In which I'll just Thwazock that

Last week, Google turned 13. It's a strange thought, that the Grandaddy of the internet, that bottomless source of wisdom and answers, is actually nothing more than a fledgling teenager. It will soon, we can only assume, start sprouting blackheads, drinking White Lightning behind a hedge and mooning over the boy down the road in poetry written in the back of our exercise books (who would this boy be? Yahoo? Surely not Jeeves?).

But as all parents force themselves to believe during the door-slamming, sebum-secreting phase, we wouldn't be without them for the world. God bless Google. God bless it for many reasons, but mainly for taking a truly ridiculous word and making it a verb that we all use daily. Imagine if that word had been 'splobble' or 'thwazock'. "Hang on, I'll just Thwazock that." Bonkers.

But the question this milestone really prompts is of course, what did we do before Google? I've come up with some theories:

1. Knew stuff

There's certainly room for an argument that we knew less before Google, not more. It may well be true. I didn't know all the states of the USA or how to properly truss a chicken before Google, though to be fair I was 10 and as such poorly informed in general. But there must be many other things that, before we could search them afresh every time we went on a computer, we just remembered instead. Things like how the Keeping Up Appearances theme tune went, or where Cheshire is. How to spell recommend. Your own postcode. Faced with one of these tricky questions in contemporary times, rather than setting cerebral cogs whirring, it is natural for one's fingers to start itching for a keyboard.

2. Encarta

When the Bravo family first got a computer, it came with one CD Rom. That CD Rom was Encarta. It wasn't the complete version, mind you, just a free limited trial version that probably caused significant gaps in my knowledge every time a search stopped short of the paid-for section. But still, I loved it. It was the source of endless, completely uncensored information, and also my main source of entertainment on the computer after I'd got bored of minesweeper and used up our printer ink on pictures of dolphins for my bedroom wall.

3. Teletext

If you were born after 1994 you may skip this section - it doesn't concern you. For everyone older, the word invokes both a rush of joy and some involuntary finger cramp, in memory of all those hours flicking though pages of yellow text to find out what the weather was going to be, or how much we could get a package deal to Lanzarote for. Teletext taught us patience. It taught us that knowledge is always out there, but sometimes you have to work hard to find it. And it doesn't always load properly, so sometimes you have to translate it from jagged half-words that look like Space Invaders. But once you have that knowledge, oh boy did you appreciate it.

In which I spurn the Great Indoors

I've never really got on with shopping centres. I know it's hard to believe, slave to consumerism that I am, sitting here in my pink velour tracksuit with diamante dollar signs across the arse, but I would almost rather not shop at all than shop in a  shopping centre. Even Brighton's Churchill Square, which is essentially the village post office of shopping centres, gets me a bit twitchy and flustered. If it wasn't for the soothing scent of Millie's Cookies being pumped out through the vents, I'd barely get past Whittards.

Reasons I don't enjoy shopping centres are largely concentrated on the following:

1. Dehydration. I don't think I have ever maintained a comfortable level of bodily water content whilst inside a shopping centre. They make you moderately sweaty, thirsty, and needing of the loo all at once. This is so that you buy carbonated beverages from any one of their numerous outlets, which we all know make you giddy to the point of wanting to spend £39.99 on a boxset of Rowan Atkinson classics in HMV. It's a scam. Carry your own bottle of weak lemon squash and beat the system. 

2. Temperature confusion. The simple rule to remember is that if it is cold outside the shopping centre, it will be boiling hot inside and you will end up carrying your coat round like a cumbersome child. If it is hot outside, the shopping centre will be air conditioned into oblivion and necessitate the buying of jumpers.

3. Everything's a bit worse in a shopping centre. Nice restaurants suddenly look soulless and bland, overlooked by fake designer handbags and people getting fish pedicures. Hairdressers look like fluoro-lit hellmouths. Even Topshop loses its lustre. Without a breeze in your hair to remind you of the outside world, it just becomes so hard to know what you actually want. Lycra bodycon and heeled trainers might start to look appealing. You lose all sense of self.

But of course, the shopping centre that's got me thinking about how much I dislike shopping centres is the jaw-achingly massive new Westfield in Stratford, East London. Its opening a fortnight ago was the first big hoorah in the Olympic regeneration process (if we can't all be champion athletes, we can at least get our cardio wrestling for the last pleather satchel in a Primark the size of Rutland), and looks set to bring plenty of welcome jobs and pedestrian traffic to the area.


Aside from being baffled that it isn't called Eastfield, I haven't done a mad sprint over to its shiny, hallowed walls. I'm assuming it's probably very similar to the other, deservedly-named Westfield, which I went to for the first time only a couple of months ago. "I don't like shopping centres," I told people as they harped on about it. "You'll like this one!" they trilled. "No, really," I'd say. "They're hot and loud and often make me hate myself." "Not this one!" they'd cheerfully reply. "It's so big that you don't even know you're inside. It almost feels like… outside. But with shops."


So I went. And it is, I will grant you, very shiny. And very, very big. But I only got twitchy and flustered in proportion to its vastness, which means too twitchy and flustered to buy anything other than chilled drinks. And that Rowan Atkinson boxset.

In which everyone gets married

You'll have to forgive the slight streak of cynicism that might ripple through this column, like a bitter coulis in a fluffy sponge pudding. I am watching Bride Wars, you see, a movie that determinedly undoes all feminist progress over the last 50 years in a sweep of frothy white tulle. "You have been dead until now," the wedding planner tells the newly-engaged brides. It's a great message.

But even ignoring influence of Kate Hudson's perfectly groomed idiocy, I think I'm reasonably clear-headed when I say that if one more person on my Facebook news feed gets engaged or married, I will do something terrible with a Tiffany cake slice.

Growing up you always hear about people in this phase of life, where everyone they know is tying the knot in giddy succession and every weekend is spent throwing cash at John Lewis weddings lists and sleeping off hangovers in Welcome Break service stations, wearing a crumpled fascinator. But you think it will hit when you're, ooh, 30.

Never did I think that at the ripe age of 23, half of my also-23-year-old acquaintances would be getting married or popping out babies. We're not old enough to hire a car in most countries, yet these people know who they want to share a toilet with for the rest of their lives. The rest of their LIVES. It hurts my mind.

Perhaps these girls are all far more emotionally evolved than me, or perhaps it is just that no one has taken the time to pin them down and say 'THE REST OF YOUR LIFE' over and over again in a doom-filled voice. Either way, they're doing it. The ring, the hen do, the dress, the cake, the honeymoon, the endless reams of professionally airbrushed photos. They're doing it, only a handful of years since we officially became grown-ups. I still can't commit to a shampoo brand, and they're happily signing up for a lifelong three-legged race. It's amazing.

But aside from humming Another One Bites the Dust each time the squealy engagement status goes up and arranging a small divorce sweepstake (what? who said that? not me), I'm grateful for the diversion that it creates. I am. I love it. I've become fascinated by weddings in the same way an elderly obese man might be fascinated by Olympic gymnastics. I await wedding pictures on Facebook with an embarrassing hunger, overlooking the fact I've only met the lucky lady once, briefly, when we were 15*.

Will the dress be massive/shiny/in danger of falling down? Hair down, up, or curled like crisp fusilli? What's the colour scheme? Hotel, marquee or barn conversion? Will they, the most terrifying bridal trend I've witnessed so far, pose for official photos in their pants**?

And on, and on. It should be noted that so far none of these have been people close enough to actually invite me (I'm pleading closeness as the reason, rather than the chance I might loudly criticise everything then eat all the sugared almonds). But it's only a matter of time before I'm aisle-side, with popcorn. And if Bride Wars is anything to go by, it'll be a hoot.

*Around which time said bride was probably drawing up table plans and beginning on table favours.
** This is a real thing. Two real people I know have actually done it.

In which I find out what Madonna was on about

By the time you read this, I'll be on holiday in Spain. It will be, by some considerable stretch, the longest amount of time my boyfriend and I have ever spent together in one go, and also, at a modest 10 days, the longest holiday I've ever been on. With anyone.

