Working tax credits

What a fucking con. I saw the full-page ad in the Evening Standard, saying that if you are over 25 and work over 30 hours a week you may be eligible for tax credits. Could it be true? Could the government be offering money for nothing? Cheques for free? And all you have to do is apply! So I filled in the forms on the website, and on the last page read ‘You are eligible for tax credit: £0.00.’ Well thanks for that. So I called the number and spoke to a bored-sounding guy, probably used to a hundred pikeys like me calling and begging for money every day.

‘You can only apply if you earn under £11,000 a year.’
‘What, if you work 30 hours a week and earn eleven grand?’
‘Yes.’

Well I think that if I earned £11,000 a year my first priority would be to find a job that paid me a living wage.

Paranoid

My beloved polka dot mug has vanished. I keep it at work, and try to always remember not to leave it on my desk at the end of the day, as it will go in the dishwasher and subsequently the communal kitchen cupboard, and I will never see it again. This is what happened yesterday. And, sho nuff, this morning when I looked in the cupboard, the mug was not there. So I ran around my floor staring at everyone’s mugs, but I couldn’t see it anywhere. The mug was a Christmas present from my friend Nicola, and is pink with big black polka dots on it. We picked it out together. I am bereft. And now I am thinking that in three weeks’ time, when my pain has subsided, I will come in to work one day and find a Polaroid on my desk. It will be a picture of the mug . . . in front of the Kremlin. A month later, the mug on the Great Wall of China (by a signpost or something, so I can tell it’s China). I will be sent these anonymous snaps of my mug having ‘fun’ all over the globe, and I will wait for it to come home to me.

Crafty

I have moths in my bedroom. There, I admitted it. Often, when I open my wardrobe, a little pale yellow moth will flutter up from some one-of-a-kind vintage gem it’s clearly been chomping on. This makes me very very cross, and rather than spend tons of cash buying smelly, ineffective cedar balls or green plastic hanging things, I am harnessing the power of nature and tackling the problem cheaply. My mum told me that moths hate lavender and cloves, so today I went to Neal’s Yard Remedies and bought a bag of each. All I will do is mix them together and hang in little muslin bags (or, in my case, little netting bags lined with toilet paper – one ply, thank you – as I don’t have any muslin and can’t think where to get some quickly). Then the moths will sling their (nasty, powdery) hook, and my boudoir will smell sweeter than a granny’s knicker drawer.

Also: Rough Trade Covent Garden employ some right wankers, let me tell you. Yes, I’m talking about Muso Boy who chastised me for leaving a year to come and collect money for my fanzines: ‘We might not have sold them. We could have thrown them away. Well, I’ll give you the money this time.’ Oh thank you so much.

Things decorating page-proofs I got back today from a proof-reader

Other than blue pen, red pen, and pencil marks (all acceptable and expected), certain pages were decorated with:

Giant tea ring from a dripping mug
A short, straight hair
Bright red spots. Blood? Hot sauce?
Yellowy-brown smears that are certainly either blood or chocolate

What the hell? Is it too much to ask that if we’re paying you to read something you can refrain from using it as a napkin/coaster?

It was snowing earlier. This worried me, as I was wondering what would happen to the daffodils, bluebells and blossom-covered trees on my street. The warm snap a few weeks ago, which saw me walking to work in a T-shirt and unlined jacket, fooled the plants into thinking it was time to bloom, and now they’ll be confused.

Book publishing clichés I am sick of

1) Novels with the words snow, water or cold in the title. Need more fiction with the words eggs, pointy, bacon and hair in the title.
2) Covers with nothing but a dumb photo of shoes/feet on them. What is this supposed to convey, anyway? Yearning? A shy, fragile innocence? The only effect it has on me is ‘Neeeext!’
3) Covers (chick lit is guilty) with the title in doodly writing, like how you supposedly embellished diary entries when you were thirteen.
4) Naked/scantily clad women on covers. This means you, Michael Houellebecq! Never read one of your books, never wanted to. The Barbie put me off.
5) Any cover with an image of snow/rocks/water/a frozen landscape on it. Stop this dull madness!

