God Bless Starbucks. Not for their frapps, which are singlehandedly responsible for my ever thickening waste. Or for the wraps. Ditto. But for having possession of my keys. Which I left there last night. While sneaking a frapp and wrap. En route to what promised to be a turgid networking talk. And lived up to its promise. No booze! But the punters were fun. And there was a hostelry next door. So my loss didn't emerge until pub closing time. Which is long after coffee shop closing time... On the tube home, my anxieties were diverted by a young man who instructed me on the rudiments of systems mapping. My eldest, bless her, was up to let me in. Spare keys to hand, I called a cab to take me back to Liverpool Street. To reclaim the car. It was a sober ending to a sombre day. Earlier I'd counselled a friend whose boy, my shortest Godson, had broken down after 48 hours at uni and was being shipped home:-( Then the washing machine died in a frenzy of strange noises and burning smells. And I myself nearly died at the start of a strategy meeting with my mega-client. Having mounted an Eiffel Tower of steps with effortless ease, I broke out in the most horrendous sweat as soon as I sat down. I looked like Peter Sellers in that scene from the Pink Panther where his prosthetic nose starts to melt as he's playing the organ. The loss of keys after this ignominy, was small bananas... At least it's given me legitimate cause to return to Starbucks;-)

Last night a dinner party chez nous. Late afternoon I get a call. "X and I aren't coming. We've split up. I'm sorry. It would be too awful to come alone." This is unfortunate. Because I've cooked chicken and leek pie in their honour. This despite pleas from others that I change my repetoire. "You make a fantastic pie," one guest trilled when I finally dished up. "But why do you have to make so many?" A second invited couple turned out to be at war, too. Though still together. She arrived, graciously apoplectic, 90 minutes ahead of him. Thankfully, I'd put them at different ends of the table. My consort for the evening was a gay friend who announced: "I'm fed up of sex, aren't you? All that endless stoking!" I'd never thought of sex in those terms before. "I think," I said, "that it's about politics. In the bedroom the woman is necessarily the receptor, and deferring to the man feels natural and right. When two men get together, they're equal in equipment and status. The act has more serious connotations." Oi vey! Meanwhile, two media luvvies were indulging in starbursts of venom against their perceived rivals. I watched as the poor man seated between them suffered aural pulverisation by harpies. His wife said admiringly: "Your children are very good. Do they always just leave you to it?" My children aren't particularly good, but they're smart. They'd elected for a separate feast, with a friend, in the kitchen. There were moments, it must be said, when I was tempted to join them;-)

A glorious youth arrives at my door. To deliver my printing. "We've given you extra," he says proudly, "To make up for the delay." I'm charmed. 1000 letterhead. Fantastic! 1500 business cards. 1500? Hang about: I was being optimistic when I asked for three hundred... I'll use them as coasters, I think, pulling out the new writing paper eagerly. Holy moley... My heart stops. "Ummm, Colin, this paper's laid." His unmarked brow starts to furrow. "You asked for laid." I shake my head. "I changed my mind in your office, remember? I chose the weave." There is silence. He's brought riches to my door. And I'm throwing them in his face. Typical woman! We do a delicate dance around the finer points of laid and weave. Trivia too dull for even a pub quiz. "Will you be in trouble over this?" I ask. He nods: "Big trouble." I don't have the heart. "I'll take it then," I say. And write the cheque. "Do me a favour - can I have 200 weave at cost?" He shakes his head: "Better. I'll do them for free. I'll run them off when the printers go early tomorrow." Bless. As he drove away I suddenly remembered this week's story of the boy who lost his arm in the butcher's mincer. And wondered if the hapless youth actually knows how to operate an offset-litho machine. The paper looks rather good now the shock's worn off. I may call in the morning and tell him to forget it:-o

It's rude to look a gift horse in the mouth, but... On Monday I got a call asking if I'd edit a manuscript. Within five minutes, the densest tome ever written appeared in my inbox. I printed off the first twenty pages. I'm still not past page three. It's not editing that's needed. It's a rewrite. And the pruning of 30,000 words... A second tome arrives in the post tomorrow. Written by a woman who wants to have it featured on Richard and Judy. As Ian McEwan has trouble getting onto R&J, I am somewhat bemused. I've got lots of book projects. I could pay you a retainer and you could help with them all, she emailed. The gift horse was looking distinctly Trojan. Let me read it before I comment, I replied, surlily, if there is such a word. The only words I'd welcome are those on my new letterhead. Which should have been printed today. But for a continuing problem with pantones... Unfulfilled, I skived off for lunch with an old mate and we put the world to rights over organic salad and caramel crunch cheesecake. "Designer letterhead and only one contract? Isn't that putting the cart before the horse?" she asked. "It's funny you should mention horses," I replied;-)

Cafe society once meant the bright and beautiful who gathered on the Paris sidewalks to share an espresso. In my part of town, however, it's a reference to stressed out office workers dispossessed by their cookers. Scrambling for seats on uneven inner-city pavements, they throw off their Sunday flip flops and wolf French toast while choking on exhaust fumes. Today, I am fumed out. Breakfast coffees with a mate were followed by brunch with my eldest Godson. As ever, he went into overdrive. Eggs Benedict and then an overflowing bacon ciabatta. But only one latte. And one Coke. I inquired after his wife. "She's behaving herself," he said, tersely, "but she's just squeezed a plasma TV out of me." I considered his considerable girth. "Don't worry - I think you've still got a few in there." For tea I had polenta cake with someone who'd just had her first conjugals in three years. She couldn't walk a straight line: "I think I injured myself." I couldn't walk a straight line either, but that was more insult than injury. After a brilliant dinner in the burbs last night, I got stuck in traffic on the way home. An hour to move 800 yards along the North Circ. At 02.40am. Fume heaven! As I climbed into bed at half past four, I was snuffling like a truffle pig:-o

Up too early for a weekend. I should be hastening to a Wealth and Power seminar. But opted out ten minutes ago. It wasn't a blind decision. The fun started last night. Four hours on the tiniest chair in a West London Ibis. Yet another all-singing all-dancing extravaganza. But this time the speaker was charismatic. And hammy. My favourite bit was the Christmas music as he spun out a homily about his childhood in the snow and his "ferocious curiosity". We had to list our goals. I found I didn't believe in any of mine. Am I fearful of making money? Clearly. I certainly don't want it as my focus. Earlier I'd been debating the hoary old question of who pays the bill. I'd lunched in town. And we'd gone dutch. The posse were 3:1 - the inviter pays. "Whether business or pleasure, that's the etiquette," stated the loudest possette. "It's an investment in the future." I too am of this mind. It removes uncertainty. If the invitee says "Thanks" and buggers off, you've lost them. If they say "Thanks. I'll get the next one," you've got a strike. The quietest possette wavered. "Men, particularly, are frightened to pay," she said. "In case the woman thinks it's patronising." Bloody hell - it's only money! Giving is a prelude to, and part of, bonding. An offering of oneself. To pay everytime is iniquitious. To pay when you're setting the stage - irrespective of gender - is a statement of intent.

