Walked to work, as most of Kennington Road was closed off. There was a crash involving a cab and a police car at the junction by the Imperial War Museum, so the road was quiet and no traffic was allowed. Walked past Perdoni’s, the 60s café run by the most attractive family on earth. The two boys who work behind the counter are ridiculously good-looking*: one has the short, black, curly emo-hair, black-rimmed glasses, pale skin and white shirt with sleeves rolled up thing going on, and his brother looks like Adrien Brody. A bit of eye-candy on the way to work never hurt anyone…

I’ve discovered the perfect soundtrack to the grey, drizzly weather that is forever London. When the city looks like the set of Se7en, Television’s Marquee Moon fits perfectly. Don’t ask me why, it just does.

Fucking Thames Water

Got a water bill a few days ago. It was abnormally high – nearly £100 more than last year’s bill. When I called Thames Water they said that everyone’s bill had gone up this year, by between 20% and 40%. I am one of the lucky few (or lucky many) whose bill has leapt by over 40%. The reason?
Thames Water lady: ‘It’s to repair pipes damaged by floods’
Me: ‘But I live in central London: we don’t have floods’
TWL: ‘Hmm, but the Victorian pipes do need maintenance and servicing…’


*But not anywhere near as dishy as my boy, of course!

Just been reading the Pam Savage blog (http://www.livejournal.com/users/pamsavage/) and it cheered me no end. When the world around you seems to make no sense (Belle de Jour’s The Intimate Adventures of a London Call Girl appearing in a WH Smith Valentine’s Day promotion? Huh?), they are the voice at the back of the room saying ‘What the fuck?’ Or something. Whatever, I love the blog.

It’s been snowing in London for the best part of a week, but you wouldn’t know it. The stuff doesn’t settle in urban areas, and I find the grit all over the streets far more of a nuisance than the snow it claims to protect us from. Gritty shoes are no fun.

Was going to see a film tonight, but I am lame so instead am getting wine and tasty food and cooking dinner with my boy. It’s been an odd day and I feel quite fragile, and the couch is looking mighty inviting.

Paris is calling…
We’re going to Paris for the weekend. We decided to do this for several reasons.
a) We can’t afford it AT ALL
b) We should be flat-hunting
c) I wanted to eat really good cheese and pastries, and found nothing in London of a high enough standard
d) We love the Eurostar and one of the best parts of any European jaunt is riding it while drinking smuggled-on Buck’s Fizz, eating croissants and reading the paper
e) Paris in February’s gotta be (slightly) nicer than London in February

A bientot!

Books still not here! Suck!

Right now I'm at my desk eating the yummiest veggie food I've had in a loooong time... it's herby rice with spinach and chick peas, and spicy tomato-y potatoes. All mine for £2.99 from one of the fast food stalls in Jubilee Market.

The end of last week was a blur of dancing, booze and aching feet. Thursday night the Actionettes performed at Offline in Brixton, which was fun and I got to wear a sparkly new dress and drink cava for free. Balconette created, decorated and staffed her legendary Human Fruit Machine, and people were queuing up to play... particularly as they were guaranteed to win!

Friday we danced for maybe our biggest audience yet (definitely our most diverse - we don't normally get eight-year-olds at our shows), at the V&A masked ball. There was a rider, too, which was a novelty: chocolate, fruit, crisps and beer. Hurrah! Only two things annoyed me: the fact that there was no booze allowed in the main room (and there was a half-hour wait to get to the bar for those buying), and that the backstage manager (dunno if she was, but she spent all her time sitting backstage looking stern) was eyeballing me all night in a 'you're dodgy and you're going to try and hide an African mask up your dress' way, and was snotty when I tried to take Steve backstage. All the other ladies had been entertaining their fellas there, so this pissed me off... other than that, a great night. Made even better by eating potato pancakes at Daquise!

I just filled in a questionnaire to take part in a focus group about feminism. This is my idea of a good time: what’s not to like about focus groups? You sit in a room with a bunch of fairly like-minded people, eating sarnies, drinking wine, and chatting. Then, after two hours, you leave, collecting an envelope filled with money on your way out. My sister hooked me up with focus groups about five years ago, when we were both students and sharing a flat in Whitechapel. As participants in a focus group aren’t supposed to know each other, we’d show up five minutes apart and try not to crack each other up during proceedings. However, I blew things for both of us. The jig was up when, signing for my envelope of cash (my mind was probably elsewhere, dizzy with the thought of all the frivolities I would spend my easy money on – groceries, gas bill, travelcard), I put down my real name instead of the agreed pseudonym of I. Malkmus (shut up). We were both given as good a telling-off as two grown women can be given, and after that there were no more focus groups for either of us. We had been struck off the focus group register. UNTIL NOW!