I may have posted this weird nugget of happiness before, but it never fails to tickle me to think of it. I like the thought of animals working in an office and signing important documents with an inky paw-print. That’s it; that’s what makes me happy. So if I am sad I need only look at this site to make me chuckle heartily. My faves are the Guinea Pigs’ Cricket Match and the Kittens’ Tea and Croquet Party. Scroll down for the very moving Kittens’ Wedding. Never fails to bring a tear* to my eye.



*of laughter!

Fine blogs I am checking regularly

Kyle’s writing on My Siren Voice

this Diary of a London Call Girlmakes me blush

Less is not morechez Pam Savage

Now I know where it goes

A distressing realisation was made over the weekend. In the past month I seem to have acquired over £200 worth of new clothing. How did this happen?! I never spend more than £50 on any one thing, and the £200+ did buy me 11 items (just call me Stingy McThrifterton), and now I know where all my money goes and why I am usually broke a week before payday. Jesus. Whenever I do that whole ‘write down everything you spend’ it’s something like: mortgage, £300; service charge, £146; travel, roughly £80; clothes, £100, max. Obviously not! So I have asked Steve to monitor my spending and stop me, using force is necessary, from buying more shoes/tops/summer dresses.

Clothing bought in February

Black suede TopShop boots
Navy and white striped TS bag
Brown flat 30s TS shoes
Pale yellow pointy t-bar TS shoes
Grey 80s 2nd hand boots
Red strapless cotton TS sundress
Grey Dorothy Perkins cowl neck sweatshirt
Red sparkly Pringle jumper
White and yellow lemon-print H&M top (‘Lemons are the new cherries.’ – Jodie)
Purple Zara handbag
Cherry blossom print Zara silk skirt

So the plan for March is this.

1) Allocate clothing/shoe/bag money, maximum of £50. There’s no point trying to go cold turkey and buy absolutely nothing, cos I would go mad/die and end up buying a £150 monstrosity which I would never wear.
2) Leave all cards at home, and only carry cash. If I am at work all day and going home after, there’s no way I’d possibly need more that £5 to cover even the most urgent of snack attacks/post-work drinking emergencies.
3) The most radical solution, suggested by a colleague: visit the cashpoint only once a week. Withdraw money needed for week (£100?) and if that runs out, you can’t get any more. I think this is the only thing that’ll work for me, so as of March, I will be trying it.

On Friday morning my houseguests Jodie and Tim left. It was great having them stay: they were the perfect guests, which for me means that they didn’t require round-the-clock babysitting, and they didn’t take offence if some nights I was too tired to go out. However, I went out more while they were here than in the entire previous month!

Saturday I went to see my friend D and her baby son. I’ve known D since we were born – our mothers got talking in the hospital – and I see her childhood self strongly in Maks’s face. He looks just like she and her younger brother looked when they were babies. Very cute, pale skin, dark hair, worried expression. Aaaaaaw! We got coffee and then went to TK Maxx. I never get to shop here, but managed not to go crazy nuts and only bought a red sparkly Pringle sweater, reduced from £105 to £16. D bought her husband some designer odds and ends and must’ve asked me ‘Is this really Ted Baker? Are you sure this is Nicole Farhi?’ twenty times.

Did anyone else read that piece in ES magazine? It made me gag; it made me see red. It was all about the Nouveaux Pauvres, rich people whose ancestors had country piles and titles until they blew it all on gin and pontoon. Or something. So now these NP, in their 30s and with children called Inigo and Araminta, are slumming it by living in London’s poorest boroughs. Oh, they can afford Chelsea, Notting Hill and Clapham, but you get more bedrooms for your buck in Peckham, Brixton and Clapton.

This article made steam come out of my ears for several reasons: firstly, there are millions of people in London who are working class/lower middle class, and therefore can only afford to live in the ‘poorer’ parts of town. (By my definition, poorer parts are where you can buy a one-bedroom flat for under £145,000. There aren’t many.) They live in these areas out of necessity, not as a lifestyle choice. Secondly, if you really want to prove how urban/tough/pioneering you are, by all means live on Murder Mile (as the article’s writer claims to), but for fuck’s sake don’t brag about it like it’s cool and you should be commended on your daring and cutting-edgeness. I find it so insulting to think of all these Notting Hillbillies sitting around at a dinner party, listening to Joss Stone, talking about how ‘brave’ India and Hugh are to live in a slum like Hackney.