"What will we DO for 10 days?" I asked when we booked it. "Won't we get bored?"
"No," says he. "We will relax. We will talk to each other. We will play cards."

I ponder this. "Can I take my laptop?"

I suppose he is right. I can accept that going away for long enough to be able to send postcards and have them reach your relatives before you get home does make some sense. It will be novel to go on a holiday that actually merits unpacking when you get there. Maybe we'll make friends with some lovely locals, and end up taking part in a flamenco performance at a small rustic taverna!

"I keep forgetting you've never been to Spain," says boyfriend.

The problem is, I don't know how to do a European beach holiday. I know how to do a British beach holiday all too well - buy a Kellogs Variety Pack, leapfrog between tea shops in the rain, visit a museum that is actually in someone's living room - but the finer points of the Mediterranean excursion have thus far alluded me. I'm not sure I've ever lain on sand without an anorak and thermos to hand. Most of my sea-swimming to date has been done in a wetsuit. This will be a learning experience.

For all I'm sure we will have the loveliest if lovely times, there are acknowledged obstacles we'll need to overcome. One of them is my desire to push Easyjet's luggage allowance with enthusiastic purchase of novelty foreign food items and wooden castanets to hang in the loo. Another is not having a TV ("How will we know if a famous person dies?" I protest reasonably).

And another of them is the heat. Mediterranean rookie that I am, I insisted we go in September because I thought this meant it would be nice, breezy, manageable weather. But the last time I checked the forecast for this week, it was 33 degrees. That's hotter than the hottest day here this year, during which I lay on the floor with my head in the fridge whimpering, "I want to die." My feelings towards tiny clothes and sweat gland activity have been covered enough in these columns for you to understand that temperatures like this make me gag.

Boyfriend, being a 'baste me in oil and point me at the sun' sort of chap, is planning to find it hilarious when I spend the entire holiday under enormous hats with three menopausal battery fans, necking water and muttering darkly about melanomas. But then he'll have his own mountain to climb* in the form of Caitlin Moran's How To Be A Woman, which I am providing for his holiday reading.

So while I seek out shade under an ex-pat's lobster-tinted paunch, he'll be battling with the subtle nuances of the female condition - and its live, sweating counterpart, me. Here's to a happy 10 days.

In which I star in The Kindle and I

Oh man, I love my Kindle.

As sweeping romantic statements go, it's not quite up there with "shall I compare thee to a summer's day?" or "it's always been you, Rach", but I must stress that I do mean every word. I. Love. My. Kindle.

It wasn't love at first sight, mind you. For at least a year I was firmly in the paper-fancying, 'it'll never replace books' club. "A screen doesn't feel the same!" I would squawk. "You can't annotate them!" (You can, and I don't anyway). "You can't read it in the bath!" (I haven't had a bath since 2004, and only then because the shower was broken).

But then I reached a turning point, and began to see things differently. That point was: I started reading Barbara Kingsolver's The Lacuna, and I had to buy a bigger handbag. "Hmm," I thought as I was stood in Urban Outfitters cramming the tome into each bag in turn and trying to do the clasp up. "It sure would be useful to be able to carry this book around in a smaller format. A flatter one. Possibly a flat, grey, digital one, like a big phone… with a book on it." 

After this thought had blossomed, other thoughts joined it. Thoughts like: it would be nice to turn the page on this weighty volume without taking my hand off the tube pole and risking toppling onto a greasy commuter. Say, via a nifty button.

Or: sometimes I'm not in the mood for the book I have in my bag. I'll be in my wry '30s comedy satire mood and I'll be carrying a vaguely political South American saga. Or I'll want slightly confusing magical realism and be carrying a boarding school story I last read when I was 12. Sometimes I just want to read the last two chapters of Bridget Jones's Diary repeatedly until I fall asleep on the night bus, and gosh darnit I don't want to be denied that option.

So, I got a Kindle.

I loved it from the off, in the coy way one fancies a complex, aloof, beautiful boy who ignores you. But the affection only grew stronger as it proved itself an indispensable force for good in my life. I was freer, more educated, more alive. I cemented the relationship a few weeks ago, when I realised I had inadvertently matched my nail varnish to it. I'd thought it was steely storm-grey, but no. It was Kindle-coloured.

But let me not appear blinded by love - I am fully ready to admit that the Kindle has flaws. More precisely, it has two.

Firstly, when it falls onto my face after I've nodded off reading it, it really clunks my nose. Books never clunked, only softly enveloped my schnoz with a blanket of softly fluttering paper. I miss that.

Secondly, nobody can see what you're reading on a Kindle. This is a good thing, of course, on some occasions. The week I read Lady Chatterley's Lover, for example, was a stressful exercise in jacket-bending and concealing-inside-newspapers lest elderly bus users see it and fall down in horror. On a Kindle it would have been fine.

But this does mean you lose the other side, the camaraderie of books. Reading One Day wouldn't have been nearly so enjoyable were it not for the armies of commuters toting the same orange cover round with them, beaming conspiratorially and sharing tissues when they get to the end. And I am not, I'm sure, the only lady to have harboured the Match.com-style fantasy of spying a gentleman reading the same well-chosen, intellectual yet not pretentious, novel that you just happen to be reading too.  Then you fall in love.

Plus, what's the point of reading Ovid or Proust or something, if nobody sees it and thinks 'ooh, get you'? I mean, really?

So in future, I'd like Kindles to come with an optional back screen that could display the book you're reading to the rest of the tube carriage. Or, even better, the book you'd like people to think you're reading. Proust on the outside, Bridget on the inside. That's an e-reading device I could possibly marry.

In which this fall fan can't be wrong

Autumn is here! Autumn, autumn, autumn!

Ok, it isn't. But it almost is, and the anticipation is sweet enough. Soon there will be coats! And hot water bottles! I bet you're thinking about buying a new pencil case, aren't you? There will be stew for dinner, and we will no longer have to waste 1.5 hours a day staring at the sky and saying 'ooh, I think it's brightening up'. It won't brighten up now, because it's autumn, and that's fine. Have some stew.

My feelings towards summer have been well documented on these pages over the last eight years, so I won't bore you with more of the details (sweat! Smell! Blisters! Flip-flops and their far more offensive cousin FitFlops!), except to say that I've always regarded autumn as the prize for surviving summer. You stagger into it bitten, peeling, frizzy of hair and swollen of feet, wearing a guileless combination of clothing items plucked from under a moist laundry pile with Solero stains down them, and as a reward for your endurance you get showered with brown leaves, in a manner not dissimilar to the confetti you get when you win X Factor. It's refreshing, and lovely.


And speaking of X Factor - well, yay for X Factor! The advent of the wailing unhinged is as sure a sign of autumn (the event that must not be named, Christmas) as crisp night breezes and the faint niggling feeling that there may be some holiday homework you haven't done. It's back, and this year nobody even has the energy to pretend they won't watch it.

But the main reason I'm looking forward to autumn is that our office air con wars can finally end.

For weeks now, we have been embroiled in a silent, highly political battle with The Other End of the Office over our air conditioning. They turn it on. We turn it off. They turn it back on. We turn slowly blue around the lips. It isn't even hot outside. It's raining outside. We turn it off again, and open a window 'for natural breeze'. They turn it on again, and put on bikinis. We close the window, and learn to type wearing double layers of slankets. It does not end.

Naturally nobody has thought to discuss the problem openly with the offenders. That would be insane. Instead we mutter, compare goosebumps and glare at the button-happy blighters through the dividing bookcase. We surreptitiously turn the air con off on our way to the kitchen or toilet, fleeing the scene of the crime immediately so that no one can start pointing fingers.

But thankfully, before I lose a toe to frostbite and the problem has to be escalated to managerial level, it will be autumn! Nature will be on our side. "It isn't right," says Nature, "to have to go to work in August with a cable knit sweater in a carrier bag." Then Nature will drop the temperature to a level only the subhuman could wish to further chill. And the office can unite once more, at a mutually comfortable temperature level.