For the eleven years I was with my husband, I was sexually invisible. Two weeks after he'd left, I was walking along lost in thought when a car that had just passed me, reversed back. "Can you tell me the way to xxxxx" asked the man inside. I'd never heard of the place. "To be honest, it was just an excuse to talk to you," he said. "You're lovely. Can I give you a lift?" Gobsmacked, I dispatched him, but more of the same soon followed. Without being aware of it, I was signalling availability. Last night a dear friend hitting sixty, came for dinner. Her husband is longterm ill. In recent months it's started to chafe. And in that time, four men have made moves on her. "I don't understand it," she said. "Why now after twenty-five years of nothing?" As many former spouses can testify, one isn't always looking for change when the opportunity presents. But, almost certainly, they've been letting off a signal that attracts predators. "I'm so tempted to give in to one of them," my friend said. "But I feel so bad. What should I do?" In youth, the happy-ever-after ideal feels so easy. In middle-age the complexities within a relationship create webs of insecurity and deceit. "If I were you, I'd go with the flow," I said.

It's a bad night when you have to send back a mango lassi. My companions in crime - a celebrity, a rock star's bodyguard, and a local government person - struggled womanfully on with their thick and frothy beverages as a dry and tasteless sev puri became the second target of my opprobrium. "Even the food here's crap." We'd pitched up at the curry caff in Soho after a piece of theatre that reminded us of Creature Comforts, but with Asians instead of Nick Park creations. No plasticine. We were so busy debating its merits that we'd missed all the warning signs on entering the gaff. Like a shortage of punters, noise, and plates greater than six inches in diameter. We were there because one of our party knew the owner. "He needs support," she said. Halfway through the meal it was clear why. But our order was in the bag by then. Earlier, I'd enjoyed two coffee meetings followed by a buffet lunch with power networkers. Profiteroles and business cards. It's difficult to judge a person's proficiency if there's no cause to test the practical applications of their service. Is it enough that you can laugh together? I must ask my mate how many laughs she's had with her restaurant owning pal. That may provide some indication;-)

I have often wondered about people who have one 'type'. For example, if all Rod Stewart's girlfriends stood with their backs to him, could he honestly tell one from another? Today I lunched with a man who was the spit of my previous paramour. Slimmer, a bit younger, not as bullish, but... Last week at a science conference there was a discussion about superstition and how we associate characteristics with inanimate objects. People wouldn't, for example, touch serial-killer Fred West's cardigan because they felt it was somehow imbued with his evil. The same is true of animate objects. Especially when they trigger deja-vue. On that basis, it took a glass of wine for my fight-or-flight mechanism to reset over roast lamb and tatties. As it turned out, there were no spooky resonances in our conversation. But I felt it wise not to ask if he'd often broken bread with dark women sporting barrage balloons for buttocks:-o

I've been thinking about household chores. Which are sexy and which not. Cleaning the toilet is clearly a zero. As is washing the floor. And making the beds. Which is why I have a char. Even when penniless. Two years ago she took a quarter of my gross earnings. My childfree, flat-living friends, sneer at the indulgence. "She's essential," I reply, "And I'm helping feed families across Brazil." But the one job I do myself is the ironing. For the last 48 hours I've been a one-woman Chinese laundry. Ten washloads since the girls got home. Piles of pressing. "That is so unsexy" said a mate to whom I described my day. Not true. Ironing is strangely erotic. It's all that steam. And the satisfactory smoothing out of creases... I know a woman who irons in her garden in the nude. It's seasonal, obviously. But she gives a whole new meaning to turning up the heat;-)

Out with the cocktail crowd in Chiswick, a London burb full of mee-ja folk, I gingerly enter a pretentious private club newly spawned from a West End luvvies' haunt. The problem is, Chiswick luvvies are home with their families. So the place is filled with smart bridge and tunnel folk playing table football. I arrive after a workshop for board directors. "I've discovered I'm a theorist!" I announce to my bemused mates who, bizarrely, are lounging in slashed cocktail dresses and slinky kitten tops. "That means I only take action when I understand what it's for and why it's necessary." They're confused. I explain the other types: the pragmatists, activists and reflectors. "We have to know each other's MO, so everyone's learning needs are met by the board. It's about personal diversity." Even I can't pretend interest after this point... Taking collective comfort from drink, we indulge in a mixture of flirtinis, fruitinis and other bastardisations of the real thing: the perfect raspberry martini. Nothing touches the one at Smiths:-o As our brains slow, conversation becomes a foot-dragging meander around celebrity liposuction and increased sex drives during pregnancy. One of our party tells a story of a friend whose husband has announced he won't father her child but "doesn't mind her having one by someone else." There's silence. "He's clearly a mix between a reflector and a pragmatist," I say:-o

For some weeks now, I've been sporting a mullet. Partly it's down to perimenopausal rage. Everytime I can't find chocolate, I lynch an inch. But it's also because our local salon became a nail bar. So I cut my hair myself. All summer I looked like an extra from Spinal Tap. This morning at The Wet Fish Cafe the coffee was flowing. But amongst the regular posse, our cups were empty. Boobs like tired piping bags. "I used to worry they'd drop to my waist," I yowled. "Now they barely take rib room!" One of our group sadly shovelled down her poached eggs: "Thanks for the mammaries." A mullet and no boobs - a lifetime of ambiguous femininity loomed before me. "I've got to pretty up!" I cried. First stop was the snipper at Brent Cross. Second stop the Hello Boys department at M&S. From drudge to siren for a mere £100! The progeny called. "We're going to the Taj Mahal tomorrow, Mum." "Enjoy youselves," I said distractedly, admiring the bounce in my hair and blouse. I tripped off for tea in Hendon. "Notice anything different?" The hostess examined me minutely: "Did you get that tooth whitening paste?" No. "Period bloat? Plucked brows? New earrings?" I did a twirl. Her face lit up. "I've got it: new jeans!"