Before I forget, I must write down two great events of the past 24 hours.

1: a chocolate machine on the southbound Northern Line platform at Tottenham Court Road is dishing out 2 bars of chocolate for the price of 1. Tell your friends! It happened to me, so Steve tried it and got two as well.

2: as usual, I got the 159 to work. Reader, today it was one of the legendary, rarely seen but often dreamed of (by me) gold 159s. I felt like a queen as tourists snapped our picture and the sea of traffic parted for us to sail through.

People I am recreationally hating today

An editor on my floor, who sneered at me (audibly!) as she walked past my desk and saw me looking in the mirror of my powder compact. Oh the vanity of youth! (relatively speaking – she’s about 74). In actual fact I had just jabbed myself in the eye and was checking for damage. I was so outraged by the eye-rolling, raised-brow sneer that I immediately emailed Steve to let him share the moment. He replied with the following:

Dude, don't mention that harridan's name to me. She was presumably bitter because no amount of make-up could conceal that fact that she looks like a pickled walnut. Or, actually, a Neanderthal woman. Take a good look at her - she looks like she should be on a Channel 4 documentary whacking rocks together.

I love that boy.

Other people I hate: all the trendy fin-haired, anorak-wearing, stilettoed identikit trendy monkeys who work in an Ad agency on the 1st floor of my building, yet take the lift. (This is all of them, by the way.) If you’re taking the lift for one floor, your legs had better be broken, or I’ll break them. The most galling thing is that these people know they drive everyone on the other 13 floors nuts, and they don’t care. Cos they have a right to use the elevator if they want to. Well, newsflash, Tarquin and Tamara: no you fucking well don’t.

I haven’t posted in ages, and I know how much I hate checking people’s blogs and finding there’s nothing new, so I’m just going to fire off some boring filler. Read on!

Wearing: knee socks under jeans. Mmmm, toasty.
Doing: sitting at desk trying to rotate neck so that my headache (now in its third day) will end. Have been seeking relief in co-codamol pills, but I’d rather the problem go away than I just cover it up with drugs. Wow, that sounded really profound. In truth I like to cover all my problems with a layer of booze, and then they do seem to just disappear . . .
Eating: all the time, thanks. White choc chip and ginger cookies I baked last night, and a cheese & prawn cocktail crisp sandwich.

So last night Jodie and Tim, my Denver houseguests, cooked dinner. Tim called me at work asking where the top part of my blender (i.e. the bit that means food doesn’t fly everywhere when you switch it on) was. Unaware that I even owned a blender, I confessed I had no idea, and that I thought the blender came with the flat and was therefore untrustworthy. The dinner was delicious despite the fact that my kitchen utensils amount to a saucepan, a baking tray, a frying pan, a corkscrew and penis cake moulds of varying sizes (looong story). After dinner J, T and my sister went drinking with Ani in Old Street, and me and Steve settled down on the couch for some snuggling and shouting at the rich people on Relocation Relocation. It’s impossible to feel sympathy for a couple selling their flat to buy a cottage in Cornwall and a farmhouse in Italy, even though they’re finding it hard to stay within their budget, and oh that amazing view of mountains and an olive grove is entirely spoilt by a fence-post that was built after 1940 and therefore looks too modern to fit with their fantasy of living in an unspoilt, lazy Italian idyll.

Last night was my company’s big Author Party. All our authors were invited, and editors. As I am only a lowly assistant editor, I didn’t get to hobnob, drink champagne and look at the Cecil Beaton photographs, which filled the venue. I didn’t feel I’d missed out at all, until Chris, who wasn’t even going to attend, emailed me this morning with tales of drunken fun. Bastards.

