The bed has not proven to be quite the haven from the harsh world I had thought it would be despite the Hollywood pile of pillows into which I nestle with my laptop at night.
The truth is, it's incredibly uncomfortable. In fact it's so bloomng hard it's like sleeping on a steel mattress. Not so much of a boudoir as a East German Holding Cell.
All I need is a bucket in the corner.
In other news work has been massively exciting. Yesterday I had to find an optician so that Mr T could mend his night vision goggles, and then I had to change a fuse in the kettle. The world of publishing does indeed require a smorgasbord of technical skills. Unfortunately, the fuse did not solve the huge problem of the non-functioning kettle which had caused something of a coffee famine in the office and so I had to buy a new one. I did so from a mail-order catalogue and LO, it seems it's the most exciting thing I've done since I got here, and certainly the most commented on (though last night's date also got its fair share of interest).
'Marion, it's like something from Star Wars, 'said Editorial and indeed one of the very important high echelons on the company masthead was seen holding it upside down trying to figure out how to work the darn thing. It has a filter which seems to be causing the confusion.
Nevertheless chaps, it is just a kettle. You put water in it and it boils.
When not being a domestic engineer, I had a meeting at the Electric Bar with one of our authors who is writing a wonderfully witty book on the etiquette of international dining. Naturally, being the registered in-house foodie who once asked a very bored Franch waiter what the large scallop shaped instrument at the side of my place setting was for only to be told 'Modom, zat ees zee sauce spoon' (I didn't know there was alternative to just licking the damn plate) this is going to be an essential guide to the meals I no longer eat in the life I don't lead, and therefore will slot in nicely with the clothes I have for the formal parties that I don't go to, the lingerie for the sex life I don't have in the boudoir with the mattress that is the only damn hard thing in the bedroom.
I saw Henry Harris fresh from the kitchen of his restaurant Racine (well okay, not that fresh, he's been with the Electric group for a year) and did the whole luvvie, mwa, mwa, darling, as he searched for my name and managed to pull it out from the file marked unimportant people from the past just in time to offer it to his companion. I once reviewed his restaurant and he sent me the sweetest letter thanking me that still hangs on my study wall, perplexingly, quite unadorned by others of a similar nature. I wonder why? I expect it would have helped if I had been slightly less critical.
Moving swiftly on - the date.
Forget it. I'm saying nothing.
Afterwards I came home on the tube remarkably easily. Nobody mugged me. The trains arrived promptly. The car was where I had left it, unscathed and I was in just in time - oh joy - to catch the end of Big Brother.
I can't imagine how I would have coped with having missed it. (This is me being ironic and is what happens when you dare to go out - they annex the remote control)
I heard something emanating from the screen about 'Tim Teeman' and said to my daughter, oh I know him. He's on the Times - I've had dinner with him a couple of times.' I can't understand why he's on Big Brother - well I suppose Mark Lawson's got everything else sewn up.
I got about 1/2 a cool point for knowing someone on the television from No 2 Son son, and about minus 10 points for being so deeply uncool that just my knowing anyone took the 'essential viewing' shine off the program for No 2 Daughter, and she stomped off upstairs.
Result.
An ad featuring Marco Pierre White came on next.
'I know him too,' I shouted to her retreating back.
She was even less impressed.
Actually I don't think he would remember me unless I came accessorised with Alan Crompton Batt who has very sadly gone to the great High Table in the sky, so I don't think there is much chance of me mwa-mwaing him and I never gave him a great review either. Mind you I didn't give him any bad ones. Didn't dare to. Much too scared. The man used to go hunting. With a rifle. And Guy Ritchie.
Any one of those things is terrifying.