Hurrah for autumn.

In which it's not antisocial media

Of all the potential sources of blame for last week's riots (and there have been many, from our consumerist society to the weather being too warm), the one that's irked me the most is social media. As part of the 'Cameron's law' plans currently being considered is the government's right to block and shut down mobile messaging and social networks in a bid to curb troublemakers from organising riots.

As soon as it was mentioned that many rioters were using BBM to co-ordinate their attacks, the technologically ignorant grasped it like it was the official Axis of Evil palm pilot. "What IS this curious magic, which goes only by mysterious initials? Why do not they text? Does it stand for 'Blaggards, Ballyhoo and Mischief?"


It doesn't. It's not even a 'social network'. It's a free instant messenger. It's the exact same things as texting, except you pretend you're having 'a conversation' and you don't have to put kisses on the end of anything. That's it. As a Blackberry owner (I know, I know, the shame) I use it regularly for exchanges about what time to meet at the pub, whether or not there's any walnut oil left in M&S, and 'ooh it's raining in NW1 but not in N10! Isn't weather weird and London big?'. Using it has never inspired me to participate in acts of public violence, or even made me think 'coo, organising an act of mass violence would be far easier on this service than through less specialised means of communication, like texting. Or email.' It really hasn't.

Why we shouldn't blame social media.

1. If BBM is to blame, then are mobile phones? How about just phones altogether? Should Alexander Graham Bell be hauled up from beyond the grave to defend himself? There were riots before phones, we should remember. How the practicalities of organising mass violence through smoke signals or messenger pigeon would work in Hackney I'm not sure, but people would find a way.

2. Maybe we should remind ourselves here that when cinema was first invented people thought it was immoral, because you sat in the dark with strangers. They could steal your popcorn or stroke your hair in an over-familiar manner! Perish the thought! Of course, it's natural for the advent of any new technology to send a ripple of mass hysteria through the ranks, but you'd think by now we would have learned.

3. The benefits far outweigh the damage. As someone on Twitter succinctly put it (I can't remember who or I'd credit them), there were riots before social media. But there weren't clean-up operations organised so quickly, and reaching so far. Watching everyone march out across the internet, in such British fashion, brooms in hand, going "RIGHT, let's tidy this bugger, collect clothes for the newly-homeless, then have a cup of tea" was about as heartwarming as it gets. 

4. For every person who facilitated their rioting through social media, there would have been umpteen more who successfully avoided straying into the path of riots – because of social media. While the incessant Twitter scaremongering was admittedly, a pain ("I heard a siren in Tufnell Park! A SIREN!"), there were plenty more genuinely useful tip-offs and reassurances. Even just for the purpose of telling your entire acquaintance that you're fine, all at once, rather than fending hourly worried phone calls from the south coast, social media earned its keep.

In which the female psyche isn't a piece of cake

I, like several million others of my gender, went to see Bridesmaids last month. We were driven there not by our second X chromosome bleating "Wedding! Weddings! Flowers and dresses!" like a child in a sweetie aisle,  but by the critics' promises that it was a female answer to all the bromance comedies of the past few years. According to the reviews it had hilarious female leads, being funny with no help from men, looking like normal human ladies rather than shiny model-bots and ridiculing the whole elaborate hoopla of the modern wedding. All this was true. It is a great film.

But while Bridesmaids did its best to deftly sidestep every girl-film cliche, it still landed face first in one. If my Twitter feed is anything to go by, I was just one of many people going "great film - but WHY the bloody cupcakes?" Central character Annie is on a downward spiral after her bakery has gone out of business. She seeks solace in decorating a solo cupcake, then refuses to bake anymore because she is sad, then finally does bake a cake when charming love interest Officer Rhodes encourages her to.

Over the last decade, a funny thing has happened to cake. It has gone from an innocent teatime treat, a lovely cosy thing produced in Grandmother's kitchens and Mr Kipling's garage, that you're allowed to eat as a morning or afternoon snack and publicly sink your face into on your birthday, to something wholly more loaded.

Cake, and specifically cupcakes, became first fashion accessories ("they're so cute! The edible glitter matches my earrings!" etc), then status food ("Oh, Hummingbird? Mine is Magnolia Bakery - I had it shipped specially"), then, suddenly, a heavily-frosted projection of all female emotion. I could blame Sex and the City, but that would be lazy. Whatever the reason, cake is now intertwined inexplicably with our gender. I have a uterus, therefore I am a cupcake obsessive.

I'm not sure precisely when starting a cupcake shop became the Plan B career for women, but it seems it has. Every market and food festival I go to (which as a food journalist and more generally a glutton, is a lot) is full of pretty, bunting-bedecked cupcake stalls. Each one believes it is breaking brand new culinary ground ("Ours are vegan!" "Ours have photos of babies on them!") and each one has an air of business doom about them, mingling in with the smell of buttercream.


And the really shit thing in all of this is that I love cake. I adore it. It is probably my favourite food. Visits to Parklife Bakery are one of the highlights of my Worthing visits. I consider my friend Hannah's photographic cake diary one of the most stirring artistic collections of recent years.

But now, 'I love cupcakes' doesn't sound like 'I love potatoes' or 'I love bacon' or 'I love Reece's peanut butter cups mashed onto digestive biscuits.' It sounds like 'I love cupcakes, and also Disney films, and Cosmo quizzes and pedicures and the gender pay gap.'

So while Bridesmaids got a lot of things right, it got at least one thing wrong. Women are not genetically programmed to want to run a little bakery and make sugarcraft flowers all day. We enjoy cake because we are human, and cake is delicious - and we're more than happy to cut the blokes a slice.

A small one.

And now, the final frame

I found out Amy Winehouse had died after reading a text from my mother, in a pub toilet on Saturday afternoon. "Was she 27?" was the first thing I said. And she was.

I'm not going to attempt a real obit, or a treatise on the tragedy of her death. You'll have your own feelings on that, and anyway with nothing harder than a Nutella habit under my belt, I'm about as qualified to wax lyrical on the subject of addiction as Ashley Cole is on marital commitment. But I'm going to say something, if only to silence the harping adolescents on my brother's Facebook page claiming she doesn't merit comparison to Jim Morrison, Jimi Hendrix or any of the other fateful '27 club' members.

Reasons Amy Winehouse will be remembered - by me.

She was a London landmark.

In my first year of uni, just as Amy was getting big (and her hair bigger), glimpses of that famous beehive were a standard feature in Camden pubs - like sticky floors, seatless toilets and the tramp who looks like Brian Blessed. In an area full of vivid characters, even if she hadn't been getting famous, she still cut a dash. Holding court over the pool table, bantering with the bar staff, even out of earshot you could usually tell she was being hilarious. To a wet-behind-the-ears suburban 18 year old, she represented everything alluring about moving to the city.


She stole my friend's pub stool once. We didn't say anything, just let her have it. She definitely could have taken us in a fight.

She was an alternative version of womanhood.

Much has been written about Amy's style - her skill in taking retro references and making them utterly fresh, her knowing way with accessories and her artful way of dressing up and down simultaneously, always with ease. But to me the true brilliance of her appearance was that she was totally sexy, without ever really playing to a male audience. She never danced in her pants, the way every other popstress seems to think she has to. Her cartoonish, exaggerated aesthetic was an antidote to all the flawless grooming alongside her in the charts.

And while it was painfully sad to watch her once voluptuous form whittle away to nothing, with her bodily insecurities broadcast so publicly she still remained an icon for the imperfect girl. Inspiration for every gap-toothed, knock-kneed, grubby-around-the-edges girl to crayon on some eyeliner and feel hot.

She wrote ruddy good songs.

Looking back now it's funny to remember that when Amy first emerged she was lumped into the 'nu jazz' scene with Katie Melua and Jamie Cullum. It became obvious pretty soon that she was too much of an old soul, with an old voice, to be properly new – and basically not moronic enough to be 'nu'.

