In which it ain't over till it's Overs

For every generation there’s a marker that officially means you are getting old. Not old-old, but… established. Seasoned. The moment you realise certain avenues are probably now closed off to you forever.

Traditionally it was when the policeman started looking young; my mother claims for her it was Blue Peter presenters. In the Middle Ages it was probably the man who pulled the corpse cart. I, meanwhile, have just realised that if I were to enter the next series of The X Factor, I would be in the ‘Over 25’ category.

I hadn’t planned on entering the next series of X Factor, obviously, but now all I can think about is how, if a freak accident left me with a miraculous or at least passable singing voice and completely removed the part of my brain that feels shame, I’d be doing it alongside the olds and the weirdoes.

I would be a Steve Brookstein. A Christopher Maloney. They’d put me in a jazzy blazer and make me sway on a podium while the young’uns did cartwheels in hotpants. I wouldn’t even get the regional vote - we’re not like Ireland or Newcastle; nobody from Sussex has ever voted for someone on the strength of them also being from Sussex.

Of course, anywhere outside of X Factor, professional football, baby ballroom and the Daily Mail’s acceptable “phwoar” limit, over 25 is not old at all. It’s sprightly. I still only use the second cheapest Boots under-eye cream. But in the bizzaro world of commercial pop (a world where Robin Thicke is allowed to put on Misogyny: The Musical for three minutes of family entertainment, it’s worth noting), I am now basically Methuselah.

My best friend turned 26 this week - and so we did some friendship maths.

“We’ve been friends for 18 years.”

“No we haven’t, you didn’t like me in middle school.”

“Ok, we’ve known each other for 18 years.”

“18 years!”

“Our acquaintanceship covers three decades. When we met, John Major was still Prime Minister.”

“Our acquaintanceship is old enough to vote!”

“We could have an adult child by now! No… no wait, that doesn’t work.”

However you look at it, it’s a long time. Together we have been through four stages of education, three different cities, many jobs, many flats and at least eight dubious haircuts.

It’s comforting to know, then, that if I do find myself in a freak voice-enhancing, shame-deadening accident and want to go on X Factor, I could just take her with me and enter in the groups category instead. 

"Murjsdjahsgj", she wrote

One of the biggest regrets of my adult life so far is that I still don’t have a proper signature.

Signatures, as everyone who ever spent hours practicing theirs in the back of a biology textbook knows, are one of the defining markers of grown-updom. They should be an instinctive flourish, blossoming naturally from your pen like a natural extension of your personality, as you write a cheque for your brand new jet ski/fax machine/horse.

“Look at me,” a good signature says, “I am a person of substance and understated panache. Look at me flow, like quality port from a crystal decanter.”

But mine doesn’t flow - not even like lukewarm WKD from a mug. It’s stilted and awkward and always gets stuck around the B. Even worse, it has a weird bit at the end that was once a star (oh, the shame) but has now turned into a pointless loopy thing.

I could stop doing the pointless loopy thing, but then my signature would just be “Lauren Bravo”, in boring round letters, not even joined up. And besides, it’s on all my important contracts and bank accounts, so it’s pretty much set in stone now. If I wanted to change it I’d probably have to apply to a bureau or something, and be fined for operating a pen without due care or attention.

Of course, the wider issue here is that handwriting itself, like writing cheques for jet skis/fax machines/horses, is quickly becoming an anachronism. It’s just another thing the Millennial generation are losing, along with our dignity, our muscle definition and our chances of buying a house without eBaying a kidney first.

There are people among my close acquaintance whose handwriting I’ve never even seen - which is unnerving, because it means I can’t do one of those ‘What Does Your Handwriting Say About You?’ features from Jackie magazine to find out if they’re secretly a lunatic.

These days I write by hand so rarely that when I do it comes out all funny, like the first day back after the holidays. All those years of defiance in primary school, fashioning little balloons above my ‘i’s and doing contraband things with the tails on my ‘g’s, just went to waste; while my 98 year old Auntie Elsie still has the immaculate penmanship of a royal scribe, mine looks like it has been danced onto the page by a muddy pigeon.

And so it is reserved only for birthday cards, angry notes and any congratulatory sentiment that can’t just be sent as a lovely warm text message. Maybe at some point handwriting will be a quaint retro hobby, like people who learn jive dancing or crochet doilies.

