So Poppy calls me this afternoon.

By the way, I'm still totally skiving off of work; “skiving” being my new favourite verb…

[Hmmmm, does it even technically count as a verb? I mean, it can hardly be called a “doing word”, as I was taught to think about it at school, can it? It means the very opposite of “doing” surely? Anyway…]

…so she calls me, all in distress and whatnot, because some chancer has, it seems, dipped his wick in her sister, and back in the day Poppy and him had a thing, and yadayadayada…

“Hmmm”, I offer in response to her breathless entreaties for guidance, trying to hide the fact that it’s 5pm and I’ve blatantly only just woken up, and am turning my flat upside down looking for the DVD remote (it turns up eventually wedged down the side of my couch along with a slightly rubbery salt beef sandwich – breakfast is served, hee hee). “So you should probably not see him anymore, eh?”

She goes off into a machine gun fit of ladysobs, the kind that even at the best of times I feel ill-equipped to deal with. Sigh.

“Ok, so here’s the plan,” I begin stridently, immediately planting my bare foot into a now positively antiquated plate of Super Noodles and ketchup. “Meet me at 8 at the Intrepid Fox in Soho and we’ll thrash out a solution over a foamy flagon of ale, Viking-style. Deal?”

Somehow amid the torrent of blubbering histrionics she confirms she’s up for it, and I hang up, relieved... and also somewhat satisfied.

Well at least it gives me something better to do with my evening than falling asleep in front of BidUp TV again. And who knows, I might even have a good time, and get a little bonus good karma in the bank by helping a lost soul through her issues. Plus, if The Fox is anything like it used to be, there’ll be interesting characters aplenty hanging around to take her mind of things.

Danny Strangelove – Professional Shoulder To Cry On. Is it me, or does that actually have a nice ring to it???

 A little google chat I had with Aimee while avoiding Ben and his bad mood. Yes, I suppose you might call it hiding.

Oh dear.

Sorry for going all quiet on you. The last thing Ben said to me before we left the hospital was 'not to blog about this on that stupid blog thing' so I thought I'd best leave things to calm down for a couple of days.

Yes. That's right, we were at the hospital. On Friday night I nearly killed my best mate.

It wasn't my fault! If you remember, I was cooking for everyone when the twat came round to ruin my life. Instead of putting the chicken in the oven, I thought I'd have a bath and a glass of wine to relax. Half a bottle of wine and a bubble bath later and I suddenly remembered about the chicken sat on top of the cooker waiting to be roasted.

As it turns out, you can't speed cook chicken. Everyone was too pissed to notice it wasn't cooked properly. Except I was just pushing food around my plate feeling sorry for myself.

Ben's fine now! Don't worry. He's feeling much better. I mean, he hasn't spoken to me all weekend, but that's to be expected. Hopefully he'll calm down soon. Maybe when he can eat solid food.

I blame this entirely on The Twat. First he recks my life and then he nearly kills my best friend. I hate him. Hate him. Well, probably don't hate him. Might still love him a little bit. Quite a lot actually...

When is the best time to tell Ben about all this I wonder? Answers on a postcard...

Flickr image from Boliston's photostream.

It’s difficult being back in work after a lovely long weekend, isn’t it? What did you do with yours?

I missed the Shoreditch fireworks in the end and stayed south of the river to catch up with some old friends that I hadn’t seen for an age; spent far too much in Greenwich’s vintage clothes shops, and then later went to the Amersham Arms in New Cross for dancing and cocktails.

As usual when I’m not with Charlotte, Beth or Poppy, I was the only girl in the gang. I like this because you get spoilt rotten, and when it comes to drinking there’s no shame in being a lightweight if most of your pals are twice your size.

I’m off out again with them tomorrow night. It’s always like this; you don’t see a particular set of friends for months but then once you’re reunited you can’t get enough of each other. So far the plan is to attend the All Star Male Burlesque Revue at Vibe Live on Brick Lane. It’s a monthly night that I’ve been invited to a few times now, but it always seem to fall on the wrong dates for me to make it. But not this time. Apparently there’ll be a male masseuse, lots of chocolate, Fred Bear from the infamous bristly Bearlesque troupe, and an erotic storyteller. What more could a girl want from an evening’s entertainment?

Oh dear. I really thought that would be the end of it. I thought that The Twat would bugger off back to his happy little life and leave me alone. But no. It appears that my sister finally came to her senses and got rid of the idiot. (Not that her and I speak now of course, despite Mum's best efforts.)

I know this because he was banging my door down about an hour ago trying to convince me to let him in. I didn't of course, if I had I might have ended up throwing a roast chicken at him. (I'm making dinner for some friends tonight.)

So the somewhat mumbled conversation went a bit like this:

"Poppy, let me in. We have to talk. Poppy?"

"No. Fuck off."

"Poppy come on. I just want to talk to you. I'm not leaving until you open the door. You have to open the door at some point. You can't stay in there forever."

"Yes I can! You can't make me talk to you!" (Can I stay in the flat forever? Is that part of the new plan? Maybe not.)

"Pop-"

"... go away! I have a giant meat cleaver and I will use it if I have to, you cheating twat!"

He went after that.

Which is a shame as I actually really wanted to talk to him.

Flickr image from Lollyknit's photostream.