She was rude, but our Mums liked her. She was British - screechingly, swearily so - but America clasped her to its ample bosom.

Everyone will talk about the way her music was filled with pain, proper, straight-from-the-heart pain, but for me the best thing is that it's filled with so much more – it is uplifting music, raunchy music, party music, if you want it to be. It never demands you weep into a pillow. You can get up and dance.

In which it's nice to be nice

In Sunday's final of The Apprentice, one golden message shone through. The nice guy actually won. It was a particularly glorious victory for Tom, as earlier in the show his inherent niceness had been highlighted as his biggest flaw. "You're a really nice guy, aren't you?" said Matthew Riley. "My wife is probably one of the nicest people you would ever meet, but would I go into business with her? Not on your nelly." Aside from the warm glow his wife has no doubt carried around with her ever since, it was a loaded statement.

WHY can't nice people succeed in business? At what point in life does niceness suddenly go from being the goal ('Do unto others,' 'don't kick little Timmy in the groin,' etc) to a massive obstacle that will keep us out of the shiniest offices and off the top of the pay ladder?

After all, it's nice to be nice. The clue's in the name. It's why nice biscuits and Nice in France and the National Institute for Clinical Excellence are all named after the concept. So when, and why, did niceness' stock plummet so badly? I believe we can blame the following:

Grease

It is a sad moment in one's advancing adulthood, the first moment you realise that Grease is morally corrupt. For years you are caught up in the sexy, fluffy, retro faux-adolescence of it all, and then as the darkening clouds of conscience move in overhead, one day you suddenly realise that the message is: if someone doesn't like you for who you are, you should change. Take up smoking, backcomb your hair to dangerous extremes and sew yourself into some gynaecologically threatening trousers. Then dance. Dance fool, dance.

Grease is the ultimate piece of anti-nice propaganda. Yes, it is also pro-fun and pro-singing in public, but that doesn't excuse its dubious conclusion. Grease 2 does exactly the same, it is worth noting, but with a boy instead, who must jump a motorcycle across a ravine before he can snog Michelle Pfeiffer.

Mr Nice

Howard Marks, aka Mr Nice, was a notorious Welsh drug smuggler with connections to the mafia. He wasn't literally Mr Nice, in the same way that Miss England is rarely the embodiment of all that is great about England. Remember the way Curly in Coronation Street actually had very straight hair? It's like that.

"He's too nice"

Popular culture likes to perpetuate the myth that women aren't attracted to nice men. This is sometimes true - if the nice man is also unattractive, has an odious personality or particularly pungent odour. We can also, it is fair to admit, be attracted to complete bastards. But mostly if the bastard is also handsome of face, charming of personality and smells like croissants mixed with fresh laundry. If, however, the man combines favourable appearance, personality and fragrance with being an utterly lovely human, they have basically won the lady lottery. This, I promise, is true.

Nice, boring people

Sadly, niceness and dullness do have a tendency to get confused. Ask yourself this: do I hear the teacher from Peanuts every time they talk? Have they never, in the five years I have known them, ever made me laugh? Do I sometimes forget what they look like and just see a hazy pink balloon where their face should be? If so, they are probably boring. They might also be nice, but one has little to do with the other.

But now, hopefully, nice is on the up again. We can all say 'oops-a-daisy', give lovely hugs and never push in front of anyone in a queue, ever, without fear that it will hamper our careers.

And that will be, well, nice.

In which it's been a hair-raising week

Things I have learned this week:

1) Good hair does not equal good judgement.

If you were watching the phone-hacking scandal unfold purely in picture form, you might be forgiven for thinking Rebekah Brooks was the wronged party. That is because she has the wild, flowing auburn tresses of a pre-Raphaelite goddess. It is simply such Good Hair. It is hair that wants to lie in a meadow like a Flake advert, not cower in a taxi above a face of thunder, in front of a nation's angry media. Like the follicle form of the hypnotic snake in A Jungle Book, a mere swish and we're rendered slack-jawed and confused. As my friend Hannah put it, "I wish she'd show a bit of respect and put it in a bloody ponytail, just to help us keep focus." From this we have had to learn: good hair does not a good person necessarily maketh.

Exhibit B: Cheryl Cole. A woman whose hair, not so long ago, had the nation's collected womenfolk sighing as though over a nest of cupcake-eating kittens. Before it recently, as so many national treasures do, went too far and entered the realms of needing planning permission, Cole's hair was the eighth wonder of the world. It was like a millionaire shortbread woven into locks - creamy, sheeny and caramelly with the tiniest hint of crunch. But following the news that she has moved back in with philandering husband, we must conclude that all that lustrous head foliage can only be compressing the part of her brain responsible for thinking, "hang on, maybe he is not a nice man." 

2) I am very lucky

I am very lucky, to work for a company whose politics and moral code I agree with. Not every journalist has this luxury. For it is one thing to be hacking into the phones of a dead girl, and quite another to be innocently writing about shoes on the magazine that comes with the paper where people are hacking the phone of a dead girl. In an ideal world, journalism jobs would be so plentiful that everyone could pick and choose their company according to a strict code of values, like eHarmony. But for now we should have a little sympathy for the hundreds of newly unemployed hacks who never hacked anything.

3) Rupert Murdoch looks a lot like Professor Farnsworth from Futurama. It took me about five days to put my finger on it.

4) People have absolutely no tolerance of people who spell their names in unusual ways

When the News International excrement storm really got rolling, those wanting something quick and cutting to contribute to the debate largely went for: 'yeah, and she spells her name like a dick.' I kept schtum on pointing out that Rebekah is actually the biblical version, and thus not really dickish but sort of holy (I suspect that were she called Moses and turning water into endless piles of free Krispy Kreme, people's feelings would still lean towards the lynching sort).

Then there's little Harper Seven Beckham, a name spelled so wrong they've accidentally slipped  number in instead. Right now she's probably still getting acquainted with her own limbs in their cashmere babygro, but I hope one day she realises just how much joy she has brought to every wannabe wit on Twitter. Thank you, Beckhams. Monday would have been terribly boring in cyberspace if you'd just called her Emily.

And if your next is called Soda Serenity Now Beckham, I stand to make fifty quid.

In which there's a mouse loose aboot this hoose

We have a mouse in the house. Apart from alliteration, there is nothing pleasing whatsoever about this statement. And anyway, we live in a flat. Which doesn't rhyme.

I know, before you call come tutting at me with your stoicism and your courage, that having mice is just an inevitable part of living in London. Everyone has mice, irrespective of wealth or hygiene standards. The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge probably have mice in their apartment at Clarence House. I bet Kate stands on a chair in her nightie shrieking "Kill the bastard! Whack it like a polo ball!" while William wields a broom.

Indeed, we had mice before - but that was last year, in the infamous Highgate House, the flat that saw seventeen different flatmates, countless unsanitary parties and several major structural incidents* in three years I was resident. That flat had mice by default. It was Club Tropicana for rodents.

But not New Flat! New Flat, with its lovely airy whiteness and clean kitchen and fetching antique end tables, we thought was a haven of calm. There are no plates of festering pizza crusts stacked in bedrooms, like there were in the old house. We have handwash, and fresh flowers. We've got Cath Kidston oven gloves, for frick's sake.

So when Tara starts screaming on the landing on Monday night because a mouse has run out of her laundry, I barricade myself in my bedroom and start to cry. Not because I'm scared of mice - though I am, pant-wettingly scared - but because now I will never be able to properly relax in my lovely home. I will constantly be watching out the corner of my eye, jumping at little noises and inspecting all my food for tiny bite marks.

Thinking he may have crawled into out big walk-in cupboard, we barricade the gaps under the bottoms of the doors with a towel. Because obviously, no mouse could possibly defeat a towel.

We decide to name the mouse Arnold, because as Dumbledore says, fear of a name only increases fear of the thing itself. Perhaps if we give him a personality, Arnold and us can co-habit comfortably, respectful of each others' space and domestic rights. Particularly, and this is a point I would beg Arnold to pay heed to, my right to sleep at night without a rodent crawling into my hair.