I’d start a petition for the protection of handwriting, but then I’d have to sign it.

In which love is a hot lasagne

My boyfriend and I have now been cohabiting for three months, and it’s been an exciting voyage of discoveries.

Deciding whether or not I actually care when he leaves the loo seat up (I don’t, as it currently stands); discovering the delightful ways in which our separate tastes in décor can be merged (“how about we put the copies of Modern Railway magazine UNDER the patchwork throw?”); and gently introducing my beloved to the quantities of blonde hair I shed over every surface, for which conventional hoovering poses no match at all.

Then there is the cooking. Before we moved in together, he had five signature dishes: a stir-fry, a curry, a chilli, a sausage pasta and a very good cheese on toast. This was his well-balanced arsenal, the carb and veg and protein that saw him through lonely evenings and special occasions alike.

I wouldn’t call him a fussy eater, because to me that is an insult of the very foulest order - I would rather sit next to a flatulent camel than the type of person who won’t eat a crisp until you tell them what flavour it is - but it’s true that he doesn’t see food in the same way I do.

I see every morsel as a party of happy flavours, shouting “eat me! Have seconds! I AM YOUR BEST FRIEND”, whereas he sees it as a mixed gathering of intimidating strangers, where it’s best to stay in the kitchen with the people you know who definitely aren’t awful. (Incidentally we have the exact opposite approach to real parties).

Thinking that living together was the perfect opportunity to broaden these horizons, and I began by teaching him to make lasagne. Actually that’s as far as I’ve got, because on lasagne he has stuck – possibly quite literally, there’s a lot of béchamel and melted Cathedral City involved. I think I have eaten more lasagne during the last two months than in the rest of my life put together.

Make no mistake, they are very good lasagnes. But they are also very big, which means leftovers, and so we are often eating double or occasionally triple lasagne over the course of two days – which is an awful lot of minced beef and refined starch for even the steeliest stomach to take.

There are lasagnes everywhere. I am seeing them in my dreams; considering them for regrouting the bathroom tiles. He’s like the Dolmio dad, except Scottish and not made of felt.

“We’ve got whojummy and whatsit coming to dinner,” I’ll say. “Shall I do something lovely and light made of vegetables?”

“No,” he says, his eyes lighting up. “I’ll do my lasagne.” And out comes the pasta and the passata and the Gaviscon.

The loo seat I can cope with, Modern Railways magazine I can tolerate. But if cohabiting drives me to vegetarianism, there are going to need to be some serious changes.

In which a title would be giving too much away

Warning: this article contains spoilers. Meaning, it tells you what I think about some things before you might otherwise have found them out.

It has been a week of many spoilers. First came the miserable news that Helen Fielding, in an authorial power trip of George R.R. Martin proportions, has killed off Mark Darcy before the start of the new Bridget Jones book.  Mark Darcy, the perfect non-perfect man. Reincarnated from Austen, clothed in a reindeer jumper, played by Colin Firth in a turn of such solemn, understated swooniness that I carried pictures of him round in my pencil case for most of year nine.

As devoted fans (I tell people my favourite film is Some Like it Hot, but it is actually Bridget Jones’s Diary and probably will be forever) we were already worried about the prospect of a third book. Would we have Bridget tweeting? Bridget twerking? Bridget starting her own fro-yo company and selling it from a van at boutique festivals?

But the idea of Bridget’s happy ending, well, ending all together, is a twist nobody was ready for. Plus it turns out Mark’s been dead for five years already, giving us no proper mourning period - so really it’s just as well that the spoilers emerged a week early, to prepare us before we all sat down with the book and a mug of Chardonnay to have our hearts broken on the first page.

After Darcy’s death knell came a day of Breaking Bad fans shrieking over the final episode – or more accurately, Breaking Bad fans shrieking over other Breaking Bad fans shrieking over the final episode, because they hadn’t seen it yet. “SPOILERS!” comes the siren, each time someone blinks in a way that suggests they might be about to spill some details.

But what is the grace period? A day? A week? Are there still people walking around with their fingers in their ears, humming, because they don’t know who shot JR? Back when everyone watched TV at the same time, remember, there were no spoilers. In fact, people bought TV magazines to get spoilers ON PURPOSE.

