How do?

I find myself on this on this Friday morning quite utterly horrified at the state of Amy Winehouse. Why the fuck isn’t this woman in rehab? Or indeed, dead, because it can’t have escaped the nation’s notice that she is sporting the look of a cadaverous twig. Just look at the pontoon eyes, for a start.

I hold my hands up and admit that I harbour a salacious streak when it comes to celebsville. Guilty as charged, m’Lud. My friend George is of the opinion that ingesting this pig swill will rot my soul, but I don’t care: the more spotlight-hungry fools willing to make utter twunts of themselves (yes, you Jodie Marsh, I mean you), the better as far as I’m concerned. I love this shit so much I’ve even started moonlighting at Holy Moly.

But on a personal level, when I see photos of the drug ravaged mess that used to be Amy Winehouse (and in spite of what I enjoy doing in a professional mud-slinging capacity) it makes me uneasy. Deeply so.

I’m well aware that I’m just as bad as the next person. I read the websites, I buy the newspapers, hell I’m the bitch writing about it. And enjoying it too. But it doesn’t mean the irony is lost on me. There comes a point when even the most cynical of us begin to think it’s time to switch off the idiot box and amuse ourselves elsewhere.

Profound eh? Might have to lay off the 11am gins…

Musicals make me cringe with embarrassment. On the odd occasion I have been forced into a theatre to watch one, I’m literally climbing the walls after 15 minutes.

It’s a phobia. I just can’t bear the forced exuberance and endless supplies of ballet-trained women trooping their turned-out duck feet across the stage.

To add to this cornucopia of wretchedness, I have also been known to cry quite freely at sad bits. I’m already on the edge emotionally, then fricking Billy Elliot starts dancing for his dead Mam and The German has to escort me from the dress circle.

So it was with this in mind, that I spotted a poster for the new Brief Encounter musical on an underground poster this morning.

I love that film. Black and white magic, it is. But do I dare ruin it all by going to see the musical? It’s advertised as buy-one-get-one-free tickets… will the inner gypo win out?

Who has been watching the Olympics? I have and I’m loving every minute of it.

My favourite events are the rowing, swimming and diving, gymnastics and the horsey stuff. I also find the female weight lifting highly amusing. All those popping neck veins and thighs like too much sausage meat stuffed into a pop sock. Endlessly entertaining.

So there I am, sat on the sofa, eating last night’s leftovers and chuffing on a ciggie, and I’ve begun to question my lazy knacker ways. There’s nowt like a wake-up call than all those Olympians hurling and flinging themselves around and showing off miles of muscle definition.

So later, I am going to go for a run.

Probably.

I used to think that the most boring thing on the planet would be to settle down; have early nights; a husband who loves you and mows the lawn and washes the car; two or three sprogs; mess and toys and a washing machine always going…

But now I’m beginning to think that the normal family - with the kids and the car and the lawn that needs mowing and the washing machine always going - are actually the most extraordinary thing.

Creating and protecting a home where boisterous love and the clitter clatter of noise take precedence: now that is far from a dull and pointless pursuit.

Funny how your tastes change, eh?

Still not heard back about ‘the job’. The one that’s going to change my life and be the best thing *ever*.

I nailed the meeting, I got two glowing references and I delivered a shit hot copy test, if I do say so myself.

So now the men in suits are cogitating me. They’re chewing me over like a piece of cud. Sizing me up. Do I fit?

Every time I get a new email, my stomach does mad flips and my heart threatens to make a sudden appearance through my chest.

Please, please, please, please let them love me and give me the job. Because for the first time in my life I know this is a position that I’m going to not just like, but I think I’ll be really good at it.

And that has never happened before.

Lately, I’ve been all over the shop, behaving like a whirligig on speed.

I went to Madrid on a hen do. Fuck me, what a knees up eh? I drank enough to make my liver implode but there were no penis straws and Madrid is one hell of a wicked city. Oh, and given that 10 women spent three straight days with each other, we all behaved impeccably and there were no murders committed. Give it another day though and who knows what any of us might have done… especially after Tin Pot Airways delayed our flight by about six hours.

Upon return to the UK, The German and I went to the Lake District. Beautiful up there you know, although when you’re approximately 30-years younger than everyone within a 12 mile radius, it makes the view a little more craggy than one would expect.

Day 1: We motored seven miles round Ullswater in two hours and 20 minutes, earning ourselves blisters the size of golf balls and many, many pints. Devoured slabs of Kendal mint cake. Wondered why roof of mouth felt like the inside of Willy Wonka’s Y-fronts.

Day 2: We awoke to wazzing rain and came back home early. Popped blister. Good holiday eh?

Since then I’ve been interviewing for jobs and trying to sort my life out. God, I hate flux. It makes me erratic and prone to the drink. Yes, yes - even more so than normal.

So, amongst the dizzying freneticism of daily fake tanning disasters and laundry (oh, the glamour), my do to list now includes:

1) Land a shit hot and well paid job when London teeters on the brink of recession. Crunch me baby, crunch me.

2) Pack in the fags and stop being a drink-addled tart so my fertility isn’t ruined and I render myself a useless, barren husk of a woman. (Thank you Grazia - I’m starting to deeply regret my subscription after the 100th dull as fuck/frightening as fuck article about infertility in women who go out drinking and smoking, just like me.)

3) Move to the seaside in a vain attempt to suck in air that isn’t riddled with chemicals, exhaust fumes and other people’s body odour 24/7. (Also see point two.)

