Detox til ya don't stop

I'm on a detox. It's a ball-ache. The motivation for ruining my own enjoyment of life for a fortnight is straightforward - the quality of the flesh on my body is below par. My thighs in particular are distressing; the limp, lumpy fat under the pallid, thread-veined skin contorts into some almost admirably sickening shapes if I do anything but stand up straight in a room with no breeze.

If I hadn't found myself unexpectedly single, it wouldn't have occurred to me to banish meat, fish, dairy, salt, sugar, wheat, booze, tea and coffee from my diet, I just thought trying to get around these rules would give me something to do. Also, I hoped, I would emerge from the other end of the experience with a glossy coat, wet nose and thighs like nutcrackers so I could stop feeling judged by airbrushed women on posters. Them and their amazing postery lives, pfft.

My problem isn't that I'm fat, it's that I'm English. Or British, I suppose; the Scots, Irish and Welsh aren't famed for their toned and dusky skin. Fake tan on me looks like Tango vitiligo and smells like wet dogs, besides which, I'm too lazy to smear the stuff on, it's far easier to dye my hair red every other month. Redheads are supposed to be pale. I like to think that if I were tanned, my four arse cheeks would look beguilingly peachy, but - actually, no buts. I'm still totally happy to believe that.

I don't really want to do the detox anymore, what I WANT is a fucking great big scone with cream and jam. That's what's erotic to me at the moment. God, strawberry jam. Interestingly however - well, interesting to me - I have learned that my desperate and unrealistic desire to prance around in hotpants before it's too late is stronger, even, that my lust for a decent feed. Amazing.

If I blog in the forest and nobody reads, will anyone hear me scream?

Why on earth don't I write on this blog anymore. Twitter. Seriously? 140 characters? Do fuck off.

As for Facebook, christ. The stress! Is my status update funny? Am I updating too much? The mortifying bingo wing pictures, the awkward status comment chats between my dad and that guy I know who went to prison for dealing cocaine. The endless fucking spastic fucking farm games. The rocketing number of ex-boyfriends in my friends list. 'You might know This Arsehole' - why yes, I do know That Arsehole! So, you're not dead yet then. Never mind! I NEED to know about all the lame club nights you're making flyers for, I NEED to. Let's. Be. Friends. SHOW ME YOUR FLYERS.

Really, once I'd accepted my entire family, my work colleagues, the dealer from university, a couple of under 16s I used to babysit, everyone I've ever had sex with, a pervy freelancer, a handful of Tory voters, some people I despise and an illiterate death-dog breeding chav who I apparently went to a school with, I found I was a a bit limited with the thoughts and feelings I could express.

So I think I'll just come back over here for a bit and talk to myself. And possibly Ingrid, if I'm still in her RSS feed thingumy. I'm 33, I've just been dumped for the umpteenth time and I don't really have anything else to do. Besides, I want to cut my hair off, dye it blonde and write an utterly outrageous and deliberately provocative chick-lit 'novel'. And I can't get my brain WD40'd up writing about Gwyneth Paltrow's bony bloody legs or Madonna's fucking hat. The best thing about having a very public blog out there in cyberspace full of ooh, slightly controversial swearing, is that no fucker will read it. Amen to that.

The Freaks Next Door

I had thought we – or, more specifically, I - had a rather charming relationship with our next-door neighbours. Almost two years passed before I even said a word to the man, woman and surly teenage boy on the other side of the thin walls, which is fairly desirable, I think. All I knew, as my bedroom in our terraced house is attached to theirs, is that the boy gets up pathetically early for a so-called adolescent on the weekend to listen to some kind of all-over-the-place drum-machine tracks, or at least that’s what comes through the wallpaper. When I was his age, I wouldn’t think of subjecting the neighbours to Meaty, Beaty, Big & Bouncy until at least 3pm. I fire back by cranking ‘From Our Own Correspondent’ up to 11 and go back to sleep. He’s pounding out some such drivel now, I don’t know how his nerves can stand it. I’m on the verge of setting the big speakers up in the garden and retaliating with a booming broadcast of The Afternoon Play.

I was also aware that they posses a vast number of extra large t-shirts, which require frequent, tireless laundering and line-drying. None of the family appears to be extra large so I’m drawn to the conclusion that they sit around in there all day making tents with their knees, or possibly take in washing from a lackadaisically-styled football team.