Personally, I’m just not that bothered. I still regularly skip to the last page of books to find out who’s still alive – in case I die myself before I finish it. I think there’s something to be said, in an uncertain world, for knowing a bit about what’s going to happen before it does.

After all, when you think about it, restaurant reviews are really just ‘food spoilers’. Doctor’s appointments are sort of just ‘life spoilers’. Traffic reports, GDP projections, utility bills: spoilers, spoilers, SPOILERS.

“I was going to check the weather forecast,” I might say next time I arrive somewhere drenched and wearing inappropriate shoes, “but, you know, spoilers.”

In which the pudding carousel's still turning

It’s not very often that Worthing pops up in my Twitter feed. Usually because I follow 90s hero Dave Benson Phillips, or because my dad is plugging his comedy nights (Matt’s Comedy Club, Worthing’s premier/only comedy club – you should all go).

But this week I was alerted by a non-resident to something I didn’t even know about my hometown - that alongside the swish new swimming pool and distinctly above-average H&M, it can currently boast ‘Wimpy of the Year’ on Chapel Road. Wimpy of the Year! I know, I’d forgotten it existed too.

But it turns out there are still 220 of them in the UK, mainly concentrated around Surrey, Sussex, Essex and London. Despite not having eaten there since I was yea high to a seagull’s eye, Wimpy Worthing has stolen my heart from afar because it has one of the loveliest examples of a branded Facebook page I have seen in a long time. And that is coming from someone who spends half her day job working on branded Facebook pages.

I bid you, go and join the page immediately. Meet managers Nick and Charlie, marvel at the height of their rocky road sundaes, enter their competition to win a bottle of special sauce (the fewer questions asked the better) by guessing how many tables the restaurant has, and succumb to their home-fried charms.

“Have you tried one of our fantastically refreshing cheese toasties?” they ask. “No!” I cry back to the screen, “but boy, do I want to now!”

There are many other things to love about Wimpy too. The blithe optimism of a company that subtitles itself, “The Home of Fresh-Cooked, Nutritional Meals” above a picture of a burger with cheesy nachos and sour cream on top just has to be admired.

When I was young, I remember my mum considering Wimpy a more refined alternative to McDonalds, based mainly around the face they gave you actual cutlery and had that nice rotating dessert carousel. Puddings taste better when you’ve studied them intensely from all angles first, obviously.

Plus, I’m suffering from gourmet fast food fatigue syndrome. In a year where every variation on artery-blocking, truffle-infused, peanut butter-slathered, bone marrow-smeared ‘dirty’ burgers and hot dogs under the sun have been peddled through the London food scene to the point where I generally book myself two hours after lunch to lie on the floor, quietly groaning and rubbing my belly, there’s something so appealing about a nice, simple plate of calories without any trendy connotations.

So Nick and Charlie, if you’re reading this – save me a nacho burger, hash browns and a hot chocolate with cream on top. I’m coming to Wimpy Worthing next time I’m home, and I want the works.Diary of

In which Lady Mary's froideur has nothing on my flat

www.itv.com

I know it’s September now, but if I’m honest I still haven’t fully forgiven Dan Stevens for ruining Christmas.

Because we know now that it was he, and not Julian Fellowes, who demanded Cousin Matthew be killed in the last brutal minute of the Downton Abbey Christmas special, leaving 10 million viewers weeping hopelessly into their trifle, because he fancied a go at Hollywood.

“There, I knew they wouldn’t kill anyone at Christmas!” sighed my too-trusting mother, seconds before Cousin Matthew’s car rammed into what was probably the only other car on a country road for about 100 miles in 1921. It would have been more honest and less jarring if they’d just shown him getting his teeth whitened, putting on some docksiders and hopping on a plane to LA with a duty-free Toblerone under his arm. 

But despite the way they toyed with our emotions like a crumpled Quality Street wrapper, I am prepared to embrace Downton Abbey again when series four starts on Sunday – gingerly, the way you’d embrace the prodigal son who might still take your wallet when you’re not looking.

