Where do they keep all the pillow cases?

Overheard by a friend of mine in the toilets at her office - a work experience girl chatting to a friend:

"We've got this great school trip coming up. But when we get back, everyone's got to stay the last night at school - I don't know why. It's such a pain. I mean, my parents' house can sleep forty, so I might just ask all the girls back to mine instead..."

Forty? What kind of house IS this????

Further running exploits

I am very pleased with my latest running exploits. My 10k history now looks like this:

1. Nike 10k last October: 1hr 06 mins
2. Melbourne 10k in March: 59 mins and a bit
3. Staines 10k last month: under 59 mins (although the official time was 59:02 - swizz!)
4. Dysart Dash 10k on Sunday: 54 mins 47 secs (official time 55 mins dead)

My poor trainers.

Don't ask how I got in

I managed to wangle a ticket for the 2007 Charity Awards last night. A significant majority of people going up to collect awards (chief execs, press officers, senior technicians etc) were female. I might be going out on a limb here, but I suspect the same would not be said of, say, the advertising industry or accountancy annual awards.

And just in case you were wondering (I definitely was before I arrived), most of the assembled do-gooders looked surprisingly elegant and well-coiffed (and I thought you people were above such frivolity??!!). Although there were some suitably bizarre ethno tie-die hand-woven hemp creations on display to ensure you didn't get the night confused with, say, a debutantes' ball.

This was my first ever big awards bash. And by big of course I mean not too big. Cos it's the charity sector and it would be a bit embarrassing to be troughing on champers and caviar and snorting coke whilst watching images of beaten wives, starving children or Alzheimer's patients.

The people handing out the prizes were a bizarre mix of minor celebs, some of whom were more obvious choices than others:

• Neil Kinnock - ooh yes, all these guardian-reading leftie types will love this
• Kate Adie - wow, brilliant female role model
• Ade Adewhatsit - he's young! he's sexy! he's black! he's disabled! the Beeb has just wet its collective pants!
• Some foreign football player (Gianfranco Zola? Gianluca Viali? "You are all weeners here tonight to me" Well said, Gianthingy!)
• A few other people who I hadn't heard of

Anyway. I had a great night, apart from offending one of our guests. He'd just been telling me that he thought his daughter should apply to my firm because "she has the right school on her CV". "Excuse me?" I snorted, "Don't you mean that she has the right results?"

"Well, yes, but the right school counts for a lot, you know"

"Um... right," I said, "I went to my local comp."

And then the woman sat the other side of him (from the Arts Council) chipped in, "Me too!"

Hah! Pincer movement.

banana skills

My friend Matkinson insists that the best way to peel a banana is as follows:

(i) turn it upside-down, so that the stem is at the bottom.
(ii) squeeze and roll the terminal end of the banana between your fingers until it splits
(iii) peel it down from the bottom to the top - the stem then acts as a handy handle with which to hold the banana:

Sunday night fun

Last night I went with my friend Roland to see Aurora Orchestra do a concert of zany American music, including a premier of a music/animation collaboration called Life in the key of Aaaargh!

Before the concert, Roland was guessing that of the four pieces, two would be plinky plonky nonsense (Aaaargh itself, and Adjustable Wrench by Michael Torke - d'you see what he did there?) and the other two would be good (Copland's Appalachian Spring, John Adams' Chamber Symphony). Fortunately, he was mistaken on the plinky plonky nonsense bit, and both pieces were pretty enjoyable. And there was some fantastic ensemble playing from the orchestra. The Appalachian Spring was in the original version for 13 instruments (I only know the big symphonic version - it has oboes in it, which the smaller one doesn't) and, despite not having oboes in it (usually a bad sign), it was really beautiful.

All-in-all, I don't think I've actively enjoyed a concert so much for ages.

Ice Maiden

I just had my professional portraits done for work. We all have to have one for use in presentations, marketing materials etc. If you don't have a professional one, they use the picture from your security pass. Which for me is relatively unfortunate (see pic). Not to mention somewhat out of date.

The whole process was not quite as bad as I remember it from school. Our school photographer always used to say, "Come on, Lady Di, give us a smile". Not to the boys, I suppose, though. I don't know what he would call them. Not "Prince Charles", that's for sure.

Anyway. I had to display full range of corporate emotion from "sober and trustworthy" to "slightly amused and trustworthy". I may share the most cripplingly embarrassing with you. But I'm not promising anything.