Evil weekend dream:

Me and my sister sitting chatting in a hospital waiting room. A frail old woman totters over and asks me if my blood type is o-negative. I somehow know what she’s going to ask, so have my answer prepared. I say “no, sorry”, even though it is. My reasoning in the dream is that I don’t like being stuck with needles, and that my blood is mine alone.

This just in: London councils are run by Satan!

Got home Saturday and had a letter from evil, evil Tower Hamlets council (who run tings in Whitechapel, where I used to live), saying that I owe them £950 council tax. The letter didn't say what period this tax was for, only that I owed it and unless I paid up within 21 days they’d sling my ass in jail (or words to that effect). They said they went me a letter in NOVEMBER 2000 (!!!) and as I didn't leave a forwarding address they only NOW tracked me down. Um, I am on the electoral register, have a bank account and credit cards, and there’s only one I. Jetwhiskers in town, so they obviously weren't looking too hard. Plus, I moved in September 2000, so that's why I never saw their letter. PLUS the bastards sent it so I got it on Saturday, and there was nothing I could do about it until today, but I did have the entire weekend to freak out. I called them this morning and they said the tax I owe is for the period December 1999-November 2001. So first I have to find this ancient tenancy agreement proving I moved in September 2000, and then they will reassess the tax. What REALLY sucks is that during that time I lived with a girl called Joyce, and I have long since lost contact with her, so I will have to pay the tax alone. This whole episode has made me so mad. They really treat you like a criminal. The letter they sent is in 18-point type, saying I have to pay the money within 14 days or go to court.

My niece Sabby has a split lip! Now before you go calling Social Services, let me explain. Her parents took her and her twin sister to church for the first time on Sunday, and Sabby fell off the pew. If she’s anything like me, she probably fell asleep five minutes into the mass and slid to the ground. It’s sad that her first experience of Catholicism is one of pain and tears, but at least she knows what she’s letting herself in for. She seemed happy enough as she danced to ‘The Wheels on the Bus’ and threw ham at her mum, but a split lip on a two-year-old is a very sad thing to see. Steve and I were there spending Quality Time: this involved playing tea parties and house and horsy with them. Steve was the sleeping horsy and OH how they laughed when he pretended to wake up and neighed at them! We decided we'd be good parents. Left at about 5.30 and went to Ryo, my favourite Japanese place, on Brewer Street in Soho. Was craving katsu curry, gyoza and miso soup. So I had all three.

In Poland, name days are a big deal, bigger than birthdays. I don’t actually know when my name day is only that once a year, seemingly at random, I get a card and present from my mum. I was trying to explain to Steve how everyone in Poland has a name day, usually corresponding to the saint’s day you were born on. So he said ‘What if your name’s LeShaun or something?’ I assured him that such a thing was highly unlikely. Unless there is now a St LeShaun. And why not?

Speaking of Roman Catholicism, Hot Priest stopped by my mum’s house last night while I was there. He was doing the rounds of Polish parishioners, and stayed for a cup of tea. I needed the loo, but as it says in the Bible (somewhere), you can’t wee with a priest (especially a cute, young one) in the house. I had to will him to leave and then made a mad dash for the bathroom. HP has only been in England for a few months, and I asked him where he was stationed (posted?) when he first arrived. He breathed a word that sounded French, and me and my mum strained to hear. After a few minutes it transpired they’d sent the poor man to Scunthorpe, so I guess he can now tick purgatory off his list of places to visit. I was surprised there are even any Poles in Scunthorpe, but he soon put me straight. There are, apparently, just under 100.

Walked past the Ivy today, as I do if I’ve been to Soho to get lunch. There were photographers outside (nothing new), and a film crew. Their camera seemed to be trained on a car, and I was crossing the street, so look out on the evening news for a small woman in a purple coat mouthing ‘fucking move!’ as a black Daimler nearly runs her over. Also seen: a grown man looking deliriously happy at having got Robson Green’s autograph.

Went to the post room just now, and one of the things in my department’s cubby-hole was a packet of teaspoons. These teaspoons (for our woefully under-cutleried kitchen) had instructions on the back, under the heading CUTLERY CARE. This amounted to one sentence: We recommend that cutlery is washed and dried after use to keep it looking its best.’ Oh yeah? Well I like to lick it clean and store it in my sweater drawer.

