've led, we inevitably follow). Swine flu came a bit too late to be featured which is a shame cos I bet it would have been fascinating.

Is it too much to ask that we, the news consuming (ugh) plebs are treated as adults, capable of digesting complex information? That we not be treated like infants, to be distracted with brightly coloured graphics and loud noises? That we be offered the nuances and shades of different situations rather than a choice between "everything's going to hell" and "nothing to see here lalalala"? It's no wonder fewer and fewer people trust the news and are tempted in by crap they read on the internet when they witness their news sources turn to blast and bombast, only to see no connection between what they're watching and what they're seeing in their daily lives. It makes me angry to think the news may have blown its credibility on swine flu by not being more responsibly restrained in its initial coverage - and if the virus does mutate and start spreading across communities, people may be less inclined to believe them and follow advice that could save lives. Now that would be a disaster.

Sashfest '09

My cousin is getting married in about a month's time.

This is great for her, and the guy she's marrying is lovely. But this isn't her blog, damnit, it's mine, and I demand the right to use this corner of t'internet to whinge when I need to. Because a family wedding is hell on earth for me.

My cousin and I are both only children, barely four months apart in age. We were close when we were growing up, but as I left Yorkshire to go to university and ran the 200 miles to London, she did the Northern conforming thing - in other words, she developed an even broader accent, got a solid job she's not that interested in and spent her time drinking terrible cocktails in the meat markets of Leeds. She's happy; it's fair enough.

Unfortunately, my family in Yorkshire (from which I can thankfully exclude my parents) see this as the epitome of success. My cousin is living the same life they did - she's settling down within the given class and regional parameters - and she's getting married which means, in the narrowed view of my Northern brethren, that's she's "won". Whatever I do here in London, my unfathomable internet 'career', my gaddings about with Londonist, my life that I'm exceptionally happy with thankyouverymuch, means nothing because I am single. For this is the worst thing that can happen to a woman my age. I fully expect to spend significant amounts of the wedding explaining to various people why I will not be donning the big white dress any time soon. Actually that's a lie - I've mentally awarded the guests three free passes; from the fourth stupid remark onwards I get to be rude and have some fun making stuff up.

This, however, is all for the future. For the present there was - The Hen Night. Or, as my friend Liz dubbed it, Sashfest, in honour of the pink sashes we all were given no option but to wear (and pay £5 for the privilege of doing so).

I hadn't expected the hen night, but the bloody thing was held in London so I didn't have an excuse to get out of it. (If ever there was a time to contract swine flu, Friday would have been it.) I've met some of my cousin's friends before - one memorable Boxing Day, on discovering my single status, one of them remarked "oh, we'll find you someone" and actually started looking round the pub, since this is of course the best way to find someone with whom you have a remarkable bond that will last a lifetime - and they are, to a woman, possessed of iron-straight hair, lots of eye make-up and H&M tops displaying lots of cleavage. Again, there is nothing intrinsically wrong with this. It's just that they occupy a point in space-time that I do not understand.

(Oh, and the hen night included my Auntie, who hasn't approved of a single life decision I've made since I was 18 and every time we meet, asks me when I'm moving back to Leeds. Let the fun times roll.)

Sashfest's running order went like this: drinks at the Travelodge bar, on to Pizza Express, then to Dirty Dancing and Los Locos in Covent Garden, picked because any 'nice' bar open past 11pm (I'm thinking Salvador and Amanda-esque) isn't going to let 18 shrieking women in sashes into their establishments. The tone was pretty much set when we all were handed a 'dare' card for something we had to do during the evening. Mine was 'pinch a hunk's bum' - saucy - the same as my Aunt. Others included 'get a pair of underpants' and 'dance on a table'. My, we were clearly in for a riotous evening.

The real low point was reached surprisingly early in Pizza Express. We had just the one poor waiter trying to deal with us and another large party, and he was run off his feet handling botched orders (our fault), frenzied requests to know when items would arrive, a frankly bizarre double booking and an awful lot of shrieking. He was literally running up and down the stairs with plates and bottles. Whenever he had a spare moment he'd fill a glass with tap water and gulp it down. And then the hens decided it would be fun if his was the bum that was pinched, and if his was the underwear that was obtained.

If you ever go to Pizza Express Aldwych, and you get served by a comely dark-haired chap called Charlie, make sure you give him a huge tip. Because that guy handled those women with a grace that I certainly failed to conjure. He allowed my Aunt to manhandle his backside, and although I didn't personally witness the demands for his pants because I was Twittering in the loo, I could clearly hear the chants of "Off Off Off".

I can't say for certain, but I imagine one of the reasons Charlie chose to work in Pizza Express rather than, say, a late-night bar, is the lack of sexual harrassment. I also didn't see how much tip we left but from conversations I overheard I suspect it was less than 10%; as everyone departed I made a final excursion to the toilet - when I emerged they'd all gone, and I found poor Charlie and added a tenner to his tip (all I had on me). I don't mean this to be all Ross-from-Friends-Mr-Big-Shot, but simply that the man deserved to be compensated. The therapist he'll need to recover from the experience will certainly cost him more.

I won't go into detail about Dirty Dancing - Zoe did the job admirably already - apart from to say that it blows. I haven't seen the film, but watching the stage show I could tell what they were trying to do as they recreated each scene and could also tell they were failing. It's made me want to watch the film, just so I can see it done properly. (Also: I paid £50 for my ticket and was in the back row of the dress circle? Wtf is that about?) And on the pavement outside, even though the show clearly exists only for hen nights, the number of passers-by who cast pitying looks on anyone marked out as hens by sashes or t-shirts was staggering. Or understandable. Depending on your point of view.

Los Locos was as Los Locos is: a Covent Garden basement full of drunken 24 year old Neanderthals, possessed of a penis but certainly no balls, thinking it was not only amusing but original to put their arms around the mothers of the bride and groom and be sleazy. Save us all from ageing: it appears to be the worst crime a woman can commit - worse even than being single. (And of course, we all know that age+single=nonentity.) My cousin, however, loved it: they played Dolly Parton and I've never seen her so happy.

So, to briefly sum up the night in Bridget Jones style (for I am single, don't forget, and must conform to the desperate stereotype): number of times asked when I'll be getting married (1), number of times deafened by screaming (4), number of times wanted the ground to swallow me whole (2), number of alcoholic drinks consumed (5, not enough), number of crushes on patient and good-humoured waiters (1).

Could have been worse. It could have been a lot worse. I'll be Tweeting the wedding. It seems to help me stay sane.