Because the truth is, I need Downton in the same way I need 100 denier opaque tights, hot water bottle and food items that can be smothered in cheese sauce then baked in the oven. It is part of my autumn/winter arsenal. Just as they say, “there’s no bad weather, only bad clothing choices”, I fully believe that being gloomy in the cold months is only because you haven’t assembled the right kit.

Here, for your reference, is everything on my autumn kit list. Yours might vary, but this is a good start:

Hot water bottle, standard size
Hot water bottle, mini size (for stowing in crevices when you go out)
Blankety socks, three pairs
Comedy sweatshirt (mine is an Adidas one that belonged to my dad in the 90s)
Friends who accept, “I’m not coming, I just got really comfy” as a valid cancellation excuse
Vodka lemsip (preventative)
A bottle of Stone’s Ginger Wine, or anything else sticky
Custard, Bird’s instant
Custard, posh from a tub
A long reaching grabber, for fetching items when you don’t want to get up from under your blanket
All the tea bags you could possibly get through between now and March
A real-time TV obsession, such as Downton Abbey or X-Factor
A time-filling TV obsession, such as re-watching all of Dawson’s Creek on Netflix
A board game obsession (recommend Settlers of Catan for maximum heat-giving tension)
A Tesco home delivery account
An Ocado home delivery account, for posher occasions
A loved one, or a cat, or a realistic body pillow shaped like a loved one. Or a cat.

In which second hand books were my (Sweet Valley) high

I feel guilty even beginning to write a tribute to bookshops in this, the same paper in which two years ago I published a love song to my Kindle so passionate that it could have made a cold, grey machine blush and go a bit squirmy.

The love hasn’t faded, either – I still love my Kindle. With it I have read more, and more widely, and more freely than I ever did before, and on this my pro-e-reader argument has always rested. More reading can’t be a bad thing, whether you’re reading off leather-bound paper or a digital screen, or a holographic image projected onto the insides of your eyelids by a computer companion who lives inside your brain (it’ll come right after hoverboots, I’m convinced).

“Besides, nobody is saying e-readers are better than books!” my speech goes. “That would be like refusing to use MP3s because vinyl looks so much nicer”. We all know real books are lovely, and we will all still want to fill our shelves with them and let people stand around examining them at parties - but when it comes down to practicality, the 5mm thick device that can cart a thousand stories away in your holiday suitcase is always going to triumph.

But then, today, I started thinking about Jabberwocky. The mock-Tudor shop on the corner of Goring Road, Worthing, centre of all imagination as I knew it from the age of eight to 13. Jabberwocky smelled the way all secondhand bookshops should smell – of musty, yellowing pages and old electric heaters and cups of tea and biscuits and Sunday afternoons.

I can’t lie and say I went to Jabberwocky for the classics. They had a great selection of Enid Blyton’s St Clare’s books, so much funnier and far less sissy than Malory Towers, but the pocket money clasped in my sweaty palm had a different goal. It was to get me a slice of the States. Jabberwocky fed my pre-teen craving for all things American, with its seemingly endless supply of Sweet Valley High and The Babysitter’s Club paperbacks.

They never cared how long you lingered, thumbing your way through all the rude bits in Judy Blume before your mum came back from Co-op with the carrots. I think I imagined I would shop there as an adult too, and take my own daughter to get her fix of hand-me-down happiness – but Jabberwocky closed, years ago. I think these days it’s a plant shop.

So it’s all very well championing e-readers as an adult, but my eight year old self would never have had one, even if they’d been invented back then. For kids with a few precious pounds or nothing at all, bookshops and libraries are still the gateway to a hobby that will last them a lifetime.

Cosy, welcoming and accessible, those bookshops of my youth paid it forward in spades – which is more than we can say for Amazon, I guess.

Eight ways to get that ‘back to school’ feeling as an adult

1. Get new hair! But don’t go to your usual stylist, or even a stylist at all. For that under-10s look, simply ask an arthritic relative to give you a “sensible trim” with some kitchen scissors.

Or alternatively, for the faint whiff of teenage rebellion, go to Superdrug and buy any packet dye with a name that sounds like a Wetherspoons cocktail – ‘Blackcurrant bonanza’ or ‘raspberry razzle’ or something – and apply it, ensuring at least one third ends up daubed around your ears and neck.