Emerging from a technicolor meal in Docklands - part of which is pictured here - I was confronted by the dizzy brightness of Canary Wharf. On the back of a disturbing magic mushroom experience - a Turkish meal that in some parts was toxic yellow and in others a pale brown concealed under a grey lumpen glop that looked like Dracula vomit - the skyscrapers of Mammon felt almost friendly. If beetroot turns your pee red, what does the spectrum of E numbers, masquerading innocently behind nursery colours, do to the more serious stuff that comes out? An interesting thought to sleep on on a Friday night;-)

In a Central London hotel room I am communing with positive people. From the stage, a fitness expert leads us through an aerobic warm-up. Star jumps are tough on dodgy knees... Then it's down to the real business. Self-help through group ecstasy - the Billy Graham approach to success. Speakers arrive to a fanfare, extolling the virtues of self fulfilment and wealth. For Thatcher's generation, the one is unimaginable without the other. We're given free books. On how to become millionaires. A woman tells us she can turn us into butterflies. "Leave behind the corpses of your caterpillars. That is your past." I turn to my companion: "She means the chrysalis. The butterfly is the caterpillar." My mate nods distractedly. Inevitably, my mind wanders. Why should elephants have four knees? How long is a piece of string? Would the eccentric who turned down the Fields Medal also have refused a Gracie Fields medal? Finally, it's break time. And there's a competition! To win a whole weekend of self-improvement:-o Heading into the foyer, I celebrate the respite with apple and cucumber juice. My companion is of the happy-clappy persuasion. "I'd say," I venture, tentatively, "that there are better ways of spending a Wednesday night." She scans the room and nods. I have to run to keep up as she exits the building.

A sunny Sunday in Suffolk. My friend's bitser, suitably primped, has been entered at the local dog show. She parades haphazardly with pedigree mutts who trot upright and stiff-legged like City gents. The judge checks her teeth. She bares them and growls. He feels her stomach. She barks. He goes to lift her. She runs away. My friend is not one to give up. Her pooch is entered in four further rounds. For the pairs section, the owner of a large dog of indeterminate origin is invited to partner them. The two mutts stand side-by-side like Arnold Schwarzenegger and Danny De Vito in Twins. "Did you not realise they had to be matching dogs?" I hiss, as a minging pair of Border Terriers grab the prize. She's nonplussed: "They didn't say." Finally, in the Family Dogs section, there's success. The judge, I suspect, has made a sympathy call. Over dinner we relive the highlights. This includes a timed hurdles over a line of haybales. "They said our little darling was almost a good as a lurcher," my friend reports proudly. Her poor pet, meanwhile, has passed out in the corner.

Closing time at the Windsor Castle pub. Beneath a plate bearing a portrait of Princess Diana, my godson is in full flow: "I want to be naughty!" he bellows. With each round he has consumed a pint of Stella and a large JD with coke. "You know what I really fancy? Going to Sophisticats and doing drugs." I make polite inquiries. The former is a lapdancing club. And he has no immediate access to the latter. Taking my role seriously, I admonish him. "Then tell me what I can do that's bad," he demands, adding quickly: "I don't want to be unfaithful." I doubt he can hold his piece straight enough to hit the toilet bowl during his frequent loo breaks. The liklihood of his rising to a sexual challenge is unlikely at best, and suicidal at worst. I say nothing. But against my better judgement, I let him and his boring IT buddy, come back to mine. "I can't go home to that bitch just yet," my godson says. This is just as well. She's hung up on him twice... "Fuck her," he shouts. I wish you would, I think. It might shut her up. And you. Every fifteen minutes, he goes out for a fag break. And amuses himself sweeping the front window with the yard broom. We have a £10,000 bet on whether it's the original glass... At two, his mate leaves. At three, I call time on my godson. Finally, half an hour later, he lurches off into the dawn: "I need to find a pizza." And to think he was once a choir boy;-)

I have this running joke. I'm a girl who needs 8000 calories a day to keep her figure. It's not quite true, but close. Last week in the wilds of East Anglia - or Angular as Jade Goody once said - the progeny and I were force-fed like pigs being fattened for market. Our hostess, an old friend, is loving and generous to a fault. But she's a control freak. Like Cathy Bates in Stephen King's 'Misery'. Her husband is so infantilised he wears short trousers. He's 62. We were similarly smothered; ferried around the lowlands, stoked up on cooked breakfasts and vast three course dinners. One day we escaped. "I'm taking the girls out for a break," I said. At the front door, we were presented with a picnic. The rolls were labelled with our names. Leaving Norfolk six pounds heavier, I said: "That's it. Family hold back." But we had two parties in the diary. And empty cupboards. So I kept ordering home deliveries. This morning at six, the girls left for Leh. We had breakfast before I dropped them at the Heathrow Express. Back in a silent house, I moped. At ten, I had a second breakfast. Then I worked my way through a box of chocolates called Seven Deadly Sins. One chocolate for each sin: sloth, pride, anger, lust, envy... greed and gluttony. I am exploding out of my trousers. Not so much muffin top as nightmare at the bakery. Worse. Just now, I ate two chocolate medallions belonging to my eldest. "Save them for me, Mum," she said, as she headed off to the mountains. What kind of woman have I become? My child is on her way to the other side of the world, and I ate her sweeties before she'd even crossed Turkey:-(

On Friday we went to visit my aunt. Who runs an alternative centre in East Sussex. The courtyard of her house boasts a circular mosaic, thirty feet in diameter. It's the property's birth chart. The library houses thousands of books on world religions, spiritual guidance and new ways of being. One of the first things we did was stand in a circle and chant the Hindu om. "It sounds like a thousand voices, doesn't it?" she said. And it did. Many years ago I spent a weekend at the centre with UFO hunters. The highlight was a man who claimed to speak to aliens. As we sat there, he went into a trance. Making connections on several planes he passed on fantastically useful messages. For example: "It is cold here." The food was terrible too. This time round there was no cooking. "We're going out for lunch," said my aunt. Curry. In what appeared to be an Italian trattoria. Delicious. We then returned to her homestead for chocolate cake and strawberries. As we munched happily, she said, "I'm going to tell you a story." And quoted, word perfect, Tennyson's Lady Clare. We started off sniggering. By the end, the girls and I were spellbound. My aunt is 81. "She doesn't look any older than some of your friends," my eldest said on the way back. It is true. Maybe there's something to be said for communing with the gods in a rural idyll:-)

Smelly, brown and beautiful, the girls are back in town. This morning I took them for their jabs. Their Pa is hoiking them off to the Himalayas shortly. The youngest went in first, and was being set up for typhoid and Hep A as the eldest and I hoved into view. Two injections were expertly administered. "Over in no time," the nurse mused, moving the youngest to the other side of the room as the eldest took her place. A strangely meandering woman who had spelt Delhi as in telly, she wandered off to top-up on serum. "Don't they look alike? I keep forgetting which is which." My daughters are certainly similar. But one is dark skinned and blue eyed. And the other light skinned and brown eyed. And four inches broader. And three years older... This didn't stop the nurse refilling her syringes, approaching the newly jabbed youngest, now in the opposite corner of the room, and jabbing her again. As we collapsed in hysterics, unable to believe what had happened, she said: "Oh dear. Well it's only the typhoid. She's doubly safe now."