A few months ago, she helpfully came around to tell me that my son had noticed I’d left my headlights on and proceed to compliment me on our porch. I then ran into her a few times in the street and issued cheerful salutations, patting myself robustly on the back for our almost Good Life-like relationship. “She’ll be over turning her nose up at my piglets and complaining about the Surbiton Light Operatic Society in weeks,” I thought.

In hindsight, I should really have paid more attention to the fact that when she came over - at 7pm - and on every subsequent sighting, she was sporting giant cartoon nightdress (the type usually spotted on self-consciously chunky teenage girls at sleepovers) over tracksuit bottoms, with trodden-down, bag lady shoes and mad hair. It his since been pointed out to me that these clothes are peppered with tiny holes, which could be the work of particularly industrious moths or a savage washing machine but are most likely hot rock burns, given the pungent herbal aromas drifting out the door, which I had also missed.

A few weeks into the relationship, slightly before I planned to head over to ask if she’d swap me a jar of my damson jam for a bottle of Black Tower and a smear of lipstick for mine and Tom’s wedding anniversary, I saw the family wandering out of the house as I walked past on my way out. She responded to my cheery wave with a big grin. Meanwhile her husband, or whatever he is, fixed me with a look of intense loathing and hissed: “Don’t you dare talk to me. I’m not your friend. I don’t even like you very much.”

Which took me back a bit, I have to say. Particularly as she was still grinning and waving. I’ve since crossed the road to avoid them - her walking several paces behind, staring the pavement - on several occasions. I scuttle past the house in terror at night as he stands glowering in the doorway, silhouetted by a satanic red light, exhaling fumes from a smoldering fag and hating me. The other morning he was screaming at her about how, after all the years they’ve lived there, she still doesn’t trust him enough to tell him where anything is. Perhaps that’s why he’s so angry. Maybe all he wants is a pair of socks and some toothpaste.

I’d quite like to know what I did to offend him, but can’t come up with a thing. Maybe it was the night I came home pissed at midnight and drunkenly downloaded quite a lot of rather lively acid techno from 1998. Maybe he’s just jealous of my trainers. Who can say. Either way, it just goes to show – make eye contact with people in London and you’re on a hiding to nothing. The days of bonding over the fence - you in a pair of oversized but impossibly cute dungarees and she in pearls and swirling crepe - are over. Everyone’s awful.

You've had your oats, filthy they were

A reasonable amount of capers have occurred since I was last able to access this blog – there’s been skiing, disco dancing, missing kids (not mine), Russian pop stars, a fair bit of jet-setting and more shelebrities than you could waggle a sparkly stick at. Where to begin?

I’ll tell you where. Did you know there are 92 calories in a milk chocolate HobNob? Ninety-fucking-two! That’s the same as a fried egg, and adds up 552 calories I’ve put away today in biscuits alone. All I’ve got to show for it is a slightly chocolatey keyboard and a mild headache. I hardly even noticed I was eating them, I just sat there, posting them in like some kind of biped cow grazing on buttery, sugary, biscuity filth. There’s a part of me that wishes I’d gone crazy and stacked up the five fried eggs instead.

Just where do McVitie’s get off cramming 92 calories into a HobNob, that’s what I’d like to know. Source of fibre, they said. Free from artificial colours or preservatives, they said. Ooh, they’re all oaty and only a naughty little smear of lovely chocolate as a treat for being so good and putting away what is basically a bowl of cereal in compact form. Such deception.

And what, exactly, am I supposed to do with the remaining eight? I can’t share them out with my colleagues, I’d feel like some kind of fat dealer, luring them in and getting them smacked off their faces on dodgy oats. I’m going to have to eat them, aren’t I. Sickening.

Ooh...

I'm back! How thrilling. 

I'm told nobody uses Blogger anymore and I can't really remember how to do this - I feel like a granny trying to have sex for the first time in 30 years, or similar. 

Hmm, haven't posted for a few years so surely should have something to say... erm... nope. Just the same old shit. I'll get working on it.

Blog: out of order

Out of order
Originally uploaded by LizzieCatt.

Oh, and Flickr is making me sign up to Yahoo, which I also can't use at work. So, thanks, Blogger and Flickr, for being so totally and uttering rubbish and spoiling my fun. Bah.

Apologies for the break in service!