2. Buy a new pencil case! As few adults really have call for pencil cases in their lives, here are a few things you could store in it instead: make up, money, heartburn tablets, hair grips, plastic cutlery stolen from M&S, wet wipes.

3. Set yourself homework! Write it down in a diary at the beginning of the week, put the diary in your bag and ignore it until at least 8:35pm on Sunday night, then get it out with sinking heart and discover you have to build an entire scale model of Tutankhamun’s tomb out of balsa wood by tomorrow morning.

4. Have an argument with your mother! Take your pick from the following topics: high heeled shoes; trainers that cost more than the council tax; why you can’t have a belly button ring; why you can’t go to Jenny Miller’s party; and how if Jenny Miller jumped off a bridge you probably would do it too because Jenny Miller would make it look awesome. If your mother isn’t readily available, draw a face on a sofa cushion and shout at that instead.

5. Make a new best friend! Pretty much anyone will do, since you can break friends again in about a week under the flimsy excuse of your choice. How about that lady at the bus stop? Quick, ask her if she likes Taylor Swift. Or pandas.

6. Invent a cool personality quirk! I had an ironic imaginary friend for a whole term in year seven – try that. Or give yourself an awesome new nickname, like ‘The Lorenzonator’. Everyone will want to be in your gang. 

7. Do some involuntary exercise! Ask friends to help create that true back to school experience by picking you last for their sports teams, vocally critiquing your ability, then not showering afterwards.

8. Invent a nonsensical game! Pick a euphemism for farting, trick people into saying it through a series of innocent questions, then laugh maniacally until you get a stitch.

In which I'm hanging on the telephone

So last week we talked about pogonophobia, the fear of beards. This week I have a new one for you: nomophobia, the fear of being without a mobile phone. Disappointingly it’s not derived from Latin or anything, it’s just short for ‘no-mobile-phone phobia’ – which does make me wonder if the phobia naming people are just phoning it in these days - but still, it’s my word discovery of the month.

According to a study by AppRiver reported in The Times this week, over 50 per cent of Britons now suffer from nomophobia. “42 per cent even take their devices to the beach!” it cried.

I’m skeptical on the first figure. Turns out they only surveyed 1000 “workers”, which doesn’t take into account the numbers of babies and children and elderly people who don’t have phones at all. But on the second point – why WOULDN’T you take your phone to the beach? Of all the places that being able to track down companions through the whizzy voodoo of mobile technology is useful, it is the beach.

Otherwise, what happens when little Jimmy goes off to find an ice cream stand with Zzapp lollies and ends up trailing for a mile and a half along the coast (because Zzapp lollies are actually the ultimate lolly, but woefully underecognised since the late 90s)? Pre-mobiles, I guess you either alerted the coastguard or just went home and admitted you never liked Little Jimmy much anyway.

Of course, I’m as nomophobic as they come. If I ever leave my phone at home by mistake, I spend the day convinced my whole family is going to die in a freak accident – which is a subset fear known as tree-falls-in-a-forest-a-phobia, ie. things might still happen in the world, even if I’m not immediately aware that they have.

It’s a conversation I often have with my mother, who suffers from the opposite fear: that if she has her mobile phone with her, and indeed turns it on, all kinds of dreadful people will immediately start calling and ruin her day. “Jane Bravo has her phone on! QUICK, think of a tedious excuse to ring her!” the masses would scream. Never mind that about six people, maximum, even have her number and half of those live in the same house.

“What if I was on my deathbed?” I demand, “and you had your phone turned off?” “Oh, I’d find out eventually,” comes the airy reply.

So I put it to you, survey people, which is worse: fanatical phone use, or people who would rather be told by carrier pigeon when their children are expiring in another part of the country? I’m off to hunt down a Zzapp lolly while you think about it.

In which Paxo takes a stand against pogonophobia

“I can’t believe this paper considers Jeremy Paxman’s facial hair important enough to devote a half-page story to,” harrumphed a letter in The Scotsman this week. “Perhaps you can also update us next time he cuts his toenails?” 

I should maybe say that I was in Edinburgh, not just reading my way around the British Isles looking for grumpy people – but I suspect there were many similar moans south of Hadrian’s Wall as well.

Ok, Man Grows Beard might not be the biggest scoop since Watergate, but there are several things the “IT’S NOT NEWS!” brigade could do well to understand here. 