I missed the flight on Friday. Damn the M25:-o The next connection was at 06:00... The silver lining was the SInde commissioning a piece between my visits to Stanstead. The downside was my arrival at the chateau in a valium haze. I bolted down breakfast, disappeared into one of the 14 bedrooms, and slept till dinnertime. Horsehair mattresses! Fantastic! Around the fairylit outdoor dinner table were Swedes, Germans, an English ex-pat, and my hostess - Scottish-Lebanese from Sierra Leone. A number of the ensemble were, or had been, working in Afghanistan. The stories were hilarious. As were the tales of taming the crazed Dinka of Sudan, a trial most recently foist on my mate - a woman in whom they met their match... Halfway through the proceedings, she and her hubby disappeared. To an English neighbour's drinks party. They returned bewildered. "The women said there's a rule and I should have worn heels," she reported. "I told them I wear heels at work. When you're employing a thousand men, it helps to feel tall. At home, it's flatties only." Amused, we inquired how this information had gone down. The owner of the biggest pile for miles, shook her head in disbelief. "Not well. They'd clearly marked me down as a bushwoman with a rich husband."

A new name, a new concept, and suddenly all the pieces are falling into place. I bought a DIY website this morning. And wrote myself a new cheque to freedom, happiness and, hopefully, riches;-) In the middle of this a mate in France emailed. "Are you coming over tomorrow?" I'd ignored her earlier invitation. Because I'm broke financing my reinvention. And I've been out every night since the kids' went. Cocktails don't come cheap. I checked Ryanair and emailed back. "The fares have quintupled. So sorry, Darling. I can't." I finished the website, did some ironing, and prepared to go on the razz. Again. A new email arrived. "We've booked you on the 14.55. Our treat." Seconds later the flight confirmation came through. Gadzooks! My last trip on Ryanair was a nightmare. I had a panic attack on boarding. I felt completely trapped. And couldn't escape because I was. By zillions of people fighting for seats. In the morning, I'm off to the doctor for valium... Wouldn't it be great to always travel first class? My exceedingly good and generous mate, is certainly of that bent. Six years ago she was a single mum in Kilburn. Today she has a multi-million pound business in Dubai and a holiday chateau. Which is where I'm bound. Respect! And a little ooh-la-la, I hope;-)

Entering a Central London bar with my mate, I stopped in my tracks. Ahead of me was a hideously ugly woman. Hitting fifty with huge blonde and ginger hair extensions, she was the sort of old scrubber you'd find behind the bar at The Queen Vic. I clutched my companion's hand and hissed "That's xxxxx - you know, the one who ran off with your mate Caroline's husband." Edging our way around the emporium of delights we ordered drinks. "Hideous, isn't she?" I said, taking charge of a raspberry martini. "You wouldn't think he'd leave Caroline for someone like that." My mate shrugged. "It's her mouth," she said, sagely. "Those buck teeth. Men look at them and think about blow jobs." As I choked on this information, my mate used her champagne flute to demonstrate why men found looking down on buck teeth a turn on. She looked like Thumper wrestling a carrot from the ground. I have never considered the aphrodisiac qualities of a large overbite before. It's always struck me as rather precarious. How can one chew steak, for example? I finished my drink in one. To steady the nerves. Suddenly the object of our musings disappeared. "Gone to steal someone else's husband," I said. "Gone to scrub her knees," said my mate.

A joyful evening in Covent Garden with a new mate is temporarily halted by a sudden view of her underarm fuzz. Regular readers will know that I had a similar encounter during a women's meeting a few weeks back when I was left nonplussed, not just by the abundance of hirsute pits on display, but by the care with which the tresses had been combed. Tonight's follicular glories were curly - like pubic hair impishly transplanted by Puck during a fallout with Titania. I nearly inhaled my crayfish in horror. Moments like these are confusing for a feminist. How does one balance the personal with the political? Perhaps this is how Tony Blair feels when he sends his children across town to better schools than are found in Westminster? I finished my meal with a sense of deep guilt. I'm sure she wasn't judging me, and I look like a butterball turkey. What right did I have to judge her for sporting... merkins?

The kids are off to camp on Wednesday. In the meantime my office is their storeroom. The floor is littered with rucksacks, sleeping bags, tents, fleeces, billy cans, waterproofs, suncreams, walking boots and a huge pile of faux designer clothing. This belongs to my eldest. Who hones in on boys like a heat-seeking missile. She can't be seen traversing the Yorkshire cowpats actually looking like a camper. So half of Top Shop has been amassed. I have successfully vetoed the lined broderie anglais coat. But the white sneakers have sneaked through. This for a camp so basic, they pooh in a hand-dug lat. Emptying a large suitcase to accommodate her excess baggage, I came across some detritus from my own travels. Last year's abortive romancing in Laos. The Mekong is beautiful this time of year... Tomorrow we are dog-sitting. And my German sister-in-law, ex, arrives with two children in tow. Who are also going to camp. A woman with a heart of pure gold and a tongue of sharpened steel, she once bemoaned the lack of good daytime telly. "All they show is stupid war films, always making out the Germans are the baddies." Her Jewish husband nearly swallowed his spoon at this. His family, puce but ever gracious, moved the conversation swiftly on. Happy days:-)

Out in County Kilburn we pitched up at Rob Newman's latest show. Clever, passionate and funny, he is so... not funny. There is cynicism inherent in everything he says. Of course there were laughs. Some were inspired. But he managed, nonetheless, to end on an absolute downer. As if it it's our fault that idealism is dead and you can't buy Fairtrade lager. Perhaps it is - but we're victims too! He gave us the history of the world told backwards. A wonderful conceit and perfect for punters with several degrees including ancient civilisations, world politics, military strategy, nuclear fission and orthopaedic surgery. The rest of us only got forty per cent of the jokes. And pretended, or slept, through the rest. Sitting near the front, I had a view straight up his nostrils. His channels are very narrow. Funnily enough, he once kissed me. Rather... moistly. In a corridor at Jongleurs, in Clapham. It was a long time ago:-( I was encumbered that evening with a drunk who painted well but held drink badly. There was no opportunity to further the promise of romance as I was searching out friends to help me hoist him in the car and dump him at his midden. The drunk that is, not Mr Newman. I'd fantasized that our eyes would meet during tonight's show and we'd both get palpitations, but if it happened, it must have been while I was dozing. And yes, I'm tired. One child has finished school. The other - a joyous 15 yesterday - is enjoying an end of year social whirl. This is their weekend with their father. I waved them out of the door - correction: pushed them out of the door - with some relief. It's been one of those weeks. Tomorrow I have promised myself a lie-in:-)