Blogger made me switch to a Google account which I can’t get onto at work, and quite frankly it’s all a bit of a disaster. I’ve even had things to say that weren’t about food or failed attempts to get fit. Forgotten what they were now though. So anyway, I just had some pitta bread and didn’t go out for a run. Might have some Boasters in a minute. Mmm.

I don’t actually have time to post now, hopefully I’ll figure out a way to do it soon but as anything Googley seems to be blocked and I can’t get in through Flickr any more, I’m not really sure how.

Any suggestions?

‘king internet. Pfft.

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

My pod

I've owned an iPod for about a year and three months and it has worked for a total of one of those months. It's not really the iPod's fault - first of all I had to find a computer fast enough to cope with the software (i.e. not my one, which was hewn out of twigs, string and scarecrow spit in the middle ages, is powered by a panicking sparrow in box and will no longer talk to the internet because we've upgraded to broadband).

Unfortunately, the computer I eventually cosied in on was dropped and broken, leaving me with just 103 of my favouritist ever tracks - all of which I now loathe. I moved house and lost my charger, the battery ran out. I got a new charger for my birthday. It doesn't work. The iPod has been living behind my bookcase in a child's sock since the summer.

Over Christmas, my technically capable little brother took the luckless pod into his care, hand-fed it electricity and backed its files up onto his computer. In the process of resurrecting it he somehow managed to merge our music, meaning he's now got my 103 tracks on his shiny new Nano or whatever it is, and I suddenly have 536 of his. Which seems a little unfair, as quite a lot of mine sound like this: mmm-tch, mmm-tch, mmm-tch, mmm-tch, douf, douf, douf, douf. They're all dance music classics, but I imagine they'd be pretty difficult to appreciate without nearly a decade of 'aving it experience. Mind you, he has been listening to them with a bemused grin on his face, perhaps we'll have him big-fish-little-fish-cardboard-boxing it on a podium yet.

I'm quite enjoying riffling though his record collection, so to speak. After years and YEARS of wandering into his bedroom to find my long-lost favourite albums (including the precious signed ones) cowering under a dirty sock/leaky biro/ashtray/beer can, it feels karmically correct that I should suddenly acquire a great number of his tunes. I listened to the whole Lilly Allen album on the way to work, I see what everyone has been going on about now. She is quite good, isn't she, the gobby little brat. I don't know who or what most of the others artists and albums are, so I'm just going to stick it on shuffle and see what happens. Hopefully I'll get though them all before the battery conks out again.

It was an unusually musical Christmas in the Catt household. My mum recently decided that she wants to get down with the kids by updating her music "collection" (which stood at at two pan pipe tapes). It was her 60th birthday yesterday, she has a new DVD/CD player so asked for lots of music and none of that "old people stuff - I want the Scissor Sisters". I got her their first album, as well as Alright Still, Robbie's greatest hits (for those not-so-edgy days) and Amy Winehouse. I know that most of these druggie, boozy, hedonistic artists write some rather racy songs but after a great deal of consideration, I've realised that you can't protect them forever. She's old enough to listen and judge for herself. I just hope I'm not there the first time she listens to Tits On The Radio.

All the chair's a stage

Quote of the day from my friend Amy, who has taken voluntary redundancy and had her leaving do last night. She clambered onto a chair then couldn't think of anything to say, so made us all sing Kumbaya (and came in at twenty past THREE this afternoon):

Amy: "Were you there last night?"
Me: "Yes darling, I was holding onto you when you were giving your 'speech' so you didn't fall off the chair."
Amy: "Ah! It was a chair! I did remember wondering why the stage was so small."

Nights down at the Walrus aren't going to be quite the same without her.

Merry Christmas

On the first day of Christmas
Binge drinking brought to me
Shame at the office party

On the second day of Christmas
A hangover brought me
Two nurofen
And shame at the office party

On the third day of Christmas
Laziness brought me
No gifts bought
Two nurofen
And shame at the office party

On the forth day of Christmas
My flatmate brought to me
Four mince pies
No gifts bought
Two nurofen
And shame at the office party

On the fifth day of Christmas
The last train brought to me
Five lunging drunks
Four mince pies
No gifts bought
Two nurofen
And shame at the office party

On the sixth day of Christmas
The nightbus gave to me
Six chavs-a-spewing
Five lunging drunks
Four mince pies
No gifts bought
Two nurofen
And shame at the office party