Firstly, it’s August. ‘Tis the season known as silly, not just because nothing much happens, but because even if it does happen, we’d rather give our brains a summer holiday and focus on a roller-skating squirrel instead. When I spent August as a rookie reporter on this very paper, we ran a front-pager headed “Baby born with teeth!”. The photo didn’t even show the teeth. 

In September all the Back to School news will start again and we’ll have to concentrate on interest rates and climate change and which new delicious thing gives us cancer each week, and we’ll sit around saying, “ahhh… do you remember that lovely evening we spent in August, finishing up the limoncello and laughing about a man on telly’s chin?”

Secondly, beards kinda are news these days. They’re the biggest thing to happen to men’s faces since eyebrow piercing fell out of favour. Until gender-neutral make up finds its place in society (and any man who claims he’s never looked at the Maybelline counter with a pang of longing to conceal his hangover eye-bags is definitely lying), hair is the only real option men have for cosmetic customisation.

So go crazy, chaps! Have fun! There’s a veritable chin wardrobe of styles to try out there, from lustrous moustaches to manicured goatees, or fashion’s current fave, the lumberjack fuzz cloud beloved of Mumford and Sons, Brian Blessed and Mr Twit. Jeremy’s salt-and-pepper speckling was a modest but notable stand against the BBC’s reported pogonophobia, to use a word we’ve all only just learned – a sort of ‘talk to the follicles, cos the face ain’t listening’ thing.

Thirdly, if a man’s hair is not news then, I put it to you, neither is a woman’s. One day of chat about a male presenter’s appearance garners a sea of well-meaning splutters, but we still have whole magazines devoted to little more than whether or not Gwyneth Paltrow has wrinkly knees. 

It may be trivial, but at least Paxo’s beard was technically news in being, well, new - bare breasts have been around since cave ladies first grew them, but it doesn’t stop The Sun giving them page 3 priority on a daily basis. 

So shhhh, killjoys. You’ll get your proper articles back soon enough. And if you don’t like it, maybe write a few more letters about Kelly Brook bikini shots not being news either.

Eight things I wish I'd been told on A level results day

This is not me on A level results day. But I am jumping in the air.

1. They don’t matter nearly as much as you think they do.

How important do your results feel to you, right now? Right, now take that amount, divide it by three, half it, chip off another bit for good measure, and that is how important they actually are. And I’m saying that as a 25 year old. By the time you’re 80, those results will probably look like a little speck of lint that you flick off the rich, eventful canvas of your life.

Except for this week, and the odd smug tawzzock who will ask you during your first uni term, you will almost never talk about your A level results again. Which is a shame if they’re quite good and you were going to have them screen printed on a t-shirt, but never mind.


2. That teacher you just accidentally hugged?

It’s fine, nobody saw.


3. You will forget almost everything you learned for those exams.

In years to come, little nuggets of isolated information will resurface, but never quite when you need them. As a result you will spend much future time hunched over pub quiz tables, pummelling your temples trying to remember which was Crick and Watson and which was Loftus and Palmer and just how many hours you spent writing those multicoloured revision cards anyway.


4. Everyone will be fine.

Those who didn’t get the grades they wanted, will be fine. Those who did but have no clue how they want to use them yet, will be fine. Even the one who had to be excused from the English Lit paper because of a badly-timed stomach upset, will be fine.


5. University will also be fine.

Chances are, it will be brilliant. Don’t spend the fortnight before you leave weeping into a pillow, because it will be tiring and futile and you will miss all the good drinking occasions.


6. You are now a grown up, but you don’t need all the crockery yet.

Far be it from me to deny you the ritual trip to the big Tesco Extra with your misty-eyed parents, but if you buy all the crockery and cookware now, in eight months time you will be packing up two forks and half a bowl, cursing everyone you’ve just spent three terms frantically bonding with. Just buy some Pot Noodles and make do.


7. You’ll stay in touch with your friends, don’t worry.

Because it is 2006 and in a little over a month, this great new thing called Facebook will enter your life and suddenly staying in touch with people you love will be easier. Unfortunately staying in touch with people you don’t love will become a whole lot easier too.