Yesterday, I lunched with the schoolgate mums. One is a soprano and the other a plumber. Though the plumber is returning to IT. There was an ant in the salt and bits of clingfilm on my steak. The waitress noted both aberrations and shrugged. This morning I went to Waitrose. The last time I was there, I bumped a middle-aged man as he struggled a whining toddler into a trolley seat. Apologising, I helped him get her sorted. Meanwhile, a slightly larger child was kicking at his legs. "Have a good day," I said. He snarled. You could hear those kids whining all around the store. It was like living the Doppler effect. Daddy of course, was unfazed. I suppose, as the Mayor of London, he deals with far worse shit every day;-) But I digress. Today in the store, the service was surly beyond belief. And it was only half past eight! The cashier threw down my grapes. I could have sold them as Blue Nun nouveau. What's wrong with everybody? Every summer as we head for silly season, urban tensions increase. So much to do, so little time... Over puddings yesterday, we were discussing our own anxieties. The soprano's work is seasonal. The plumber gets more callouts for websites than toilets. And me - well, you know where I am in all this... Roll on August when a baffle board of calm falls on the great metropolis:-)

We're twenty minutes into the World Cup final. The phone goes. "Hello, it's Cathy from Radio Five Live." I politely explain it's the sporting fixture of the... every four years. "Sorry. I'll keep it short," she says. "We're having an education debate at midnight. Can you talk about single-sex schooling?" "I'm happy to," I reply politely, "but can we discuss it after the game?" We're ten minutes into extra time. The phone goes. "Hello it's Cathy from Five Live." I stay calm: "Cathy, the game's into extra time." "I know," she says. "That's why we're running late. We're postponing the debate till later in the week. Is that all right?" As I struggled out a polite farewell, my youngest said: "You really wouldn't expect a sports station to be ringing people during a cup final, would you?" Precisely. Thankfully, I was able to assuage any residual frustration when Zidane chest-butted one of the pretty Italian blokes. The whole game was like that pitiful eighties single Torn Between Two Lovers. I was torn between a mainly black team representing a racist nation, or a bung-implicated team representing a fascist nation. In the run-up, I'd opted to support France. I thought victory might be a unifying force. But it was Italy I kept cheering. Because they're small and fierce and cute. And they were the dog's bollocks in extra time against Germany. Now, the household can return to its natural state of football apathy. Making, of course, the odd exception for Liverpool (me) and Arsenal (youngest):-)

Writing a piece about my mum for a new anthology, I recalled how the tiny room in which we lived till I was thirteen, often held up to ten people at meal times. There was one armchair and a double bed. They'd perch around its edges or sit on the floor. My mum prepared feasts on a two ringed Belling cooker. We had jack shit, but what we had we shared. Our social life was one glorious whirl. Because our friends were the same. That support structure is still strong, forty years on. Earlier this week, my richest friend had a birthday dinner in Soho. For the first time I can remember, she paid. This was so out of character, the consensus was that she'd brokered a deal with the club owner. Not one guest believed she was doing it for the joy of giving. Because few people who can, do... What is it about money that it strips us of our internal lives? Our concerns change to the external. We cherish bank statements, the car, the holidays. The emphasis changes from giving to getting. It's easier to pay a happiness coach £100 an hour, than spend that amount generating happiness with others. My youngest is spending the weekend with an old mate: one of six kids in a small council flat. The dad, a postal worker, does nights so he can help after school. As she left, I handed over spending money. "Don't be silly," the mum said. "We're taking them to Margate tomorrow and doing a barbie on Sunday. She doesn't need money. We've got everything that's necessary." I watched them go enviously. Because they have:-)

Tuesday afternoon, I addressed a corporate press office on the finer points of video production. They were young and eager, aware that their pedigree in this dark art was embarrassing at best and losing them revenue at worst. Things started well. Lots of smiles and busy scribbling. Then came the crunch question. "How would you describe your main product and what are its applications?" Not one of them could answer comprehensively. Lots of headlines, no context. While this isn't unusual - it's much easier to describe the functions of a tumble dryer or a Rich Tea biscuit than a corporate service - it's fairly vital if you're in charge of external communications and busily commissioning videos. In the middle of the discussion, their boss arrived. It was like a dark shadow had entered the room. Individual lights started going out. I explained that we were defining the product in terms of video representation. She argued every point. Her premise was that the nature of their service made even conventional competence in this area, impossible. She was smart. She argued from every angle. And then, inevitably, concluded in accordance with what was being suggested. We'd then continue happily for a few minutes and off she went again... Stoically, I fought off death from both frustration and heat stroke and emerged triumphant. By the time I headed back out into the sun, there was a raging discussion about their USP. Once that's sorted, the rest is simple - communicating properly is an art, not a science. In the meantime, I'm happy to keep going back and putting them on track;-)

On Saturday night, after our ignominious departure from German shores - what a twat that doughball Rooney, is - and an uplifting episode of Dr Who - uplifting because Rose is at last on her way out - I set foot for Hoxton. Once a hotbed of NF activity, it is now an arty hub surrounded by ringroads and fit blokes who read The Guardian. I was hot to trot. But... on entering our comedy club of choice, my mate and I found the punters consisted of four large hen parties and three couples. The local boys were in the Dog and Duck weeping into their beers. The only single man was a blow up doll with an enormous penis. Right totem, wrong consistency. There was also a woman with inflated boobs that sat solidly in her lycra top like the Elgin Marbles. We disgraced ourselves by making laddish remarks about being smothered to death and deploying her as a scud missile. The first act was a former teacher who, having failed to raise the youth of our country to new highs, similarly failed with the over 25s. The second was a gay muslim GP intent on hitting all the discomfort buttons. He was so clever-clever you needed a degree to get half his jokes, but he was funny. Finally, a middle-aged Aussie with a Stratocaster took the stage. Within seconds she had stripped off to display her flab. In a room of women, this was the equivalent of baring one's soul. Alternately embarrassed and delighted, we were then reduced to hysterics by her Shirley Bassey skit. There are times when the absence of men is a deeply affirming experience:-)