An American publisher sent me a few books last Monday. I’d assume these would reach me via the usual channels, but now I am beginning to think they strapped them to a donkey, turned it towards California and gave it a slap on the ass. No books yet, and I want something to read!

Rules for selling your home

Paint everything beige. Walls, furniture, pictures, pets.
Get rid of anything you like which could be considered vaguely kitsch, quirky, or cool. If your mother would hate it, pack it away.
Clean everything. Then clean it again, just to be sure.
Make your home look like no one lives there.

I am hating this, and we’ve barely started. Think I am the only person in my block who over the past two years has managed to lose money on their property. OK, so my kitchen is possibly as old as I am, and the bathroom could do with freshening*, but if the maxim ‘location, location, location’ is true, then I should be living in a goldmine. I can see Big Ben from my front door, and hear it chiming when I’m lying in bed. I am within walking distance of two underground and two mainline stations (Kennington, Lambeth North, Vauxhall and Waterloo), and a ten-minute stroll from the Thames. Plus, I like my flat, and I think it looks cute, but estate agents seem to think otherwise.

I definitely need to develop a really thick skin when it comes to this property lark.

What’s schadenfreude in English?

I read the reviews for this book with some glee, as they were mostly stinkers. The blog was (is? Haven’t looked at it in a year) OK, but I never thought there was enough in there to make a decent book. And seeing as the company I work for turned down a blogger’s book I proposed two years ago, which was subsequently bought by HarperCollins (yes, I am still harping on about that; no I’ll never let it lie), I am keen to see what sort of reception the bandwagon-jumpers receive. Bitter, moi?

*ripping out and replacing

This morning I was late for work. This happens about twice a week, usually because I hear my alarm, pretend it’s my mobile phone ringing, and sleep through it. Same happened today, but in addition I got lost. How long have I lived in this city? A total of 28 years. But today I got on a bendy bus (or a ‘free bus’ as they’re known to everyone, including the goons at City Hall who bought them), thinking it would take me across Waterloo Bridge and drop me off outside my building. I gasped audibly as instead it veered across two lanes of traffic and ducked into the Strand Underpass, emerging a minute later by Holborn station. Crap. Well, at least it was a lovely sunny morning.

I’m reading Do Not Pass Go at the moment. It’s a history of London masquerading as a history of Monopoly, and it’s bloody fantastic. There are lots of bizarre facts in there, few more bizarre than the information that a London wine bar, El Vino, refused to serve women until legally forced to do so in 1982. (And until more recently, they couldn’t be wearing trousers.) I really can’t get my head around that. Would any establishment get away with refusing to serve black people, or Asians, for so long? They’d be shut down, and rightly so. I have always viewed all-male institutions with suspicion: what reason can men have for wanting to ‘get away’ from half the population? Doesn’t it just smack of misogyny? I think the men who want to have a private, all-male enclave to retreat to are the same guys who kick up a stink when a report shows that women now make up 3% of company directors, claiming this proves women are now ‘running the world’. Get a grip, lads. We all have to rub along together. When women have all-female places to meet, it’s usually for a good reason: after attending the Capitalwoman conference earlier this year, where a lone nutter disrupted a talk, I think there should be more.

Today is one of those rare, lovely London days when the sky is cornflower blue and the sun is shining. So at lunchtime I went for a long walk around the Inns of Court. Took a left off the Strand down Bell Court, and suddenly I was in an Elizabethan/Georgian (I really need to research different periods in architecture…) maze of streets, and squares with odd names like Old Square, New Buildings etc… I was dazzled. The area looks like someone has picked up Cambridge University and dropped it behind one of London’s busiest streets. There was even a chapel, empty but for a peevish keeper, who looked pained when I spoke to him. If you’re in central London and fancy a trip back in time, I highly recommend it.

Back at work after the long and computer-free Christmas break, and it’s so busy I’m about to pass out. Barely have time to email anyone, and haven’t even had a chance to glance at eBay!