8. Don't let anyone, especially not a local newspaper photographer, take a photo of you leaping in the air.

You're better than that.

In which I'll have the big salad

 
I’m going to New York! Strike up the marching band! Bring on the dancing sailors! Pour me a root beer and put a bagel in my face! Start spreading the news, give my regards to Broadway, and show me the way to the Staten Island ferry so I can ride across the river with the wind in my perm, like at the beginning of Working Girl.

In fact by the time you read this, taxis and baggage restrictions and giant duty-free Toblerones willing, I’ll be in New York. I’ve never been before, can you tell?  I’ve never been to America, in fact. I’ve only got as close as Canada, which as telly would have you believe is about as close as going to Luton airport and saying you’ve seen Big Ben.

So because I’ve been waiting a full quarter century of my life to finally take a bite from the Big Apple (and by ‘apple’ I mean ‘baked goods’, and by ‘big’ I mean, “is that a doughnut or a dinghy? Oh well too late I ate it.”), I’m putting a lot of pressure on my week’s holiday to fulfill every expectation that TV and films have impressed on me.

Not the exciting things though, you understand. Because my taste in telly is sitcoms where not much happen, and my taste in films is comedies where even less happens, my hopes for the concrete jungle where dreams are made consists  mainly of sitting in coffee shops, getting almost run over by a taxi and eating a really big pretzel.

But I want to do those things EXACTLY like they did them on Seinfeld, and Friends, and Annie Hall, and When Harry Met Sally, and How I Met Your Mother, and Elf. I want to go to a deli, order a whole heap of incongruous ingredients “on rye”, then fail to eat them because I’m too engrossed in a neurotic anecdote about a dinner party (I will make up the neurotic anecdote; it’s not important). 

I’d quite like to master the art of tipping correctly, coolly, casually, without flailing like a sweaty-palmed fool, then come home and apply that skill on my visits to the hairdresser. I want to find out for definite what a Twinkie is.

I reckon the closest I’ll get to Sex and the City is probably being splashed by a big puddle, but that’s a-ok by me.

In which Madness really underplayed the whole situation

Many people seemed concerned, during the past few weeks, about the logistics of my flat move.

“Are you hiring a van?” they’d ask. “We would, except neither of us can actually drive,” I’d cheerily respond. This is one of our special joint failings, one of which we’re weirdly proud, although  less so whenever we go on holiday and have to spend three hours on a bus with a cohort of elderly Spanish women in pastel shellsuits.

He didn’t learn because he grew up in a city and had no need for it, I didn’t  because at 17 I’d rather have spent all the money in the world buying ratty things off eBay than on letting a stern adult confirm for me at weekly intervals what I have known all along – that I would be a terrible, terrible driver. I watched friends pass their tests in quick succession, marvelled at the skill of it all, then generously let them drive me about. Even now we’re all 25, I still have a moment of going, “This is so ruddy grown-up. Look! You’re doing the levers and everything!” each time I’m in a passenger seat.

“So you’re hiring a man with a van?” they’d say, twitching a bit. “Men with ven?” “Mmm yah, we thought of that,” I lie. “But in the end it seemed easier if my parents just came up to help.” Then they would look at me with that special look, the one usually reserved for people who send Christmas cards signed from their cat. By ‘easier’, they realise I mean cheaper, and nicer, and

And easier it was, for us. Not so much for the Bravo family car, which started getting a bit weebly after the second load of absolutely crucial objet d’arts (“What’s that?” “It’s a reproduction Roman battle helmet.” “Why do you have one?” “Why WOULDN’T I have one?”).

Then a little more weebly, then at the point where a human might be summoning old lovers to their bedside and divvying up the family heirlooms, and then after one final, valiant crawl from Old Flat to New Flat with a bootload of stuff, it died. I’d like to think it arrived in Ford Mondeo heaven to a hero’s welcome, having its bumpers massaged while the vehicular St Peter tells it “You did good, girl. You did good.”

But all praise must really go to my parents, grand masters in the stoical handling of truly rubbish situations. As I watched them being winched on the back of a flat bed truck at 11pm to be relayed back from London to Worthing, I realised two things: 1) driving really is a whole lot of hassle. And 2) next time, we might just get a man with a van. Or a woman with a van. Anybody unrelated to me.