Yesterday I was invited to lunch at The Hilton. On a blind date. The banker I was meeting turned out to be a bovver boy. He had a number two haircut and was wearing a white shirt and black trousers. Banker? I'm guessing the rest of his uniform was in the cloakroom. We got the lift to the 28th floor. Food will help, I thought. On arrival, he guided me away from the restaurant and into the bar. Not a word was said. I ordered a sherry. And sat on my seat edge, ready to do a FloJo. I explained away my obvious discomfiture, saying the hotel's outrageous car park charges had given me palpitations. We made small talk. Suddenly, apropos nothing, he said loudly: "You're every man's nightmare. You're obsessive and demanding. In a relationship, I can see you'd be the taker." Nonplussed, I sought diversion. I told him humorously about the mum who'd joined Sugardaddie.com. "Why don't you do that?" he said. "You're obviously high maintenance." And there's the proof that everything is relative:-o When I ventured that I was a tad mature and heavy for the average zillionaire, he looked me up and down. "You could do it." I felt a lot lighter when I left him, that's for sure. Bizarrely, he disappeared down Park Lane, promising to give me some contacts at Merrill Lynch. "You know your stuff and they need the help," he said. I still don't know what to make of it:-o

I asked my eldest, agog, why she had volunteered to spend a week with the army. She was nonplussed: "To meet boys, of course." Today, in pouring rain, I dropped her and a classmate off at the barracks. It's part of their work experience... The car was routinely searched. As I opened the boot, the squaddie's jaw dropped. Each girl had a case the size of the Rosetta Stone. Four nights; ten changes of clothes. Every night is party night in Aldershot... I went to the office to register them and swooned. There is something about men in uniform. It's primal. I experienced three coup de foudres in four minutes. Fickle heart! Leaving the girls to their grisly fate, I headed home smiling. I thought about the youngest. Who is off to Calais in the morning. Quelle horreur: I suddenly realised her passport was in Oxford. With her father:-o Which explains my tryst in the Holiday Inn car park by High Wycombe roundabout, an hour ago. It was like a scene from All the President's Men - two figures emerging from the shadows for the furtive handing over of documents and cash. Thirty Euros;-) Driving back, I stopped to buy the little one a BP packed lunch. And ended up buying a packed breakfast too. She leaves at six. A mother has to draw the line somewhere...

My business partner has sent me an email: "You at a whiteboard with twelve people in the room, is like watching Freddie Mercury doing an intimate evening at Ronnie Scott's. You belong onstage at Wembley." What sauce! I can't see myself as the Billy Graham of language. I'd come out in hives if the punters started talking in tongues:-o Was it the Rev Sun Moon that ran harems and drove around his compound in a Rolls? That's more my sort of thing. Except I'm hideous in orange and I don't suit robes. What's a guru anyway? It's just a touchy-feely euphemism for consultant-on-a-soapbox. Hideously rich consultant-on-a-soapbox. One of my friends once took a soapbox at Hyde Park Corner. She was fighting the big birds' cause. It fell apart when she got heckled. "Why is dating a fat woman like owning a moped?" asked a wag. "Because they're both a good ride, but you don't want your mates to see you with one!" At this juncture we made our excuses and left, as they say in the News of the World. Funnily enough, a flyer came through the door recently, inviting us to some guru-fest at West Ham football ground. Maybe that's all it's good for since they lost the cup final;-) There's only one game we'll be watching this weekend. That's tomorrow at three. We've taken Paracetamol to cool our World Cup fevers. Today, far more girlie pursuits beckon. Brent Cross here we come:-)

Has it really been a week? I feel like the soldier returning from combat - wearied, scarred - scared, even - but bloody and victorious:-) It's been an epic time. Two workshops delivered, and my work partner wounded in battle. She says it's not for her. She can deal with NHS types, but not sharp men in sharp suits. I find the inquiry and presience of the city slicker exciting and challenging. She left our last gig emotionally ravaged. I want more; she's had enough. The problem is our different disciplines. And different outlooks. I'm building on journalistic skills. Creating rapport to ease the movement of information around an organisation, and to increase cooperation and productivity. Communication for me is about winning. She, on the other hand, is teaching variations on assertiveness. Which is about loss limitation. Standing up in this difficult world and being heard. The two are connected, but they're not the same. One is household goods. The other is bedlinen. Who's up for a half day workshop with a bolshy woman who gets you talking?;-) Aside from the business - and there's still the new website to be sorted - all is well in the dustbowl that is the London Borough of Camden. Sunshine, coffee, chocolate, and happy kids... Yesterday I took the abdominiser out of storage. It must be summer:-)

Last night I took my prettiest godson to Asia de Cuba. It's not often one is seen on the town with a fit 21-year-old. Even if he is wearing zirconia studs:-o We discussed God, who is looming large in his life at the moment. He's tried drugs, smoking and one night stands and found them wanting. He needed something to fill the gap... When his mum and I became friends we were a year younger than he is now. We were building our chosen careers. We'd both left home. She'd been married and divorced. Today she runs one of the country's most high-profile companies. He, meanwhile, remains unfocused. He's been selling advertising. The money goes on his wardrobe. Jeans costing £175. Ooer, perhaps they weren't zirconia? I fear he is becoming the Victoria Beckham of his family... Earlier, I'd been to a trustees meeting where some Posh Spice grooming would have helped. The board is made up entirely of women. Two of whom had dense underarm foliage. Curiously, it appeared to be combed. Pondering this, I found it impossible to concentrate on the serious business. This morning I've concluded that their hairs were smoothed by roll-on deoderants. You couldn't use aerosols and wear vests, could you? There'd be white bits bobbing around in the undergrowth. Which reminds me, I must make an appointment with the barber:-)

Aware of my limitations as a faux city-slicker, I gamely visited the countryside yesterday in a pair of daisy-print clogs. I wanted to be as one with the earth. At the local show, they started to rub, but it seemed churlish to complain when gasping Morris Dancers were turning as hot and shiny as the ancient farm machinery on display. The dog show was a canine out-of-body display. Mutts staggered around like drunks, rosettes askew. People were stripping off. It's all tattoos and midriff bulge in the outback. Back at the millhouse, we left the kids to cool down and our hostess, my mother, and I climbed into the punt with a picnic. The punt pole was broken. My old ma, 75 and extremely game, stood at one end, rowing us upriver. She was nearly decapitated when we went under the bridge. Four youths with a swimming labrador, watched in amazement. "I'm a learner driver with two instructors," she shouted at them. We returned for a delicious dinner. Then the kids had a go at boating. Within ten minutes the three of them were trapped in water lillies. An hour later, they'd moved six feet. Our hostess had to tow them in by canoe. In all the excitement, I couldn't mention my feet. After all, we were being young and free! This morning, I could not wear shoes... "You look like you've been crucified," my eldest said, inspecting the damage. What was it Thomas Jefforson said? Ah yes. The price of freedom is vigilance. Next time I'll wear flip flops...