On the seventh day of Christmas
My doctor gave to me
Seven lovely valium
Six chavs-a-spewing
Five lunging drunks
Four mince pies
No gifts bought
Two nurofen
And shame at the office party

On the eighth day of Christmas
Ocado brought to me
Eight tins of roses
Seven lovely valium
Six chavs-a-spewing
Five lunging drunks
Four mince pies
No gifts bought
Two nurofen
And shame at the office party

On the ninth day of Christmas
The high street gave to me
Nine crackheads busking
Eight tins of roses
Seven lovely valium
Six chavs-a-spewing
Five lunging drunks
Four mince pies
No gifts bought
Two nurofen
And shame at the office party

On the tenth day of Christmas
Pavement rage gave me
Ten rants-a-swearing
Nine crackheads busking
Eight tins of roses
Seven lovely valium
Six chavs-a-spewing
Five lunging drunks
Four mince pies
No gifts bought
Two nurofen
And shame at the office party

On the eleventh day of Christmas
Panic bought for me
Eleven rush-bought vouchers
Ten rants-a-swearing
Nine crackheads busking
Eight tins of roses
Seven lovely valium
Six chavs-a-spewing
Five lunging drunks
Four mince pies
No gifts bought
Two nurofen
And shame at the office party

On the twelfth day of Christmas
My mother brought to me
Twelve turkey helpings
Eleven rush-bought vouchers
Ten rants-a-swearing
Nine crackheads busking
Eight tins of roses
Seven lovely valium
Six chavs-a-spewing
Five lunging drunks
Four mince pies
No gifts bought
Two nurofen
And shame at the office party

Barcelona

Aside from Clinique-swiping airport Nazis and an attempt on the world record for prolonged sexual moaning in the room next to ours, my trip to Barcelona with my mum was great. We went to celebrate our 90th birthday - her 60th and my 30th. I'm still quite startled that we actually made it - in my family, we have a tendency to come up with these brilliant ideas, fail to do anything about it and then feel guilty for years.

The start of the trip on Thursday night was an absolute disaster - freak storms, overturned lorries and gridlock around Heathrow meant a 20 minute car journey took nearly an hour and a half. My dad can't help himself from micro-managing everything and had checked us in online without asking, thank god, but we had every intention of waving him off then chucking our little cases in the hold. Bugger carrying heavy bags around an airport, shuffling up apologetically though the plane and wrestling the bloody things in and out of overhead lockers, that's what baggage handlers are for. Clue's in the name.

But by the time we got there, the check-in queue was too long, and the moronic, dipshit, retard, petty, nylon-wearing bureaucratic BASTARDS at Heathrow are STILL girling around like tits in a trance with the fucking security. When it comes to hand luggage, you can now take enough (utterly pointless) 100ml bottles to fill the world's smallest polybag, handed out by a sweaty little fuckwad who will then throw away anything not in a 100ml container - even if there is hardly anything in it. As the traffic was so bad and the endless security line so desperately, horridly mismanaged - half of the checkpoints weren't even open, despite the fact that the queue snaked back all the way through T2 - we had no choice but go straight though and bin almost everything in our washbags. This includes all the lovely things my mum had bought as a treat for herself that afternoon - she wanted nice, new products because her hair is finally growing back nicely after chemo, her skin isn't irritable anymore and she was really looking forward to a proper break after three really bloody awful years. So I hope that the evil, unsympathetic little twat who had a go at her and made her cry as he took all her lovely new things off her and hurled them into the bin after such a hideous journey gets eaten alive by maggots, then set on fire and kicked to death by particularly vindictive Shetland ponies. Wanker.

Heathrow is only a few miles from my parents house and should be convenient. But I am officially never flying from there again - unless it is on a very big aeroplane that will take me away from the UK for at least six months. My brother tells me the liquid allowances are a nonsense anyway - and the best bit is, nobody even asked to look at our passports until we got to Spain. Makes me want to blow things up. Like BAA's HQ.

We finally cleared security an hour and ten minutes after we arrived at the airport, and five minutes after the flight was due to leave. Luckily, it was delayed and we got on it, although at that point I would rather have stuck pins in my eyes and watched re-runs of Doctors for a week than carry on trying to have a holiday.