A heart-warming tale

Yesterday I locked myself out of my flat. My keys were lying just inside the front door, on a cabinet. I realized this the moment the door slammed shut. My spare keys were in a drawer in my bedroom. I went to work, not wanting to be late on the first day back. When I got home it was dark and drizzly and I didn’t rate my chances of getting in without the help of a very expensive locksmith. I faffed about with a bit of string and a wire coathanger (it’s better if you don’t know the embarrassing details) before asking my neighbours for help. They came to my aid and spent half an hour balancing on chairs and fiddling with the coat hanger, and managed to hook the keys from the cabinet on to the hanger, and veeerrry slooowly drag them through the tiny open top window… I was so grateful I nearly cried. Going to buy them a nice thank-you gift. It’s not often strangers go out of their way to be helpful to you in this city, so I was really touched.

Things lost this week

Money: Spent Monday at home despairing and drinking. A plumber had come over to fix the cistern of my loo, and I'd anticipated the cost would be around £100. Steep, but worth it for a loo that flushes properly, I'm sure you'll agree. He estimated the job would take two hours. OK, so that's £150, expensive but I can afford it (just). When, after two hours, he announced that he had to go and drive to Shepherd's Bush to get a part, I cracked open the vodka. He was gone another two hours (traffic accident in Holland Park, don't you know), then took another hour to install the part. Total bill? £478.10. Happy Christmas! Thinking of having a party and making everyone drink loads of beer, then charging 50p to wee in the most expensive toilet in South London.

Pride: At the Actionettes Christmas club, I
a) approached a guy I thought I knew, only to have him back away with a look of fear in his eyes.
b) Played music for 45 minutes, and on my way out of the DJ booth accidentally jogged a turntable and made the record skip and then stop... It was the DJs first track and she glared at me with hatred. I hid backstage for ten minutes, and drank more.

From these experiences I can deduce two things: 1) It'd be easy for me to be an alcoholic and 2) I'd probably enjoy it a lot.

Feeling impish. Am entering corrections on-screen, and some of the sentences I have in mind would be better than what the author came up with… ‘Recent signs of affluence’ could, with a slip on the keys, become ‘recent signs of flatulence’ and a colleague suggested that a soldier ‘toasting the Queen with a tot of port’ might be more interesting if he were ‘toasting the Queen over the fire with a fork’.

Work is demoralizing and boring, even if in the fortnight before Christmas it is practically compulsory to drink every day while at my desk. Certain people are pissing me off and making me feel sad. BUT tonight the Kennington Chameleon is DJing, and on Saturday the Actionettes (weatherbeaten old hags, if you believe the Guardian Guide) are having a Christmas shindig.

Today I am very crabby, and it’s not helped by the fact that the phones are down, and the central heating is on the blink. I went for a late lunch today, at about 2.15, as I was suddenly hungry and all I wanted was soup. So I donned my coat, scarf and beret. The hat covers my ears, and I only realized my muttering was quite loud when I expressed annoyance at the chicken soup being sold out at EAT. ‘Flippin’ bollocks,’ I sighed – and the guy in front of me turned around and gave me a funny look. As EAT had nothing I wanted to EAT (£3.75 for a pie? Who do they think they are kidding?), I moseyed on over to Kastner & Ovens. I have a love-hate relationship with K&O. I love the food but I hate the bastard place. What sort of evil people take your order, spoon lots of hot cottage pie into a container, and then go ‘Oh wait, you’re having the small, aren’t you?’ and then, when you admit that yes you are having the small*, they TAKE LOADS OF THE COTTAGE PIE OUT and put it back in the serving dish. Bastards. And they never give you cutlery, napkins, or anything. As I walked out I mumbled ‘Fucking rip-off’, and they may have heard. Oopsie.

The boy is at home resting. He looks very forlorn and very cute with his paw all bound up in a cast. Aawww.



*Cos the large costs £1.45 more and it’s ten days til you get paid

Big news of the weekend is this: Steve’s broken his arm. He did this by running down the street, tripping, sailing gracefully through the air (so I am told) and landing on his elbow. Crunch. Ouch. But he then got the bus home, called NHS Direct, waited for them to call back, then went to bed when they didn’t. Sunday morning his arm still hurt, so he called them again. They deigned to ring back this time, and advised him to visit A&E just to get it checked out. Somehow the boy had managed to dress himself, eat, play golf on his Xbox/playstation/whatever, walk for 45 minutes to the hospital, ALL WITH A BROKEN ARM. If I get pregnant, he’s having the baby for me, as he appears to have a freakishly high tolerance for pain.

I think it’s the rubber ankles what did it. Steve has ankles that occasionally give while he’s walking, and I’ll see him fall over and straighten up really quickly out of the corner of my eye. So tonight I am at the hospital (St. George’s, my most hated hospital. Really, I hate it. I have a lot of memories of St. George’s, all of them bad). He had surgery this afternoon and gets out tomorrow, at which point we’ll have to come up with a plan for assisted living. Cross your fingers.