Good then. I don’t feel overwhelmed in the slightest. Not a heart palpitation in sight.

*impersonates rabbit trapped in headlights*

*thud*

Newton Faulkner revolts me.

FACT.

I’m not racialist against the gingers, ho no no.

It’s the disgusting dreadlocks and his butchering of Massive Attack’s gorgeous Teardrops that makes my toes curl.

Get thee gone, Devil in hippy disguise.

I’ve had a spate of running into people I know on the tube of late.

These are not people who I know well and who I would like to talk to.

These are people I have a vague association with and would rather not see, especially at 8.45am when I am quite clearly doing something that requires the kind of mammoth concentration that is not to be broken. Like applying make-up, napping or perhaps frantically dabbing coffee stains out of my top. (Why is a spillage always around the boob area? Specifically the nipple area? So I look like I’m touching myself up when I’m actually just clearing up?! Argh.)

It’s always people who I know vaguely because of an old job, or a friend of a friend of a friend, or that girl from uni who’s a right pain in the arse. I have nought to say to them: apart from the usual soul-destroying shared vague recounting of what someone you both vaguely know may or may not have done at a house party five years ago, that you have a vague recollection of being at.

So this morning, as the Victoria line burrowed its way ever deeper into the chest cavity of our capital, I decided to take a stand.

I peered cautiously over the top of my paper and caught sight of a kid who used to be a text jockey at my old company. He hadn’t seen me. So I gathered up my belongings and barged my way down the entire length of the carriage. No mean feat considering it was busier than Ulrika Johnson’s womb.

So, no awkward hello. No stilted conversation to be aborted at the first sign of an exit.

Also probably monumentally rude. But I can live with that. It’s mindless small talk with a virtual stranger that ruins me.

Why is it that when I’m a bit peckish, I can’t just eat one chocolate digestive?

Why instead, do I stuff down seven and then spend the next half an hour imagining my thighs are growing exponentially?

I do not understand where this greed and lack of temperance comes from.

It’s the same with:

Wine
Always completely unable to recognise when the party is over. Everyone’s going home completely lambasted on port and I’m sat there nonchalantly smoking a fag, declaring, “I’m hardly pissed at all, where the fuck are you losers going?”

Shoes
Blown the wages on a new pair? Might as well go the whole hog and buy another then. Yes, and live on 2-4-1 Asda bargains and disgusting cheap wine for the rest of the month. (But at least my feet look bloody fantastic.)

Sleep
I can’t just have the normal eight hours. Ho no. I get right narky if I haven’t been able to horizontally laze around for at least an hour either side of the actual sleeping. As a result, I operate at low-level pissed off the majority of the time and despise those smug twats who hop out of bed all cheerful in the morning, and then who drop off to sleep the moment their heads hit the pillow. They can all go fuck themselves.

So to conclude: I lack discipline in every sense.

If I hadn’t spend all my cash on parties and shoes, and missed countless working hours (and therefore extra dollars) because I was hunkered down eating zzzzzzzz’s, I’d send myself off to a very expensive bootcamp for some serious whipping into shape.

As this is not an option, I shall simply patiently wait for my mid-thirties and pray the passage of time instills some self-control.

So, some news reports suggest that Cheryl Cole may well be taking back errant husband, Ashley.

On a personal level I couldn’t give a shit. I don’t spend a great deal of time fretting about the dirty washing of others (except when the neighbours start throwing stuff at each other - then I’m glued to a glass against the wall). But in the grand scheme of things, when adultery threatens a marriage there are definitely a variety of options to choose from, each boasting equally persuasive arguments.

We always hear old people banging on about how young people don’t stick at marriages these days. It’s all too easy to get your solicitor on speed dial after therapy fails to tell you why he can’t fuck you right, why the children divorced you both before you got to divorce each other, why she got fat, why he spends all his time in the shed, ad infinitum.

By the same token, no one is going to expect you to stay with a man who after 20 years of marriage, comes screaming out of the closet, equipped with feather boa and 19-year old boyfriend.

I think in this instance, the old fashioned adage of sticking together is perhaps somewhat out-moded.

However (and it is a BIG however), when His Nibs falls accidentally-on-purpose on top of the nearest fame-hungry harlot, it’s an entirely different kettle of fish.

Do you stand by your man and honour your wedding vows? Since he clearly forgot all about those promises when he stuck his old chap into some cheap slag who wants a boob job and her acrylic nail fill-ins doing, it either takes great bravery or stupidity - I’m not sure which.

Or do you tell the cheating toerag to sling his hook, have a bloody good cry and stoically piece your life back together?

When I’m wearing my Benevolent Hat, I admire the women who go for the first option. I think if you can make it work after adultery threatens to topple your whole world over Pisa-style, then fair fucks. I salute you.

But when I’m wearing all of my other Hats (and there are many including Blind Rage, Ranting and Just A Bit Narky), I am definitely of the ‘Sling Your Hook You Waste-Of-Skin, Useless Twat Of A Husband’ school of thought.

So, I guess The German knows where he stands if there’s ever an indiscretion in our house…

But really, the bottom line for me on this stance is thus: once a cheat, always a cheat. You let that genie out of the bottle and you’re setting yourself up for a lifetime of heartache from a man who doesn’t deserve you.

So good luck to Cheryl if the news is true. But I reckon she’ll be rinsing that rat through the divorce courts before she turns 30.