A fax came through yesterday, form a German publisher who’s bought the rights to publish one of our biggest authors. The fax contained the request for us to ‘send an authorised photo of the author (with hat)’.

This weekend was spent working. And that’s about it. Really. I left the house exactly twice: for drinks and tapas on Saturday night, and to Tesco on Sunday, as the only edible food I had was instant oatmeal which had to be made with water, as I’d run out of milk. Apart from that, I sat on the couch and proof-read. It was fucking boring as hell, and the money sort of makes up for it, but I really hate working ten days straight, which is pretty much what is happening. But as I am going to use the cash to fly to New York City and raise hell with my best friend I guess it was all worth it.

Friday was Steve’s last day at work, so at 5pm we headed off to the Phoenix Theatre bar. It’s really weird not having him at work. We met at work two years ago and started dating after a year. One of the reasons it took us so long to get it on was because we were worried about the ‘dating work colleagues’ issue. Well, he was: I couldn’t care less. And, as it turns out, working together and dating was great: romantic lunches, ‘emergency’ meetings in the stairwell, and seeing each other every day. I’ve got used to it, and I’ve been spoiled.

Just been cruising the job pages on the Guardian site, and I was tickled to find a vacancy for a summariser. What on earth could this entail, I wonder? Had an image of myself doing this job: standing around a big mess of broken glass on the floor and saying ‘Weeeeeell, to summarise, it’s broken. That’ll be £450, please.’ I think I’ll apply.

The one pleasurable thing I did manage to do on Sunday was bake the best cookies ever. They were so good I actually dribbled as I ate the first one. They’re white chocolate and ginger, and as ginger is a stimulant and good for the spleen, it’s almost like health food. Email me if you want the recipe.

More work stuff: must get my expenses form signed. While part of me lives in fear of my boss saying ‘You? Why do you need expenses? What’s your name, anyway?’, I know that I could claim back a pair of shoes and a lost weekend in Cancun without anyone batting an eyelid. And I might just put that to the test.

I am back from the edge. I was nearly vanquished by my lunch, but victory is mine. Went to Chequers, the ace sandwich bar off the Strand, to get a tuna nicoise roll. I got it on olive bread, and when I unwrapped it back at the office and realised it was bigger than my head, my shoulders sagged in defeat. But! I girded my loins (not that they play any role in lunch), and I pluckily dug in. And dug. And dug. It didn’t help that the generous bastards give you free soup with every sandwich, so I had a polystyrene cup of Stilton & broccoli to get through, too.

Today I want to shop. And here’s what I want to buy:

A wrap (ballet) cardigan
Cords in dark red, brown or navy
Metallic ballet flats and satin/metallic tap shoes
Fake flower garlands for my bathroom (does anyone know where I can get these? And not for £20 each)
A laptop (although I never will, as it costs a month’s salary)
A sewing machine (where to put it? I barely have room for a stereo)

Any one of these purchases would improve my life; if I had all of them I would want for nothing and would be happy for ever.

As Steve sagely remarks every so often, “You can’t have everything: where would you put it?” Silly boy. My reply is always “In the biggest house in the world, with a very large storage facility a short distance away.” I have thought this through.

The day has started badly. Am coffee deprived. Sitting at desk opening post, and already I’m angry. The one thing that really gets my goat is people spelling my name wrong. Now, it’s excusable if you’ve never seen it written down, as it’s quite a mouthful. But if I have been SENDING YOU LETTERS every couple of months for the PAST TWO YEARS, TYPED LETTERS, with my surname TYPED, then for fuck’s sake please make an effort not to call me Jacevitz or Jazewizz or Jackanory or Jetwhiskers. I know it’s nine letters, but the books you write contain much longer words and you seem to manage those without much trouble. Grrrrrrr.

The Emap zine awards took place this week: here’s the skinny from the Pamzine.

You can’t have read a paper over the past few months without seeing a mention of this book. Some reviewers have slagged it off for being low brow/militant, and despite a shaky start as the author gets a bit “Hey kidz! Punctuation’s COOL!” it is a right cracking read. A non-boring book about grammar; whatever next?