How is it that the city is silent in the sun? All day the doors and windows have been open, but all I've heard is birdsong. And a small cheer across the backyards when England went one up in the football. I have not yet forgiven Steven Gerrard's own goal when Liverpool played Chelsea. It was a vital championship match. On that basis, it felt hypocritical to cheer the homeland's accidental victory. Indeed, proceedings were so dull I'd have given up watching, but I had visitors. Why anyone would want to watch a match in my company is uncertain. But they arrived in good cheer. With two boxes of Turkish pizzas: like Italian, but soggy. My eldest had decamped to a friend's. The youngest, after a tearful interlude in which she claimed her visit to Hadrians Wall had left her 'traumatised', was off to lunch and a musical with a classmate. It's all right for some:-o Tomorrow we are off to Suffolk for a dog show. The little terrier we occasionally babysit, is taking part. We will be going mob handed - my teeny-weeny mum, a large leg of lamb that she has marinaded, me, the progeny, and an unwieldy 6ft 2" teenage girl who's spending the night here. We are many hued. That should give them a scare in Bury. Watch this space;-)

Today I renewed my resident's parking permit. "Shall I date it for tomorrow?" the man said. "It'll be luckier." As a Buddhist I do not fear the number 666. If I'm found impaled on a long stake, Fatima Whitbread would be a more likely culprit than the anti-Christ. As for my car, annihilation would be a kindness. The damaged digicam that sits unposted on the back seat has more value than the vehicle itself. If it wasn't for the fact it's taxed and insured, you'd think it belonged to an illegal. Dodging soothsayers and evil monks, I popped into the Royal Free to see my friend H's ma. Aged 90, she's giving the grim reaper a run for his money. Six weeks after a stroke she's back on the whisky and planning a return to work. Tomorrow she has her hair tinted. Back home, I rewrote a piece for one of the dailies and flirted a bit online. I suspect my expectations are way above my pulling abilities, but practice helps:-o My own ma popped round with some letters she wanted typed and stayed for a very jolly dinner with me and the eldest. Afterwards, we all went for a walk. The youngest, meanwhile, is following in the footsteps of Hadrian. She left for Northumberland yesterday wearing a Waitrose bag. It was to honour a classmate who left at half term. I didn't quite get the point, but that's the luxury of youth isn't it? You do things just because you can:-)

My hormones are back on message! It happened while I was in a Hummer. With a single mother who's just joined a dating site called sugardaddie.com to find herself a rich husband. She showed me the picture she’s posted up. A very alluring and not dishonest cleavage shot taken on her phone. “I want security,” she explained, removing her hands from the wheel to billet-doux a texting trillionaire. "He’s on his way to the Chinese Embassy." I didn't ask. Because I was thinking that all those cultural commentators that attack the likes of Heather Mills-McCartney have missed a vital point about "gold digging". Which is that rich men are under no illusion about the women they marry. Indeed, having got where they are through single-mindedness and passion, it’s as much the ambition as the product spec of these beauties that they admire... Passing through King’s Cross, my companion's conversation became alarmingly earthy, which made me anxious as her five-year-old was in the back. And then it hit me. I too am feeling rather... earthy. As we thundered past Regents Park, it was like spring coming to Narnia. I realised that the treadmill of activity and excitement that heralded the company launch last week has clearly acted as an emotional exfoliant. Watch out boys - the mountain may soon be coming on to Mohammed;-)

What is life and why are my trousers too tight? The week has flown by. On Monday I sent out fifteen missives and already five people have asked for follow up information. In the tweedledum tweedledee world that is commerce, we are offering a handful of free workshops to the big rollers, and charging the small fry:-o On Wednesday we went off to a women's business day. The desultory bunch of speakers banged on about the obstacles women face. We were informed, witheringly, that the men who dominate business advisory services are bank managers refashioned as consultants. As half the women there were professionals refashioned as consultants, this was a bit of an own goal. Especially as at least two of them were more articulate, intelligent and successful than the silly buggers up on stage;-) The final straw was when the MC closed the session five minutes early with the classic line: "I know you're all dying to get up and fidget." Too often, we are our own worst enemies.

I'm always suspicious of words that have overtones of wrongdoing. Coaching, is one of these. A grubby amalgam of cottaging and poaching. After a weekend incarcerated at the Holiday Inn, Bloomsbury, learning the finer points of this dark art, I was relieved to emerge on Sunday afternoon and reclaim my life. This morning, however, I woke with a sense of elation. And met every single target I had set myself over that 48 hour period. I am revitalised; inspired. It's damned good ju-ju;-) The one image that defines the weekend, however, is not taken from that strange mix of touchy-feely grande dames and tough young HR execs seeking higher powers. That honour falls to Annie Lennox, sorceress-like in her black tailcoat, magicking shivers up and down our spines as dusk fell on Tower Bridge and Traitor's Gate on Saturday night. There must be an angel, she sang, and for a few minutes, there was. I was seeking respite at the Prince's Trust Birthday Concert. Sitting in the courtyard of the Bloody Tower drinking champagne from plastic cups - me, my girls, and their father - our first non-scoff outing since divorce eight years ago. For all of us, happy in our own thoughts, it was, I'd like to think, life affirming:-)

Last night at a book launch, an elegant woman introduced herself: "Did you know we share a plumber?" It transpires that the same man has serviced both our pipes for over twenty years. Indeed, my weekly cleaning team is supplied by his Brazilian wife. The leylines of industry are curious in their patterning. Earlier I'd commented on a strangely garbed guest in a leather winter coat and knitted red hat. When I saw her from the front, it turned out to be an old friend and colleague. Spotting my expression she said, "I know. The colours don't match." She was sporting the Canary Wharf of all diamond rings: "Good expenses, Darling." The novel being celebrated was self published by a highy literate acquaintance: "It's so hard to get publishers to notice you. This saves time and it's a professional product." True. And the book is well written and interesting. But I spotted four improving cuts on the first page alone. That's what gets lost in the mix. As they say, there's no such thing as a free lunch:-o Indeed, my own free lunch cost me dear yesterday. My date had emailed the wrong restaurant name. I circled Covent Garden ninety million times before finding him. As I arrived, steaming and heaving like a mare in foal, he smiled apologetically and ordered me a large sherry. How predictable I must be! But then, we too go back over twenty years. And now, I'm wading through The Seven Basic Plots for one of our workshop exercises. Well, bits of it. Not a single word is misplaced, extraneous or repetitious. There's good editing for you.