After two days of nervy living, however, of crowing, "helloooo, Arnold, I'm walking into the kitchen now…" before entering, to give him time to make a discreet exit, we change our minds. We look for traps. But everywhere only seems to sell humane traps. We want inhumane. We want dead.

"It was fluffy," Tara recalls. "Sort of cute, and… fluffy." Supressing all worry that we might be butchering a local kid's hamster, we finally find proper, old-fashioned mouse traps. I bait them with peanut butter. Crunchy, not smooth - mice would prefer crunchy, I am convinced.

And then, we wait.

*Well, someone ripped the bannisters off.

In which I enter the Bronze Age

I bought some fake tan at the weekend. It was the stuff that masquerades as moisturiser, not the hardcore slap-it-on-with-gloves-and-protective-goggles stuff, but still. Possibly that makes it worse.

I'm still tearing myself apart slightly for the purchase, because I have long been a conscientious fake tan objector. I've been known to carry a placard through Basildon, chanting. My objection to fake tan is threefold:

1. The smell. It seems bizarrely backward that in a world of such advanced technological developments as ours, they can't make a product that turns you a few shades of tangerine darker without reeking out half the top deck of the 134 bus. But then perhaps it goes to prove my long-held belief that the Laboratoire Garnier is not in fact a laboratory, but just an enormous shiny factory full of monkeys pouring goop into bottles while an executive brays "And they'll pay £12.99 for this crap! Audrey, find me an island on eBay." 
 
The most popular school of thought says that fake tan smells of biscuits. But that isn't quite it. Biscuits, after all, smell pretty darn tasty. It's something else, something more specific and less appealing. And I know what it is. After many years of analysing the scent emitting from mahogany-stained ladies on bus journeys, in nightclub toilet queues and the like, I have pinpointed the exact smell. It is: the dried-on milk left in the bottom of a bowl of Crunchy Nut Cornflakes, after it's sat in your bedroom for two days.

Biscuity, yes, but also slightly sour and musty. Since the days Egyptian ladies in waiting would hold their noses as Cleopatra wafted down the corridor after a Nesquik bath, womankind has known deep down that it didn't want to smell of milky cereal. Now if only someone would tell cosmetics companies the same thing.

2. Part of the pro-fake tan theory goes, if we fake it then we won't be tempted to sit out in the real sun, leathering our future complexions and cultivating cancerous moles. This is a good theory. It is true. But sadly, the flipside of the issue is that fake tan merely reinforces the belief that to be attractive, we must be satsuma-tinted. And while we all believe that tan is glam, pale is wail, etc, people will still be tempted to sit out in the real sun and do themselves all that damage.

The only way to counter the idea, perhaps, is for them to start making fake-pale creams so that honey-toned girls can look a little pastier. I'm going out tonight; I must go for a spray-pale first," they'll say. "I want to look proper peaky. With a few blue veins, if you can." Then gradually, we might learn to accept the skin tone we were born with as opposed to the one Donatella Versace thinks we're supposed to have.

3. The effort. To tan up before every flesh-bearing occasion, or even daily as a matter of habit, is just adding to the already tremendous list of preenings that is expected of us. In the time it takes to effectively bronze each inch of exposed skin, we could have made a souffle, sorted the recycling or finally unblocked the sink. Not to mention the domestic drudgery saved in not having to wash orange-streaked sheets twice a week.

So in short, fake tan makes us smell of cornflakey milk, robs us of time we could be using to make, then eat, souffle, and reinforces the belief that only sun-wizened skin is hot. But I still bought some. And I must say, my treacherous legs seem to be enjoying it.

In which I camp. The kind with tents.

"Am I hearing correctly?" said a text from my Dad a couple of weeks ago. "YOU want a TENT?"

It was a surprising, but perhaps not inevitable occurrence, that I would one day want to go camping. For all my attachment to hot running water, electrical appliances and garments made of chiffon, there is also the collected effects of a childhood spent reading books about boarding schools and pony treks to combat them. For every voice in my head reminding me how much I enjoy television and dry underwear, there's another shrieking "Let's play sardines in a wood then eat ginger cake under a tarpaulin in the rain - it will be RIPPING FUN."

So when we set off for the campsite in West Hoathly (that's somewhere near East Grinstead), I am feeling prepared. I have wellies (borrowed), a tent (borrowed) a sleeping bag (stolen) and a waterproof parka with a hood (salvaged from my brief 17-year-old period as a mod). Boyfriend has vetoed my desire to bring a pillow, and also forgotten to pack himself a towel.

"You won't need a towel," he says. "We're not going to shower."

"That's not the point," bleats the Hitchhiker's Guide in my head. "I will almost certainly be glad of a towel." In the end, I do not wrap it around myself for warmth as I bound across the cold moons of Jaglan Beta, but I do roll it up in the place of my absent pillow.

Pitching a tent in the pouring rain, it turns out, is one of those activities that is equally as hilarious in memory as it is un-hilarious at the time. A bit like burning your kitchen down, or breaking a minor limb. Buoyed only by the promise of fish and chips at the end and the vague notion that rain might be an exfoliant, we battle torrential conditions to claim and furnish our corner of field. A family with hardcore, hurricane-resistant style tents and a roaring fire look on, pity in their eyes.

But on the plus side, the fish and chip shop has pineapple fritters! Never underestimate the ability of deep-fried fruit to soothe the soul.

Twenty hours later, we have sung a rousing midnight chorus of Bohemian Rhapsody, slept on a bit of lumpy ground, flicked a slug off the outside of our tent from the inside (satisfying), weed in the woods (also satisfying), played a full two innings of cricket in intermittent rain showers, argued over the merits of chocolate-filled pre-packaged croissants, driven to a pub, driven back from the pub, gone on a three mile hike in the woods, got very, very lost, ended up in Ardingly, and been forced to take a taxi back to the campsite.

I am wearing damp socks, damp jeans, a damp top, with a damp jumper, and a damp coat, and a slightly damp soul. But (potentially inspired by my formative local reporter experience on this paper), my spirit is not dampened. Boyfriend has built a fire, which is obviously awakening some Early Man pride within him. I have smuggled a fire-baked potato into my sleeping bag for warmth.

Another twelve hours or so on, and we have driven through a couple of villages, then back through the same villages, then through them again, and then into something looking suspiciously like a town. Every limb aches. There is an M&S Simply Food on the horizon! Civilisation beckons. I buy an overpriced jelly and eat it in three lavish gulps.

It was though, on balance, dampness accepted, RIPPING FUN.

I which The Only Way Isn't Worthing

I've just had a very interesting taxi journey, from my parents' house to Worthing station. It went like this:

Driver: "So where are you going?"

Me: "London."

London

Driver: "Why?"

Me. "I live there."

Driver: "Uggh. Why?"

Me. "Um. It's nice?"

Driver: "It's a shithole."

Me: "Oh. Wow. Ok. The WHOLE of London is a shithole?"

Driver: Yes. They need to brick over the whole place and fill it with water."

Me, blinking: "You want to turn our capital city into… a massive pond?"

Driver: "It's a shithole. Why would you live there?"

Me: "The culture? The people? All the, um, STUFF?"

Driver: "Pffffft"

Me: "To get away from people like you?"

Silence.

Me: "I don't think you've been to the right bits, mate."

Driver: "The whole place is a shithole."

Me, in a tiny voice: "You do know that the Queen lives there, right?"

Driver, tapping meter which reads £3.20: "In London, THAT would say twenty quid."

Me: "True. But I wouldn't be in a cab in London. I'd be on a night bus, chatting to a nice wino."

The exchange continued in this fashion until we reached the station, at which point Mr Awful Taxi Driver did not receive a tip.

Worthing

The whole thing got me thinking. We all know I would never speak ill of Worthing (well I would and frequently do, but for the purposes of this article we'll pretend otherwise). It produced my father, housed my grandparents and bred me for a happy decade. It taught me what a 'twitten' is, and how to most effectively play 2p machines. It gave me a hefty two-year crush on Preston from The Ordinary Boys. It helped me appreciate beaches, both with and without sand, more than your average inlander.