Thankfully, they do things rather differently in Barcelona. The weather was gorgeous, the city spotless, there was no traffic, cabs were everywhere, the hotel was lovely and all the food we had was absolutely delicious. My only complaints were that people walk soooooooooo slowly, in formation. It's not even walking, it's promenading. Everywhere. And in the shops - gah. I didn't know it was possible to drag a sale out for that long. Then break off for a little chat. Then carry on like a great big snail sales assistant of slowness.

But apart from that - wonderful. The Picasso museum is extensive - oh my god, is it extensive. It was like being trapped inside a particularly in-depth BBC Four programme where you daren't go to the toilet in case you miss something, but secretly are just praying it will end soon because you can't upload any more information and want to watch EastEnders. Brilliant though. We kind of hated all the Gaudi stuff and had to leave the Parc Guell because we couldn't stop laughing, but it was beautifully sunny and at least we got a picture of that sodding lizard.

I spunked stacks of cash I don't have in the shops in a bid to look like a trendy Spanish person, then did it again in the swish new-ish bit down by the harbour on Sunday. Our hotel, the Gran Via, used to be a posh house and had a terribly glamorous breakfast room and salon. The only problem was the uber-thin walls in the bedrooms - I really could have done without the overly-vigorous man next door attempting to pile-drive his wailing girlfriend, their bed and the metal bedhead through the wall and into our room between 3am and 5am on the first night. I think mum missed most of it, thank god, it's not really the sort of thing you want to listen to with your mother.

It was a bit of a crushing disappointment to arrive back in London last night, which is odd for me because I'm usually thrilled to be home - even if it's dark, rainy and cold and I've had a lovely time. I sort of hate London at the moment. I clearly couldn't put up with the slow walkers in Barcelona, and nearly kissed the girl in WHSmiths when she speedily flogged me the Sunday tabloids. But oh my god, it was good to get away. Hope it's for a hell of a lot longer next time.

Brit's bits

I'm getting fed up with this barrage of exposed celebrity undercarriages. Lindsay Lohan's squished packet of wafer thin ham made my eyes bleed. And Britney? Good god. Is it possible for a girl's groin to look depressed?



If they insist on waving their startled bits around, could they not do it in Playboy? Surely it would be preferable to have sympathetic lighting, professional art direction and maybe even a little make-up, rather than just free-styling it out of the limo in the harsh, unforgiving glare of flashing cameras? Crumpled-in-the-car is so not a good look.

Tsk.

White-out

I finally painted my bedroom at the weekend. It took three days of shoving a double-dunked paintbrush down the back of the pipes, but I eventually got rid of all the horrendous terracotta. Actually, there's still loads of it behind the massive wardrobe, but until three well-built young men wander into my room offering to move my furniture around, it's going to have to stay like that.

The fucking awful faux-glass and wrought iron lamp-thing full of dust and dead moths has also been ripped down and thrown out. You would have thought that changing a lampshade would be easy. It wasn't. We had to go at it with a hacksaw blade then take off the ceiling rose whatsit and rewire the entire thing. I say we, what I mean is, my flatmate Caroline did it and I helped by standing on a chair saying "ooh, that looks complicated". It was all terribly empowering and just goes to show that you don't need men as long as you live with a girl who has two tool kits and drives a van. I'm the one who isn't scared of spiders though.

I now have a rather minimal look in the newly-white bedroom after having a bit of a moment with the curtains and the curtain rail and throwing them down the stairs. Which would be fine - they're uneven, grubby, the crap plastic runner was dangling off the wall and I couldn't be arsed to wash them. But now I don't have any curtains or any means of hanging any up. I'm not being woken up by the sunlight though, the paint fumes are pretty soporific.

The whole process was made considerably more pleasant by - and I can't believe I'm admitting this - an almost compulsive looping of Girl's Aloud's greatest hits album. Seriously. It's brilliant. I would have Something Kinda Ooooh played at my funeral. I had to play it again and again as it's quite short when you skip though all the slow ones (ballads - eurghhhhh). And I should point out that their version of I Think We're Alone now is the biggest pile of skull-splitting drivel I've ever heard. The only place I can imagine it being played is at the S.L.A.G.S / Chill-Out on a Sunday afternoon at the Royal Vauxhall Tavern, where the music of a seven-year-old girl's birthday party combines with 400 sweaty, bald, shirtless, sleep-deprived, bopping, spangled gay men feeling each other up and piling into the grotty toilets for more ketamine.