After yesterday’s awful lunch experience (bitter, glutinous lemon chicken that was neither lemony nor chickeny, cold noodles) nearly ruined Chinese food for me, I decided to have one more try today. From now on I shall eat only at Soho’s Yumi Food Bar, where £3.50 buys you noodles or rice and two toppings: the chicken curry and spicy ginger pork are particularly fine. The food comes in a vast plastic take-away trough, and eating even half of it is an achievement.

Two reasons why January is the cruellest month

1) All I want to do is lie down and sleep. Anywhere. All the time. Even at work (especially at work), on the bus, in the bath. At the moment the floor space under my desk is a jumble of old files, books, bubble wrap and paintings (just don’t ask), but I am thinking of converting it into a cocoon, with padded floor and sides. Have felt like this all month: shaggy dark hair in my eyes and bellowing when disturbed.

2) Despite Dr John Briffa’s hatred of anything that might possibly taste nice, on these short, cold days all I want to eat is stodge. Coffee, pasta, prawns, cinnamon bread and pierogi all get the thumbs-down from the good doctor: to me they combine to make the perfect meal. It’s a sad fact that the things I want to eat are making me tired and sluggish, while the things that would give me verve and pep aren’t appetising.

Another weekend, another two episodes of Joe Millionaire. On Saturday, three lovely ladies remained, vying for Evan’s dough. He had intimate ‘overnight dates’ (hook-ups) with each of the girls, flying them to some exotic locale on his private jet. Michelle, the curly-haired, slightly whiny one, asked Evan what turns him on. ‘Um, legs. I like legs,’ opined our shy hero. The next shot was of ’Chelle poking her scabby hoof, clad in sandals Pat Butcher would balk at, dangerously close to fake-millionaire Evan’s real family jewels. Despite her best efforts to sleep with him, Evan still got rid of Michelle when the time came to give out diamond necklaces.

Horrible Sarah, who did sleep with Evan (‘She knocked on my door. She wanted to look at the moon. [pause] Again.’), is still in the running. How he can find her dark brown monobrow (there is footage of Sarah filling it in a bit with a brow pencil, in case it’s not pronounced enough, I suppose) and blonde hair combo attractive is beyond me. And her conversation seems to be stuck on a loop of ‘How’re you holding up?’ and ‘I feel really comfortable with you. I trust you.’ It’s obvious* he’s going to pick gum-chewing teacher Zora, whose idea of dressing up is to wear a slightly more fitted western-style denim shirt than usual, and who feels bad that ‘the other girls can’t be here to enjoy [our date]’. Zora’s prudishness works to her advantage, too: whereas the other girls can’t wait to don a titty top and cavort in the jacuzzi with Evan, Zora is terrified of being seen in a bikini, despite being a bona-fide stunna. Thus Evan sees Zora as mysterious and ‘a challenge’. And this still works, apparently.



*Well it is to me, cos I’ve seen the last episode

one drink for the price of four

Am crabby today, and why should I suffer in silence when I can share it with you instead? Am surrounded by coughing, sickly people who feel the right thing to do when germ-ridden is to come to work and share the wealth. Stay the fuck at home! I don’t want to hear you hacking like a frigging Alsatian!

Ahem. In other interesting news, yesterday was mine and Steve’s anniversary. A drink was had at the American Bar at the Savoy, which I expected to be far nicer than it actually was. The bar was pretty, but the furnishings were similar to those you’d find on a P&O ferry, and the carpet was a migraineous swirl of navy and bright yellow. Also, turn down the lights! Everything and everyone (including me and my beloved) looks better in dim, sexy, conducive-to-drunken-flirtations lighting. As the drinks cost £11.50 each, we couldn’t afford more than one. Free bar snacks (olives, salted nuts and delicious, meltingly oily crisps) lessened the blow a bit. But really not that much.

It’s a sad fact that I complain about almost everything. Oh, the American Bar wasn’t as nice as the Green Mill, the hotel on NYE was mean and made us stay in their basement, and that rotten Toyota Corolla ad makes me never want to buy a car. Here’s where to complain about it . Unless you like seeing fat women being ridiculed and men being reduced to car-loving, shallow stereotypes.