Being a bit on the quiet and boring side this week, aren’t I? Apologies, folks. Must try harder in future. But it’s been madness at the theatre lately. Reviews have panned our latest production, which with me working in the publicity department is just what I don’t need. So I’ve spent all week patiently explaining to the powers that be that negative publicity isn’t a reflection on my talents, but in fact has more to do with the has-been former TV “star” who plays the lead role being so sozzled every night that the audience can barely understand what on earth he’s slurring on about. The production isn’t complicated but it’s still a bit of a distraction, especially when coupled with the bulbous glowing red nose that would put Rudolph the reindeer to shame. Heavens knows I’ve got my hands full!

Whilst avoiding tackling the fall out of Mr.Pisshead’s poor performances this week, I’ve also discovered WalkIt.com. If the thought of having your face pushed hurled into someone’s armpit during a rush hour tube commute makes you as distressed as the prospect makes me on a daily basis, then WalkIt may be the solution.  Just type in your postcodes and it will devise a route for you to traipse through London to your doorstep. For eco-warriors and health fanatics, it even details how much carbon you’ll save and how many calories you’ll burn. Perfect for dimwits like me whose only concept of London geography is in tube maps and distances between discos. But not in high heels, or if you’re commuting from Kent.

I’m contemplating going to the proms in Shoreditch Park on Saturday. I’m ordinarily not an aficionado of classical music, but I’m a sucker for fireworks, and free fun. Might see if I can drag Charlotte along to keep my company. Don’t want to be the only one not snuggled on a rug with someone to smooch. It might be time to try and do something about that. Any ideas?

Image from Grundlepuck's Flickr photostream

Why? Why, when you're looking like shit (and still wearing a pyjama top) do you run into him?

Yes. Him.

Remember when I started this blog I mentioned the evil twat who ran off with my sister and got her pregnant? Yes. That 'him'. I would never have run into him after I'd just had my hair cut, or in a fab dress, or just as a hot guy picked me up in a limo. No. I have to have mascara all over my face and my hair just has to be a stringy mess and I'm wearing my pyjama top for goodness sake!

Unfortunately, my pyjama top happens to be a Foo Fighters t-shirt that he gave me. Just to add some crazy to the mess that I'm now appearing as.

I only went out to get the bloody paper. In my vain attempt to do some job hunting! Look what happens when I'm proactive! So instead of being cool and calm, I hid behind the Telegraph hoping he wouldn't see me. But he did. And he threw me one of those brilliant smiles as if he hadn't screwed my sister when he was meant to be screwing me. So I threw the paper at him and ran away.

I'm not job hunting anymore. Not ever. You can do it for me. Or help decide on a career path at least. Someone kindly pointed out that the poll I set up couldn't be seen by you lovely people. It can now. I won't apply for any jobs that require technical gubbins. Please vote and help find me a job/career/sugar daddy. I don't think it's safe for me to do it myself... bad things happen.

Perhaps Ben was right. I should have got dressed.

Flickr image from Anosmia's photostream.

Is it about time I stopped sulking yet? Apparently so after Ben sent me this text:

Get dressed! Stop sulking! Go and get a bloody job!

He's very blunt sometimes. But I hate it when he's right. And how did he know I hadn't got dressed yet?

Get fired, eat lots of takeaway.

Not really the best plan, is it? Well at least I can say it's optimistic. Besides, we ordered virtual takeaway last night. No, I don't mean we just looked at the photos on the menu and imagined it (though I give it a week before Posh Spice is on that diet). We discovered Urbanbite.

I always lose takeaway menus so Urbanbite is my new favourite thing. Go online, type in a postcode and pick a takeaway. Then choose what you want. Then it gets delivered. You don't need to speak to anyone! Yeah it's kinda rude, but y'know, some days you just feel like that. The best thing about Urbanbite? Well, you don't really know where you're going to order from until you do. We ended up getting our Thai food from Yelo in Hoxton Squure (I'm stayed in town at a friends house tonight. Ben was working again and I didn't feel like being in the house on my own.)

You can also choose what time they order through Urbanbite. Now, I bet you're thinking 'well ,I want food now!' but you could order from the office before you leave work, and your takeaway will arrive five minutes after you get in. Not that I can do that now. But you could do it from the pub too. Genius.

Was Yelo any good? Yes. Sort of. Slightly above average. Great dumplings, rubbish Pad Thai, good curry. Pretty good value but I wouldn't rush back for the food. Still, it was fun arguing with Dave over the finer points of Indiana Jones while eating and playing with his new cute kitten 'Eccles'. Great way to spend the evening. All that chilli has got rid of my cold too.

And the best thing about virtual takeaway? Well it doesn't feel like I've spent any money. I'm going to have to do this more often...

Flickr image from BennyLin0724's photostream.

There is a little light at the end of the tunnel... no, I haven't got a job interview or anything helpful like that! But I am going to see The Correspondents in Clapham.

The who? Yeah, I thought that too. But when I saw them at Secret Garden Festival earlier this year, they had everyone jumping about and dancing early on a Sunday afternoon - even though we were all really hungover.  They're a bit like 1930s hip hop. Yes. Really. And as strange as that sounds, it works. They're brilliant and you could do a lot worse than lindy hopping your way down to Gigalum on Friday night. You get to hang out with Mr. Bruce and Mr. Chuckles as they jump about and do crazy stuff - all to some pretty darn good tunes from just about every generation. Imagine if Basement Jaxx remixed Frank Sinatra.

It may not be a job interview, but the gig is for charity so maybe it'll give me some sort of karma. If the karma could be a job interview or a lottery ticket I'd quite like that.