Today I am crabby. Co-worker is annoying me with much throat-clearing and harrumphing. Also I am sneezing and no one is saying ‘Bless you’, which for some reason is making me want to go home and sulk.

Other annoying things (today)
People who give their newborn sons old-man names. Alfred, Archibald, Wilfred. It’s probably done with the intention – conscious or not – of doing everything to prevent the kid growing up to be one of those hood-up, tracksuit bottoms, urban thugs who kick people to death and film the whole thing on their mobile phone.

I cry very easily. At songs, films, TV advertising jingles, newspaper stories about premature babies pulling through against all odds. But why in God’s name does any version of ‘Winter Wonderland’ make my eyes leak?

Speaking of leeks (sorry), I am scoffing a leek tart from my fave bakery in the world, Paul. Still crabby, though.

Star spotting: Bianca Jagger looking anxious/bored in the back of a parked Mercedes.

Weird: Last night I got off the bus and headed for Sparrows to pick up my regular fix of property porn, the Evening Standard Wednesday supplement. A woman was leaving and she stopped me with the words: ‘I recognize that face’. She looked familiar too. We exchanged a few words and established we were both from Wimbledon. Only as I was walking back to my flat did her name come to me, and I remembered that we’d gone to school together… until we were 11. Now, you’d think that a person would change a little in eighteen years, but obviously I look the same. Even wearing a hat, aged 29, in a winter coat, high heels, in the dark, I look the same. Admittedly I am now sporting the exact hairdo I had when I was 11, but whatever. Part of me is pleasantly amazed that she recognized me: it gives me an odd feeling of safety: here I am living in a city of 8 million people, and I bump into a woman I went to primary school with, in the cornershop. But it also really annoys me: like most people, I spent much of my teenage years trying to become the person I wanted to be, trying to shed my adolescent nerdiness. And nearly two decades later, an ex-schoolfriend glimpses me and knows straight away that I’m that 11-year-old she shared a tent with on a trip to the Isle of Wight.

Friday I slept through my alarm, as I tend to do every couple of weeks. My subconscious is a sneaky bugger, and likes to incorporate the alarm into my dreams, with an elaborate back story, so that by the time the screamingly loud pips go at 7.40, in my dream I am in a bath ignoring the phone, or riding the bus and someone just rang the bell. So anyway, I got up rather swiftly at 9.20, hopped about for a few minutes cursing, and after a quick shower and make-up, faced my wardrobe. Some days it’s hard to pick out what to wear: when you’ve had no coffee and have about thirty seconds to find an outfit, you don’t stand a chance. Perhaps this is why I rolled up to the Savoy for a meeting with an author at 10.30 wearing a denim skirt and green fishnets… Luckily I arrived before he did, and was seated throughout the conversation, so I don’t think he mistook me for a hooker at Halloween.

Some great shops I pass on the way to work

Noah’s Art. The Fishcoteque chippie. And Awe Wines, which I can’t quite work out: maybe it sounds really good slurred?

The Wild Weekend was wild. I am suffering from major holiday come-down now, and real life seems dull and bland. Probably cos – when compared to dancing at a casino for three nights, in sequined/fringed/netball costumes; staying up til four or five in the morning; having dance rehearsals on a 10th floor balcony and hearing people in the next block applaud – it is. It’s a strangely nostalgic feeling for me, and one I haven’t experienced in over a decade: I used to go to Poland every year between the ages of 13 and 16, on a summer camp for Polish kids from Poland, England and the US, and in the three weeks we were stationed in a boarding school in some no-man’s land, we created our own world. We had our own slang, in-jokes, crushes, nemeses. Gossip flew around the rooms, and a hierarchy of popular kids and nerds was established by the end of the third day. It was like high school condensed, but with midnight feasts, dawn raids, illicit drinking, and bi-lingual swearing.

If I am making it sound like loads of fun, please note this was before the fall of communism, and the food was awful.

But Benidorm was great. The town itself is ugly – like LA but with none of the cool 1930s architecture and good shops – just full of strip malls, tower blocks, and bars with names like ‘Bob and Joan’s English Pub’. There was not a hell of a lot to do during the day, which was fine by me as I wanted to sleep through most of it. The main thing in the town’s favour is that when you buy a mixed drink in Benidorm boy do you get a drink… about three/four shots in one glass, with a splash of mixer.

