The Very Hungry Cat(t)erpillar

I've started doing showbiz stuff again at work. This basically means late nights, no real social life, lots of standing around alone at parties looking like a stalker whilst waiting to ask celebrities inane questions, a disgusting amount of empty calories in the form of free Champagne and a very poor diet.

I worked at a premiere on Sunday and my food intake for the day went something like this:

8am-7pm:
Nothing (lie-in, followed by frantic outfit cobbling together and general lateness)

7pm-9.30pm:
One hastily purchased, soggy-bottomed cheese and tomato bagel from Snax at Embankment
One bag of popcorn and two bottles of water, kindly left on cinema seat by flunkie

9.30pm - midnight
Three mini wraps
One party-size duck pancake
Four tiny crab cakes
One small bowl of fish chowder
Two satay sticks
One novelty trifle in a shot glass
One novelty chocolate mousse in a shot glass
Another novelty trifle in a shot glass just to make sure the first one was as nice as I thought it was (it was)
One peach and strawberry tequila shot (in a strawberry salted glass, mmm)
About 700 Champagne top-ups

I'm not convinced that this diet is nutritionally balanced. I lived off it for a year before and didn't seem to die, but that's probably because I learned from my esteemed mentor Caroline that if you stand by the kitchen and flirt with the waiters, you get enough canapés to make up a dinner-sized portion.

Last night I dined on crab claws, miniature steak sandwiches, itsy-bitsy helpings of steak tatare, muscles and more Champagne, before going home to microwave some M&S veggies and wash them down with half a bottle of red.

How the hell am I supposed to detox and monitor my calorie intake when smiling youths in white shirts and black trousers keep forcing large china spoons containing unidentified garlicy, herby, fish flakes on small green leaves into my face? I've got no idea if I'm eating well or not. It's an absurd way to carry on. Then again, it doesn't involve any cooking or shopping and is free, so I suppose I'll just keep loitering by the kitchen looking for a convenient pot plant in which to offload my spent satay stick.

Ref: Seriously, Coldplay?

Dear Amazon,

I read with interest the list of CDs and books recommended for me by you in the 'My Store' area of my Amazon account.

Usually, I would have already decided which items I was going to spunk up to £20 on this month. But after having over 500 random tracks unexpectedly turn up on my iPod, I was short on inspiration and so turned to your list.

Look, I understand that because I attempted to tackle my own ignorance by buying Great Expectations, I was bombarded with suggestions of GCSE level classic novels. And that as I am partial to a bit of dance music, you believed I would be interested in every remastered remix of every Global Underground album ever created.

But Jesus wept Amazon, I thought that after a relationship dating back several years, you would know me better than this. Coldplay? Do you seriously, hand on heart, honestly and truly believe that I would listen to Coldplay? I was under the impression that we had something of an understanding. This is clearly not the case, and quite frankly, I'm insulted. I may have bought Up All Night by Razorlight but this most certainly does not mean I would want to listen to X&Y.

And that wasn't the worst of it! What made you think I would even toy with the idea of so much as lingering on a radio station playing Keane, let alone purchase their Under The Iron Sea offering? I don't care if it only costs £7.76? God knows there is a vast and bewildering array of pop acts beginning with the letter 'K', but even I know that Keane are my least favourite of all those bands.

Maybe you're not entirely to blame. Perhaps if I'd thumped the Not Interested button more vehemently, we'd never have drifted so far apart.

But right now, I feel like I just don't know you anymore.

Yours sorrowfully,
Empty basket of Raynes Park