But even for the sake of giving Mr Awful Taxi Driver the benefit of the doubt, it's pretty hard to pretend that the town has ever equalled London in terms of culture, interesting people, or nice things to do, eat, see, smell, wear, watch and be (it has better fish and chips, I'll give it that). In fact I've always privately thought that an Essex-style spin on my hometown would have to be called Worthing Is One Of Many Ways - Consider All Options First. It's a great place to grown up, because it inspires you to get out and go somewhere better. My friend the Awful Taxi Driver, it seems would disagree.

"So, you think Worthing isn't a shithole?" I innocently asked him. "It wasn't, but now there's too many of your London types here too," he snarled. "Really?" I said, looking around hopefully for someone with a Whole Foods bag and a Blackberry that I could run towards with my arms open, shrieking "Embrace me, kindred spirit!! Let's compare Oyster cards!".  Alas, none to be found.

My theory on the reason suburban people think they hate London, aside from the obvious excessive Mail/Express reading and general belief that every stranger's just a mugger you haven't met, is that they're thinking of the bits they go to as a tourist. King's Cross. Leicester Square. Oxford Street. Places that ooze with a sort of pungent pedestrian soup. But here's the secret that my angry friend might want to know - nobody LIVES in those places. And when we venture into them, Londoners hate them more than you do. It's the equivalent of someone coming to Worthing, spending an hour at Teville Gate, then going back and telling all their friends it's a shithole.

And you wouldn't like that, now would you?

In which the salad days are over

It's been a bad fortnight for vegetables. They've gone from the friendly, healthgiving, albeit slightly goodie-goodie friends in our fridge to secret killers. Children and salad-dodgers are rejoicing as they're proved right, while every persuasive aeroplane-fork that ever was has hit another obstacle on its journey to oesophagus central. Veg is the new chips, doughnuts and turkey twizzlers. 

I ought to say now that I am writing this on Monday, and you are reading it any time after Thursday. You might be reading this in 2025 after finding it in an attic, in which case I apologise for the hair in my byline. Either way, the point is that you are in the future and I am in the past, and by Thursday you may well know what has caused the E.coli outbreak. From where I'm sitting, all we know is: it isn't cucumbers, and it probably isn't bean sprouts.

Is anybody else disappointed that it isn't bean sprouts? I think I can do without bean sprouts. My stir fries would be slightly bereft of crunch, but that's basically the only blemish I can think of on an otherwise happily bean sprout-free life. And the benefits - virtual elimination of Gillian McKeith's legacy, never again being disappointed because you thought they were noodles but aren't - definitely outweigh it.


Sweet potatoes, now there we would have a problem. I adore sweet potatoes. They are as close to dessert as one can get while still technically eating a vegetable. It amazes me that more seven-year-olds haven't cottoned on to this fact. The clue's in the name, kids - though I should let you know now that the same can't be said of sugar snap peas.

Butternut squash and pumpkin can masquerade as pudding too, with the right culinary know-how (I find syrup usually does it). I'm also hoping it isn't turnips, because then childhood classic The Giant Turnip would suddenly take on a sinister air. In fact, if the perpetrator turns out to be any root vegetable at all then I think our gastronomic landscape will be all the poorer for it.

Carrots I could easily lose from their in-salads-and-stuff role, but never from their delicious-in-cakes cameo appearances. Likewise cauliflower, because no other veg lends itself quite so well to snuggling down under a blanket of cheese.

In all, I would like to express a wish now that the culprit be none of the following:

Peas - the vanilla of the veg world, basically impossible to dislike.
Beetroot - exciting despite negative effects on wee.
Aubergine - mm, purple.
Courgette - mm, green.
Leek - what would Wales do?
Mushroom - learning to like them is the official mark of adulthood.
Asparagus - ooh, posh.
Rocket - because I'd miss hearing people pronounce it 'rockay'
Sprouts - because actually liking them lends me some caché.
Tomato - quite obviously the King of Vegetables, despite all this 'actually a fruit' nonsense.

I realise this doesn't leave much room for manoeuvre, so I'm offering up a vegetable as sacrifice: green peppers.

Green peppers are conclusively rubbish. They are lesser versions of their red and yellow sisters, and they taste of grass. They are only used in bad student cooking and by people who don't know you can buy the yellow and red ones individually. I would happily send green peppers to Room 101 forever, if it meant people would stop getting ill and salad could keep its rep.

Keep your pecker up, veg.

In which the water temperature is just fine, thank you.

Those of you who follow this column might remember that I have recently, after an eight-year hiatus, rekindled my relationship with the great British hairdresser. After enduring another mildly nervewracking session in The Chair this afternoon, I have decided to try to capture in print exactly what is is that troubles me so much about the experience.


1) Trying to establish whether or not your hairdresser is a Talker. "They probably don't want to chat," you tell yourself. "They've had a long day, perhaps they'd like to be alone with their thoughts for an hour or two. Why should I bombard them with my blather? Why do we have to fake a friendship based entirely on serum and why my fringe flicks upward on some days and downward on others? Let's both just BE for a while."

Then after four silent minutes, the pressure gets to you. You remember all the cosy, women's mag articles you've read about a hairdresser being a girl's best friend, confidante, therapist and mother all in one, and you feel inadequate. Maybe they do want to chat, it's just that they've judged you unchattable-to. WHY can't you chat? You are a person, with thoughts, and things - why shouldn't you share them with this nice stranger? Particularly when the nice stranger is holding scissors menacingly close to your jugular.

So you grope desperately for something to say. You can't ask them about holidays, obviously, because that's a massive cliche and would probably offend them. "Just because I'm a hairdresser," they might reply, "it doesn't mean I spend all my time getting in a tizzy over package deals to Marbella. Talk to me about voting reform, or Proust, for God's sake."
 
"Um," you say. "It looks like it might rain."

2) The repeated enquiries about whether you're happy with the water temperature. Nobody in the history of hairdressing has ever had a problem with the water temperature, And if you did, the blistering skin or blue lips would tip them off without you having to say.

3) Staring at your own face in a mirror under fluorescent light for upwards of two hours while your hair is placed in unnatural parting arrangements, making one look like one's mother in her secondary school photo.

4) Needing the toilet but not being sure if you're 'allowed' to go with a head full of foils.

5) When they ask you how you like your hair blow-dried, and the only answer you can think to produce is "err.. until it's dry?"

6) When they ask you if you would like to purchase some of the products used on you today. Your mouth says "Ooh, not today but maybe next time" while your face says "wonder if they sell it in Savers?"

7) When the hairdresser asks you, smoothing your beautifully coiffed new do into a style that demands swishy exhibition, what you are doing that night. Because obviously, you must be going out tonight. You're a hip young thing, and you've just spent an eye watering sum on having somebody preen you. So telling the truth, that you're going to spend it on the sofa steadily eating your way through a packet of chocolate Hobnobs, feels like failing your hairdresser. They will look at you in the mirror with sad eyes and think "My art! For what?"

So lie. At least tell them you're going on a hen night, or something.

In which I work pretty hard to preserve my public image.

To be printed 26/05/11.

It's a Hobson's Choice, this super-injunction lark. Or Sophie's, depending on your mental back catalogue.

Thus far, what have we learned? We've learned: adultery = bad. Lying about adultery = really bad. Covering up adultery to save face under guise of protecting family = a whole heap of bad. But gossip-fuelled tabloids = also bad. And society feeding on misdeeds of people we've never met = a crock of bad. And freedom of speech via social media = (can be) a big ol' puddle of bad.

But never mind the fact that my lifelong crush on a certain footballer has been dashed under the weight of all this badness (I had a poster of a topless he-who-shall-not-be-named on my bedroom wall as a nine year old. My Dad thought it was inappropriate. In hindsight, it was) or that we'll never be able to look at Jemima Khan's lovely face without seeing an erroneous, gurning Clarkson. No, the reason it stings so much is because, being mere mortals without a special legal fund tucked away in the toilet tank,  we're left out of all the fun.