Today I had the misfortune to be on radio discussing the impending divorce of Mr and Mrs McCartney. On listening back to the codswallop that passes for public debate these days, I realised I had referred to our only living legend as a silly old fool on about five different occasions. Correction, given the length of the interview, five consecutive occasions. I am not perturbed by the words so much as their repetition. We are all fools at some time. Age is no bar to that. It was ist of me to presume otherwise. Indeed, I cannot think of a headier combination than age and foolishness. This is just as well as I then went on to lunch with a friend and her octagenarian ma who sends food flying in all directions when diverted by conversation. Her glasses hang on a chain around her neck. Consequently, she is often to be found looking out at the world through bits of spinach and prawn shell. To complete the hat trick I returned home via the Royal Free Hospital. There, I fed a smoothie to my favourite nonagenarian. Her swallow has come back. But one swallow does not make a summer when you've had a stroke:-( Have I done any work? Well, yes, a bit. And a huge pile of ironing first thing. Be assured this slow-down is not a sign of my going to the dogs. That happened yesterday. At Walthamstow. A posse of us went greyhound racing. With only six runners on each card, there's a good chance of being quids in. But as we wandered out in the neon-bright dark, every one of us was out of pocket:-o

We should all be at a party right now, but I've called a nightie day. We don't actually own nighties. It's shorthand for sanctioned domestic indolence. Sometimes we have nightie weekends, only moving from the sofa to order pizzas. That said, I have been to Homebase to buy a hose. And collected our furnace hardened mugs from the art shop. And typed up a lot of notes for Tuesday's meeting:-o Yesterday we visited friends who were recently gonged. I'm not one for medals. Give me a prefix any day. It frees you to stamp on the bastards who hand them out, instead of kowtowing. Gongs shoud be saved for useful folk, like lollipop people and voluntary workers. Anyway, we were lunching in leafy Essex with assorted progeny when a waitress with blinding false eyelashes, had a seizure. West Ham were two up in the FA cup. Our hostess promptly insisted we returned home to watch. This was unfortunate as I'm a Liverpool fan. And I cheered them on. And they won: grabbing victory from the jaws of defeat in a mirroring of last year's European championship:-) Erring on the side of caution, we left for home as soon as they'd done their bit at the podium. Now those really are medals worth having...

I have been networking. With people I don't know. Half of them in industries I never knew existed. An alphabetti spaghetti of acronyms. I doubt I'll get work, but a few party invitations would be nice:-o All this connecting makes me feel industrious. But all it really does is set me up for DVT at my Mac. This has not been a week distinguished by industry. The website boys had a hissyfit. They liked their internet version of Blue Peter's Tracy Island. We hit an impasse. By yesterday we'd parted company. Back to the drawing board. Where can I find a designer who'll work for four chocolate buttons, a bag of Wotsits and a pair of socks? Meanwhile, those around me continue to unravel. A lot of pets are kicking the bucket. One dog and one cat this week, already. I haven't had a pet since Sexpot. My hamster. When he died, my mother lovingly fashioned him a casket lined with scented Kleenex. And popped him into the communal incinerator. For a month, she became vegetarian. As a mark of respect. Which I thought foolish. It's not as if we eat hamster, though I'm told guinea pig is a worthwhile delicacy:-o

After the high comes the low. The website is a mess. The designer showed us a fabulous prototype. Which he then scrapped. "I thought you didn't like it." Why? It's the first glitch. And a big one. I must get my cohort, who claims to be an assertiveness trainer, to assert herself. Apart from that, a good day. My eldest godson has just got MoD security clearance. This means he can earn £1000 a day on government contracts. We celebrated with our second brunch in eight days. And I bought flowers. He's still watching his weight. After a full English breakfast with two sugared lattes, he ordered and demolished a steak baguette and a Coke. I think this stage of dieting is called a plateau:-o

Totally knackered after a day in heels handing out flyers at a business start up exhibition:-o The adrenaline kept us going to such a degree, I didn't know I was crippled till I got home and kicked off my shoes. Am hoping the cameras in the ExCel carpark didn't catch me creeping round level 1B sticking leaflets under windscreen wipers. £3 an hour to park in the middle of nowhere. On a Saturday. It's a joke. The business centre is like Houston Airport at 4am. Soulless. Even by the standards of the wilderness that is docklands. I don't know a single Londoner who's bought there. Except for rental income. But every grockle and passing foreigner is fooled into thinking this outpost has cachet. The architecture of mammon is its saving grace, but only when serviced by young men and women in business suits. At weekends there is nothing to hold the imagination. The exhibition punters scurried round like ants abandoned on a moonscape.

Looking out over London from the top floor bar at the St Georges Hotel, three of us were engaged in a discussion about slovenliness. I am prone, when I have a few days without social engagements, to stay unwashed and let the natural oils back into my skin. It must affect the pheremones too, as I clock the biggest hit rate when I'm soiled. And wearing a red Gap fleece. True. I can't go into Waitrose for fear of being accosted. The only time I got asked out by a genuine millionaire, I was grubby and Gapped:-o One of tonight's party admitted she doesn't shower every day even when being social. "I suppose I'm a slut," she said, "but I never break into a sweat even during aerobics, so I just top and tail." Is that where the phrase originates? We were musing thus after the third member of the group admitted taking ninety minutes to get ready every morning because of rituals around bathing. A woman with very strong ideals, she is abstemious to an extreme. She kept studying my tequila sunrise with concern. The only way I could drink was by turning my attention to the picture window. It left me quite heady, gazing across the glorious spire of All Souls, Langham Place, to the elegant curve in the road where Broadcasting House and The Langham posture imperiously at each other.

A ring on the bell. It's a harassed man with a beautiful bag that he thrusts at me. Inside is a huge, but huuuuge, box of Rococo chocolates. They are, of course, from my online sleuth in Brighton. I find his number and call. "You did a brilliant job and could have charged much more," he said. "I wanted to give something back." What's the line about gift horses?;-)

Up at 5.30. Back on the madness wheel. How does it end? Telewest are putting in a business line. We've another bite on free workshops. Later today we hopefully get our website. I've put together a rather impressive sixteen page rewrite for the designers. That's the pay-off. My eldest, above, begins exam fortnight this morning. I have a friend coming for lunch. She's on a diet. "I just want leaves, no dressing." She used to be such fun:-( That said, I'm trying to get my boobs back ahead of my belly. I hate middle age. Take my enormous arse. When I walked, it once looked like two helium balloons in the last throes of making love. Now it's a giant pancake with no filling. The excess has relocated to my midriff. Gross. On Sunday night I met up with a boy I first encountered three years ago. As soon as I saw him, I remembered why I've taken avoiding action ever since. Lovely to look at, but when he talks his tongue sort of sticks behind his teeth. My mate, H, tells me speech impediments, and/or the physical signs of one, are fashionable. Why? Before leaving for exam hell, my eldest marked out some potential males for me in Soulmates. One was an ex-punk. "What does that mean?" I asked, "Piercing scars?" She was upbeat. "Give him a ring, Mum. He says he has a snoggable mouth." Taken aback, I said nothing. Well, actually, I said, "Leave it on my desk." But I can't help feeling our relationship is a little skewed:-o