Some great things

Joe Millionaire. Watched this on Sunday, and now there are only four lovely ladies sharing the French ‘shat-ew’ with hunky Evan. Funniest bit was when Evan asked the curly one what she’d do if she had loads of money. Her reply was ‘Um, I’d like, go to Africa? And work with the orphans. Like, bathe them and stuff. I guess that’s just the mercenary in me.’ The hired killer in you? Maybe she meant to say missionary. This tickled me no end, and when I talked to Steve later that night I said that maybe we could try the mercenary position one night, and go to bed with swords and grenades. Ok, well it made me laugh.

An elderly lady I saw this morning, who was wearing the coolest outfit I’ve seen in weeks: black 30s tap shoes, black patterned tights and a red knee-length coat. She looked like I want to look!

Was talking with a Polish colleague about Wigilia, our traditional meat-free (but fish-filled) Christmas meal. She said that this year she decided to attempt a dish utilising the national fish, carp. The recipe she used was called ‘carp in grey sauce’ (note to the Poles. Could we at least try to make our cuisine sound vaguely appetising? I’d pass on Sachertorte if it were listed on the menu as ‘brown cake’). Unsurprisingly, the carp in grey sauce was foul. Krystyna explained that carp eat all the rubbish at the bottom of the river, and sift mud, stones and used condoms to get to the nutrients. Apparently you’re supposed to soak/pickle/salt the fish to get rid of the taste of trash (mmm…trash…), but she failed to do this, so on Christmas Eve she and her family were eating a fish that tasted like dirt. I say stick to ears and pigeons next year.

My NYE in a four-star bunker in Knightsbridge

The 31st and the 1st were an eventful couple of days. On the last day of the year, Steve and I went to visit my sister and her children, the Mewlies. They’re two years old now, so not really mewling any more, but instead chattering, clambering, jumping, and standing over their Gran to see if she drops any of her meals-on-wheels lunch on the carpet. They are like pets, but with clothing: anything that an adult is eating must be better that what they get fed. (Having seen the meals-on-wheels menu, I think the reverse is true. But how to break this to a toddler?)

After doing the family thing, we went to check in to our swanky hotel, booked the day before on Lastminute.com. Our main reason for choosing it over the dozens of other places touting for business was that the description stated that the hotel had a solarium, gym, sauna and pool on site. Did it buggery! Once we arrived and were led to our room (in the basement, through several fire escape doors), we decided to call reception and see where all these treats were located, as there really didn’t seem to be room for them in a townhouse. Turns out they were a 10 minute walk away, and cost £15 to use. We complained and were given complementary day passes, but once we got to the gym, we discovered it was closed until January 2nd. I was about ready to cry, and I actually did shed a tear when the vodka martini I ordered back at the hotel arrived in a tumbler full of ice, no olive, and containing not a drop of vodka but Martini Rosso vileness instead. (The hotel bar was free – yes, free – and that is probably the only thing that prevented us from storming out in a righteous huff.) Oh, and the only place in our room that had mobile reception was far corner of the wardrobe.

The evening got better, though. Drinking champagne in the bath, going to Maroush for a cheap and tasty dinner, and walking around Knightsbridge looking at toffs’ houses. I’ll tell you one thing, the rich have really, really boring taste in interior design. So much cream! Chintz! Heavy curtains (to stop bitter proles like me peering in? Probably), dull antiques, nothing retro or punk, not even any Chinoiserie. This didn’t stop me from muttering “I hate you, I hate you” while my teeth chattered and I stared at a – blond, Tory – family toasting their wealth and incredibly fabulous life around a Christmas tree. Bastards. I was greatly heartened after seeing a rat darting purposefully towards a basement flat full of more nobbs. Vermin don’t care if you live in a pit or in a palace. Marxist Ilona, over and out.

Upon returning to our hotel, we drank more champers, set up the scrabble board (my drunk ass was whupped by a man who works in marketing, for shame!), and watched on TV the fireworks I could have seen – live! – from outside my front door…

Happy New Year!