Am having my flat valued today. Before I bought it, the survey noted that the kitchen was dated (which is putting it politely) and that the décor could do with freshening. I can imagine how this evening’s meeting will go:

Estate agent: you bought it for how much?

Me: [mumble mumble]

Estate Agent: OK. Well, in ripping up the carpets – but not having the paint-splattered parquet flooring cleaned – and steaming the wood-chip wallpaper off – but not re-plastering the walls – you’ve done the unthinkable and knocked twenty grand off the value!

Someone just emailed round a book proposal about some dead person who did stuff ages ago and nobody’s heard of them. I guess it was unsupportive of me to skim it, sigh, and loudly say ‘bo-ring!’ to the entire office…

So I lied. There were 1 million petals, not three, and they were poppies, not roses. I got my info from the Evening Standard, so I blame them. Anyway, it wasn’t much of a spectacle, so I am sorry if you showed up and were utterly underwhelmed – I was too. The planes were pretty high up, and it was dark, and they dropped their cargo over Westminster/ the Hungerford footbridges, so everyone on Waterloo Bridge was looking downriver enviously before turning their collars up and heading home. The high point was lots of searchlights lighting up the sky, and every so often one of them would hit a red cloud of poppy petals and everyone would ooh and aah.

Boss just asked me to lunch. I can’t do today, so we’re going next week. This means I have a whole week of panicked thinking: am I getting a raise (doubtful: only been here two months), is he going to drastically change my job description (‘You know we hired you to work on books? We’d like you to clean the toilets now.’), or am I being politely fired?

Today I raised an ISBN. This gives me an incredible sense of power: see that little code on the back of a book? And on the copyright page? I chose that! I looked at my big list of ISBNs, and I wrote the title of the book next to one, and IT WAS DONE.

A woman from a literary agency just called me. This is the conversation as I remember it, 45 seconds later. ‘Hello, this is blah blah, blah blah’s assistant from Shiel Land. In October we sent Ian a manuscript by blah blah blah, called blah. We’re very keen to hear his thoughts. Can you look into it?’ Me: ‘Of course!’ Hang up. Don’t remember a freakin word except those I have transcribed above.

A woman I work with suspects I am planning to steal her dog. He’s a black, scruffy schnauzer, and the cutest thing in the world. He comes to the office with her and snuffles about the place, and every time I see his hind legs stretching from behind a filing cabinet, or hear him rolling about on the carpet trying to scratch his head, I am compelled to go over there and pat him and talk to him in a gruff doggy voice. And then she walks past, sees me muttering at her dog, and I have to make up some lame excuse.

I had a haircut four days ago, and already it’s grown! I trimmed my fringe this morning in the bathroom mirror, and then discovered the secret of good fringe: after washing hair, put on a knitted hat, or a hairband (hippie-style), to keep the fringe flat. Try to remember to remove it before leaving the house…

Last night after work, Steve, Agi and I made the trip to see the twins. Sabby has developed a bizarre accent, a cross between Brummie and West Country. She filled me in on the plot of Meg (‘a cat who thinks she can floooooay, but only buuuurds can floooooay’) and made me dance with her (to Hokey Cokey. She knows all the words). When Steve arrived, he sat down to read the Gruffalo to both girls: Sabby rechristened him ‘Stevealo’, before clambering onto his knees, standing on his crotch (eeeow!), hauling herself up his chest and onto his shoulders – and then farting on his head. Oh how we laughed. His expression was truly a joy to behold: a mixture of disbelief, amusement and sheer terror.

Tonight I’m heading down to the river to see the Armistice Day celebrations. Two planes (bombers? Dakotas, whatever they look like) are going to fly along the river at 6pm, starting around Tower Bridge, scattering three million rose petals, one for every serviceman and servicewoman who died during the two world wars. If you can’t make it but you’re online, try to find a London webcam and have a look.

The office is too damn cold. I am wearing a T-shirt and a thin jumper, and I am freezing. Sometimes I go to the loo just to stand under the dryer and feel warm for a bit. No wonder I’m in a permanent state of snifflyness.