So in between gorging myself silly on the Daily Mail's Right-Hand Column of Doom, I've spent the last couple of days imagining what it would be like if normal people could have a go at super-injunctioning.

In reality, of course, it would be a gigantic, Owellian, humanity-defying mess. But in my head, it's actually a darned tempting idea. Rather than bought with the tainted riches of over-amorous footballers and politicians (I'm genuinely surprised nobody has yet tried to use 'I misloved' as a defence), we could give super-injunctions as special rewards to the deserving, like house points, to mop up any inoffensive but mildly embarrassing messiness in their past.

For a start, I'd have taken out more than a handful of super-injunctions against my friends. With a nifty little legal procedure I could have covered the tracks of high school humiliation that would be dished up in front of boyfriends, colleagues and family for years to come. I'd have super-injunctioned the time I swore that Tory was short for the Conservatory Party. I'd totally have gagged the time I ate a half-finished piece of cheesecake that I found abandoned on a ferry. I could wipe out everything I wore between 2002 and 2007 with a blanket photo ban.

I'd virtually erase the time I fell over on stage while playing the Angel Gabriel, aged 15. And I'd definitely have super-injunctioned myself for the time I texted "Don't tell anyone because I swore I'd keep it a secret, but Perpetua is pregnant", then accidentally sent it to Perpetua*. You get the idea.

Serious pondering and a quick straw poll of my most humiliating misdemeanours on Facebook has led me to compile the following list of deeds I'd super-injunction the hell out of. 

In no particular order: the time I ate an entire Tesco family trifle in one sitting; the time I lost a shoe under a train at West Worthing station and ended up on the train, school-bound and shoeless; the time I was sent home to change on the first day of my restaurant receptionist job because my dress was unsuitable; the time I thought I could see England from the top of the Eiffel Tower; the time I ate a fingerful of orange scum from the edge of a saucepan believing it was butternut squash; the time I was taken to A&E in the midst of an anxiety attack but still refused to wear flat shoes; the time I asked if Australians call summer 'winter' and vice versa; and the time I ate a piece of half-eaten cheesecake someone had abandoned in a bar. 

That's a different piece of cheesecake from the ferry cheesecake, by the way. One life, two abandoned cheesecakes devoured.

Of course, if my own bountiful list of gaffs is anything to go by, there's a danger it would turn into the sectioning scene in Peep Show - "If you super-injunction me, then so help me GOD I'll super-injunction you back!" etc. But at least nobody influential would ever have to hear about the time I was voted off the Weakest Link for not being able to subtract 26 from 33.

That really happened. Don't tell the tabloids, will you? 


*Names have been changed for entertainment purposes.

In which we should say 'no!' to the hobbling woman

To be printed 19/05/11.

If this column was a Year 9 English essay (and to be honest I'm finding increasingly heard to tell the difference), it would probably start with a sentence like, "The Oxford English Dictionary defines blank as 'blankety blank blank blank'. So that's how I'm going to start today. The Oxford English Dictionary defines shoes as "an external covering for the human foot, usually of leather and consisting of a more or less stiff or heavy sole and a lighter upper part ending a short distance above, at, or below the ankle."

You notice there is no reference to heels in this. Nor to blisters, back problems, adopting a funny, clown-like stilts hobble, or blood. There is no sub-point that lists them also as 'an object to be carried ostentatiously while the owner walks barefoot, usually into a kebab shop.'

I'm feeling particularly sensitive about this issue at the moment, because yesterday I witnessed the worst bunions I have ever seen in my life. It was on the tube, and I was entirely unprepared. They were in flip-flops, but even those they seemed to be bursting to escape from. The lady they belonged to (because they were attached to a pair of human feet, not just perched on a seat reading the Metro) seemed oblivious to my horror, but maybe she's just learned to block out the gawping by now. Her big toe was almost at a 90˚ angle to the rest of her foot. I tried to take a surreptitious photo on my phone, but decided it was just too mean. Plus, I couldn't work out how to turn off the camera noise.

As a result of this encounter, I'm experiencing a fresh wave of bafflement at the women's footwear industry. I, like so many women across this nation and the world, have practised a slavish and occasionally masochistic devotion to Good Shoes for all of my pre-teen, teen and adult life. One of the earliest articles I wrote for this paper, aged 15, was about wearing new shoes 'through the pain' until your feet, and supposedly your common sense, are numb enough to cope.

But for years now, a niggling thought has plagued me. The thought is this: why have women come so far in so many ways, yet still are expected to buy shoes that wound us? We have fought for centuries to prove our rationality and intelligence as equal to men, yet we blow it every Friday night by forcing our feet into podiatric chastity belts.

The thought pipes up every time I see a hobbling girl on a night out, clack-clacking over some uneven terrain with the splayed legs and helpless expression of a baby gazelle. It's every time I pick up a pair of gravity-defying wedges to feel my feet scream "NO! PUT THEM DOWN AND PICK UP SOMETHING WITH SOLE CUSHIONING". It's every time I see pictures of Victoria Beckham at the Royal Wedding. Because the truth VB needed to realised was that when she stepped out in her brutal six-inch Louboutins, nobody was thinking 'Mama looks FIERCE.' No, we were all thinking: pain, pain, pregnant bladder, more pain.

I'd like to say that we should all rise up, clutching our inch-and-a-half Clarks court shoes, and simply refuse to be The Hobbling Girl. We could call ourselves the Female League Against Torturous Shoes (or FLATS for short - literally, for short). But the truth is, I'm probably not going to swear off heels any time soon. I love the aesthetic of a (non-stripperish) heel too much. At least though, my encounter with Bunion Woman has reminded me that we have a choice. A choice, ladies! Crippling shoes do not an evening out defineth. And the Oxford English Dictionary would probably agree with me.

In which Dick Van Dyke was more convincing

You might not have sensed it, but a collective wave of disappointment and anguish ran through the country last week. I'm not talking about the elections. Or the the fact that they've made another series of Two Pints of Lager. I'm talking about the release of the trailer of the most hotly anticipated movie adaptations of the last few years - and what ho! They've butchered it.

It's a horrible thing, when Hollywood ruins a book you love. I'd only just recovered from the artless massacre that was Angus, Thongs and Perfect Snogging, a book that had more influence over my adolescence than Clearasil, magazine flowcharts and Davison's regulation PE knickers put together*. By moving the action into a mixed school, casting a vastly too attractive lead male and making one of the characters inexplicably Welsh, they ruined the magic. I was gutted.

But this time, it'll be more than just me and a handful of 14 year olds that are gutted. Because this time, it's One Day by David Nicholls. Y'know, that one with the orange cover. The one from the tube. And the bus and the train. That one. If you haven't read it, your Mum will have done. The book has sold over a million copies, which means a potential million people will be screaming themselves hoarse at a cinema screen come July.

For the uninitiated, here's the spoiler-free lowdown: Emma and Dexter meet as students and the book traces them over the two decades to come. Dexter is devilishly handsome in a louche, wouldn't-take-home-to-your-granny way, while Emma is EVERY WOMAN. She is pretty but in the most accessible of ways, with proper thighs and an unfortunate haircut. She is from Yorkshire. She has ruddy cheeks. She works in a Mexican restaurant for a large portion of the book. And who fits the description of the chubby, chippy, slightly unkempt Northern girl better than… you've guessed it… Anne Hathaway!

Yes, she of the lily-limbed, angel-faced yank charm. Of COURSE. I mean, she played Jane Austen once. That basically makes her British, doesn't it? And to be fair, where uglying up for a part is concerned, Anne has a resume to rival none - except perhaps Zellweger. Remember The Princess Diaries, where they frizzed her hair out so you didn't know she was pretty? Then there was The Devil Wears Prada, where a shapeless sweater effectively compensated for the couple of stone she didn't bother gaining for the role.