But apart from that, it is what I believe the lazier music reviewer would describe as a "cracking slice of pop music". I have listened to it so many times I'm almost word perfect. I'm about 700 trips to the gym, a stylist, an bout of body dismorphia, a Fantasy Tan, an assault charge and a go on Calum Best away from being the sixth member of the band.

The ungroomed bride

There is something very jarring about Katie Holmes' wedding pictures. She was quite clearly stooping. She may well have been standing in a hole. But it's not the continually changing height discrepancy between her and Lil' Tom that bothers me - it's the spacky fringe-thing.

Since she arrived in Italy , there has been some very peculiar stubby fluff jutting from Ms Holmes' browline. It reminds me of the fringe my five-year-old babysitting charge Katherine hacked for herself with a pair of kiddie scissors. It also makes her look a bit like a monkey.

Now there is somebody else in that family whose looks lean toward the chimpy (I'm allowed to say this, because although my junior crowning glory didn't quite compare to Suri's flowing locks, I resembled a baby monkey when I was born. My parents' friend nicknamed me "bog brush"). After all the speculation, it is obvious from looking at Suri that she is genetically predisposed to both moping around with Pacey AND playing beach volleyball with Goose. But as gorgeous and of unquestionable parentage as she undoubtedly is, the kid is more than a little fuzzy.

Maybe Katie is bravely trying to make her daughter feel more comfortable about her enviable barnet? Even so, it doesn't explain why she didn't bother doing the rest of her hair for the wedding. Aside from the spacky fringe-thing, it looks like she's gone straight from doing the dusting - a look that my mother disparagingly refers to as "scragged back". Good job Posh wedged her melons into a comedy frock to detract attention.

A brilliant smile

I was standing around in Leicester Square last night while the Bond premiere was taking place. Not for fun - the Queen was there and I was under instructions from my employers not to leave until she was safely tucking into her popcorn "just in case she explodes or something".

Anyway, the bitch was over half an hour late and I was at least 45 minutes into cold-induced kidney shutdown before she zoomed up the red carpet. As she leapt nibbly from her pope-mobile and I turned around to race off and meet Andrew, I nearly ran smack-bang into this fucker:



Jaws! Gah!

He had all his metalwork in and was accompanied by Oddjob. When I was little, I was absolutely chuffing terrified of Jaws. Only the other night I cited him as the reason I'm scared to travel in cable cars. And there he was, mingling with the plebs Leicester Square for no apparent reason. I was surprised at the time that he didn't have any security with him, although I suppose when you are capable of smilingly chomping your way through people's limbs, there's no need for a bouncer.

Still, as nightmarish as Jaws is, he never freaked me out quite like this evil, mangy rotter:



Boom boom. Don't try to tell me that Basil Brush didn't eat babies. Pure furry evil.

UGGLY

I can't f*cking believe Kate Moss is wearing Uggs again. What's wrong with her? Sweet Jesus. I really can't stomach another winter of wannabe Kate-a-likes dragging their feet around town in revolting, half-hanging-off, grubby cream fleece booties that appear to have been ordered from the Innovations catalogue.

I bet she's doing it on purpose.

Ooh, sexy - thigh-high versions! No doubt featuring in every fashion-conscious gentleman's steamiest winter fantasies. Thanks, Kate.

One of the dangers of eating gobstoppers as an adult...

... is that you may have to answer the office phone.

They bloody work though. I'm afraid to speak in case I chip some enamel.

They taste a bit mank actually.

Left-overs

Tell you what, I don't need nearly as much food as I thought I did. After a few days of boshing Finest sarnies and millionaire's salads on my poor dad's credit card, I guiltily eased off and having been living on charity, Kit Kats and crackers ever since.

Not only was I cooked for on Saturday, Sunday and Monday, but survived the following day at work on the leftovers. Does cracked black pepper count as a daily serving of fruit and veg?

I just wish John the Tramp would stop giving me bearded evils when I walk past offering nothing more than a good morning. I haven't got any actual change, let alone any spare change. I had to pick up the Quentin Blake Big Issue that I wanted off the floor of the train - and I nearly got shut in the doors as I scuttled off with my grubby scavenged treasure. I hope it hasn't got any pigeon dribble on.

Only a week until payday, hoo-fucking-ray. I am going to buy all the Nestle chocolate pumpkins in Co-op, crack them over my head and roll around cackling in a pile of orange-flavour mini-Smarties.