Last week I went to Liberty and finally spent the gift coin Therese got me. I had to plan my outfit for Liberty, as it depresses me to shop in such a beautiful building looking like a scruff. So I donned a vintage 70s dress, black with a purple pattern, my new boots from the Fatted Calf, denim jacket, long grey crochet scarf, and a green tweedy bag with gold handles I got for a fiver in Eastbourne. Then Steve and I promenaded around the shop for a good hour. Should I blow all the money on one fabulously decadent but horribly impractical pair of dry-clean-only silk knickers? A Marc Jacobs jumper TopShop have knocked off for a fraction of the price? A new bottle of Dypthique perfume, as my current one’s running out? In the end I admitted that if I spent £25 on one item I could not live with myself. Yeah, I know. But I can’t face spending £16 on body lotion, or £8 on a tea towel, so I bought the following items:

Jasmine and Grapefruit soap: Oh. My. God. Smells amazing. Makes the bathroom smell amazing. Foams up like the richest, creamiest shower gel. After watching Fight Club, I am convinced it can only be made of human fat.

Christmas cards: it’s a fact that animals doing human things (gambling! Getting married! Throwing snowballs at each other while wearing knitted waistcoats and bobble hats!) is the funniest thing in the world, EVER. Steve expressed delighted surprise when I agreed that a framed painting of the classic of this genre, Dogs Playing Poker, would look good on the living room wall in our new flat.

Chocolate pocket-watch tree decoration: it was pretty and we scoffed it on the bus on the way home.

Candle shaped like a milk bottle: smelled like childhood, but we couldn’t quite decide how. Has a cow on it. Smells biscuity and creamy and mmmmm.

Slab of cinnamon and vanilla Mexican chocolate: has a weird crumbly, gritty texture, but once it starts to melt it’s addictive. Also very good grated into pancake or muffin batter.

Jar of £6 honey: I feel like a queen eating this. Six quid? On honey? Well you’ve got to live a little sometimes.

Dusted with powdered sugar

Me, that is. Just scoffed two dounts in the space of a few minutes. The second one had an oniony aftertaste… think it may have been near the bagels in Sainsbury’s too long.

Saturday night was the third Actionette gig in eight days. We danced at the People’s Republic of Disco, a hot and sweaty affair at the Windmill pub in Brixton. The venue is totally unsuitable for pretty much any kind of performance, as the space has a weird dog-leg shape, with the stage at one end, hidden from everyone but the first few rows of people. As there is no doorperson at the venue, cos it’s a free night, it just gets more and more packed. So on Saturday night, a sparkle of Actionettes (the collective noun) stood swigging cava and shouting at each other over the music, the stage packed with blissfully dancing people. Who were then all asked to get off so we could perform. Equally inauspicious was the fact that we took our places to the dying notes of Metallica’s ‘Enter Sandman’. Now, I have never seen the Actionettes get a hostile reception, even when we shimmied on after a vitriolic political poet at the Dogstar, but the crowd on Saturday seemed faintly bemused as to why we were there.

Friday afternoon, and what else is there to do but eat Twirls, surreptitiously read blogs, and count the minutes until 5.30?

Some great café sites are making me sad. Sad, cos the glorious cafes they depict are slowly being wiped out at the rate of several a year. Even the stalwart New Piccadilly will next year be no more… the Classic Café’s lost cafespage made me mad I never knew about these gems before!

is another great one. Mostly has Glasgow cafes, and really makes me want to take a trip north of the border.

Walked to work today, as I do most days. Again very windy: my long scarf, hair, and the wires of my discman conspired to form a thick cable and attempt to strangle me. Got to work sweating like a Scouser in Dixons, and, as I do every day, said ‘Good morning’ to the security guards on the front desk. As usual, they responded with silence and ‘Who the fuck are you?’ faces.

Had a fab dream last night. Me, Steve, and a nameless friend of Steve’s formed a band. I think we were called Nails (look, it was a dream ok? I don’t make decisions for my subconscious), and we sounded a bit like the Cowboy Junkies, and me and Steve were both singers. Anyways, we had a gig, and before the gig loads of people were already in the venue (I think there was a buzz about us), so I had to go ask them all for £5 entry money. There was one cheeky guy who refused to pay until after the show, in case he didn’t like us. Uncharacteristically, I let him get away with this. So. We took to the stage, and we only had three songs, two of which were covers. I think it went well. After the gig I caught Steve lining up the red lace bras of all his groupies in order of preference. Like I say, it was a great dream.

I don’t know if the dream was related at all to the event we danced at last night. The Actionettes had a slot at the Stonewall Housing benefit at Heaven. But at the benefit we also only got to do three songs… Rubbernecking, Magic touch, and Love Power. It was lovely to dance on a huge stage, but it did make me feel very exposed, as did the fact that the audience were all seated at tables and not drunkenly falling over as they are at most of our shows.