Of course, we've been prepared for months. I've lamented the casting decision, read interviews with Nicholls weakly defending the casting decision ("She's a bit brighter than the Emma in the book"), and lamented it some more. But none of this stopped me wailing at my desk when the trailer made its first appearance online last week. 

So let me say it now - Dear Film People. It isn't hard. Just do what it says in the book. Ok there are time constraints, and some things don't translate well on screen, yada yada. But basically, for the most part, just do what it says in the book.

It works like this: if the book says a character has brown hair, fat arms and a limp, you give them brown hair, fat arms and a limp. The fans go 'yay!', spend lots of money on cinema tickets, dvds and merchandise, and everyone can be happy.

For now, I've got a couple of months to re-read One Day, eek the last droplets of joy from its Hathaway-less pages, and hope. Hope that maybe, if we're lucky, it might be another Bridget Jones. Good luck with your 'ee by gum's, Anne.



*In fact, we maintain to this day that the book was actually supposed to be set in a fictional Davison CE High School for Girls, such was its insight into the friendship-rich, romance-poor world of the teen girl geek.

In which it turns out we're just massive flag-wavers

To be printed 05/05/11.

5.15am. Alarm goes. Snooze.

5.20am. Alarm goes again. Grunt. “This is truly horrible,” I say to Jo, who is not only in my bed but has stolen all of the covers. We get up.

5.30am. Since last night, we have been playing ‘What is Kate Middleton Doing Now?’ The answer has mostly been, ‘probably on the toilet.’

5.40am. I have compiled a last-minute wedding playlist, consisting of White Wedding by Billy Idol, Chapel of Love by the Dixie Cups and I’m Getting Married in the Morning, sung by Tommy Steele. Rose has put her Union Jack socks on.

5.50am. What is Kate Middleton Doing Now? “Groaning quietly while her Mum says ‘Eat a croissant! You’ll feel better! Eat a croissant!’”

6am. We have left.

7am. We are here. Picnic spot located, blankets spread, thermos out, flags acquired.

7.10am. Successful portaloo trip! There was a clean seat, ample loo roll, even hand sanitiser. Am beginning to realise that I may be better suited to massive state occasions than to music festivals. 

7.20am. Tara is unpacking the cheeseboard. They are all British cheeses, naturally. The BBC preamble is in full swing on the giant screens. “I’m surprised Fearne Cotton isn’t on this,” I say.

7.55am. I have just tried to bribe our way onto Japanese TV by offering the cameraman some homemade caramelised onion and feta tart. I was an unashamed tart-tart. It didn’t work.

8.05am. Fearne Cotton has appeared.

8.45am. The sun has made a fleeting appearance! There is blue sky, but not enough to make a pair of sailor’s trousers from. After an extensive assessment of our neighbours we’ve concluded that we definitely have the best picnic here. Nobody else has elderflower cordial, Pimm’s in a plastic Coke bottle and THREE varieties of chocolate chip brioche.

9am. A car is on the screen! A car! A posh, empty car!

9.05am. What is Kate Middleton Doing Now? “Puking.”

9.10am. More sun! Still not enough sky for sailor’s trousers but maybe a fetching gilet. Relentless sun spotting is beginning to make it feel like a Bravo family holiday.

9.15am. The Beckhams! It’s only the bloody Beckhams!

9.25am. “Rowan Williams looks like he has a laboratory under his house,” says Jo.

9.45am. Gleeful anticipation as Matt Baker is allowed to interview David Cameron again. But all on best behaviour, it would seem. Shame.

9.50am. BORIS ALERT.

9.55am. JOHN MAJOR ALERT.

9.56am. John Major alert downgraded to ‘John Major incident’.

10am. The meat is out – scotch eggs, chicken legs, sausages, made by Jo’s heroic Mum, who was up at FOUR to travel from Worthing. What is Kate Middleton Doing Now? “Having a sneaky watch of it all on the telly.”

10.05am. One of our elbows has just been on the BBC. I hope my Granny was watching.

10.10am. William and Harry have made their appearance. Rose is already crying.

10.15am. We have just yelled at a woman for standing up and blocking everyone’s view. “NO LOITERING!” we bellowed. How very British.

10.20am. William and Harry have gone off to ‘a quiet place’ in the Abbey to ‘have a chat’. We suspect they may be deciding to re-enact the last episode of Peep Show, Season 4.

10.26am. Princess Beatrice appears to have come dressed as a lobster. I am waving a flag. I never thought of myself as a flag-waver before, but it seems I am. I am waving my flag like no flag has ever been waved before.

10.30am. What Is Kate Middleton Doing Now? “Flapping her hands in front of her face, while Pippa shouts ‘STOP IT, YOU’RE GOING SHIINY.’”

10.45am. (To the tune of Guys and Dolls) And the people all said, ‘sit down! Sit down you’re blocking the queen! The people all said sit down! Sit down you’re blocking the Queen.’ Etc

10.50am. The bride! The beautiful bride is getting in her car! A collective ovary-swoon ripples across Hyde Park, Britain and The World. Rose cries some more.

10.51am. The sun has come out properly! “Can the Queen pay it to do that?”

10.59am. What is Kate Middleton Doing Now? “Shitting it.”

11am. Showtime.

In which I go upside-down

Printed 28/04/11.

It's nice to discover, at the ripe old age of 23, that I can be a theme park person.

I'd always assumed otherwise. I don't wear practical shoes, I have hair at the floofy end of the scale, and I would sooner staple my eyelids together than be anywhere near anyone who might vomit. The words 'scream if you want to go faster' usually inspire in me only a steadfast desire to stay mute and still (though this no doubt can be blamed as much on Geri Halliwell as any formative incidents at Alton Towers).

So it was after neatly sidestepping all of the above that we found ourselves at Flamingo Land, Yorkshire's premier amusement park that is named after a pink bird. I was promised flamingos, Boyfriend was promised multiple adrenaline highs and the opportunity to take his top off in public.

What Boyfriend didn't realise was that taking someone who hadn't been to a theme park since they were 12, to a theme park, was essentially tantamount to taking a 12-year-old to a theme park.

"Is there a Professor Burp's Bubbleworks?"

"No."

"Will I have to go upside down?"

"Yes."

"Can I buy some pointless tat in the gift shop?"

"If you must."

Matters weren't helped when the operator of our first ride decided to make a racist comment about some other visitors, just before we got on. So alongside general fear, safety concerns and the overall 'rickety charm' look that most of the Flamingo Land rides seem to be going for, I also had, "and a racist is pushing the buttons!" bleating round in my head.

A massive racist! Does that make it less safe? Could the screw loose in his head somehow also make a screw come loose on the tracks? What sort of establishment is this? Do they have a sexist on the ticket booth? A homophobe selling ice creams?

But then all moral indignancy gets pushed out of my head, because it is being hurtled around at eighty million miles an hour on a mock-motorbike. Another fleeting moment of concern arises when, on the log flume, three men have to come out to physically haul the wagon onto the 90º incline (is this a quirky part of the rustic safari-style concept? Nope, the thing just hasn't been serviced since the 70s…) but by this point I have seen a rhino and had a Twister lolly. I am content.

Four more rollercoasters, a drippy fajita and a quid's worth of giddy fun on a 2p machine later, I have also had an epiphany, and begun to understand the appeal of the theme park. It is a place where we celebrate life. We have our appreciation of life tested by entrance fees that could buy a small bungalow in Aberystwyth, hours of dehydrated queuing and regular performances of the World's Worst Parenting by bands of travelling, Stella-touting jesters. It is shaken to its core by repeatedly being asked if you want to buy a photo of yourself with a face that can only be described as 'constipated wind tunnel terror pout'.

But then, THEN, you allow yourself to be flung about like a human ragdoll for thirty seconds believing all the time that you actually might die, and you realise two things: 1) Going upside down is completely awesome, and 2) Life back on the ground is worth hanging on to.

In short, I left with a lot more than promised – I had a new-found respect for the human condition.

I didn't, however, see any flamingos.