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???