Guilty secret

At the moment, I have to do about 20 minutes on the tube each day to get to the client site. On the way home, I've got into the habit of picking up one of the free London papers in the evening. If you've not seen one of these (London Lite, The London Paper - handed out by tabard-clad students/immigrants/out of work actors), they are effectively gossip mags for 20- and 30-somethings masquerading as newspapers.

Regular features

• One-off articles penned by readers, with a "Should XXX write for us again? Text your vote!!" footer appended to them (strangely, the voting results are always in multiples of 10%, making me suspect that there are only ten people bothering to text. Or they just make it up.)
• Readers' opinions of recent news items, submitted by text so as to render them as white-van-man-talk-radio meaningless as possible
• A photo of Victoria Beckham and a quick update on her fly-on-the-wall documentary / trials of life in America / latest outrageous outfit
• Centre spread of who was out on the town last night (i.e. WAGs falling out of cabs, Peaches Geldof - always with a reference to her upcoming A-levels thrown in for good measure - and some random celeb with their nipples / ladies bits on unintentional display.)

But I must now make a confession. Both the free papers have a column dedicated to messages between anonymous commuters. Along the lines of: "To the cute Brazilian guy in the sleeveless shirt on the District line at 6pm each night - you've got a great smile". And I can't help it, but I ALWAYS read them. Just in case one day I find... "Slightly tubby speccy girl with frightening hair on the Reading train - your scowling face makes my day"

The best things in life are free if you are exceptionally lucky

Entertainment & Economy scale went into overdrive this weekend. Not least because the South Bank was having its celebratory opening so every time I walked past on the way to the station there were weird and wonderful free events going on. But this excitement aside, I was the lucky beneficiary of much E&E joy...

Friday night

• Early evening drinks at the Fortnum & Mason wine bar. The immensely charming French staff let you buy food from the deli and bring it into the bar to nibble on. E&E rating: wine=fair, nibbles=good.
• Royal Academy summer exhibition. My parents are Friends of the RA, so receive a pair of preview tickets, so I went with my dad. The exhibition is free anyway, but if you go to the preview you get the opportunity to buy Pimm's at £5 per glass. Hmmm. We resisted. Thanks to the pre-exhibition tippling, though, I was nearly tempted to shell out inappropriate amounts of money on artworks. Close shave, but ultimately achieves an E&E rating of Excellent for being both fun and FREE!

Saturday

• Met up with friends for champagne and mini macaroons to celebrate Kristin's birthday. E&E rating: um... I think we'll evaluate the day as a whole... moving on to...
• Stalls seats (row E, darlings!) at ENO's production of Benjamin Britten's Death in Venice, starring the sublime Ian Bostridge. And a glorious counter-tenor (Iestyn Davies, per the programme). E&E rating: oh, how smug am I? My friend at the Beeb procured press tickets so it was FREE FREE FREE FREE FREE and truly amazing, which puts it off the scale.

Sunday

• Brunch in the sunshine.
• Run in Richmond Park. The best things in life are indeed free.

By popular demand

The anatomy of a TROLLEY

TROLLEY has three levels, as a proper trolley should.

Level 1
The top level holds the cash box, the two active flasks (hot water and coffee), tea bags (two sorts, if you are lucky), the paper cups and the naughty tray*.

*naughty tray: chocolate bars, Kitkats, flapjacks (commercial, not home-made, sadly) and little plastic tubs of mixed sweeties (jelly sweets, sours, jelly beans etc). Oh, and I think they do plastic tubs of health-giving seeds too, but who cares about that?

Level 2
The middle level, which requires you to stoop and guddle about to pick out a gem, is where the real treasure is to be found. Alongside the spare flasks and milk, you find a plate of individually wrapped jam doughnuts (these always look a little flat, like they may originally have been stacked in a very high pile), and the two CAKE PLATES.

The CAKE PLATES all carry the same style of cake: loaf-shaped cakes cut into nice rectangular slices. There are always about three slices of each type, so you have to be quick if you want to grab your fave. My well-researched comments are:

• lemon drizzle - has little pockets of lemon curdiness in the sponge and a nice icing. Highly recommended
• dundee-style - lots of raisins and big sugar crystals on top. The high fruit content makes this offering feel very virtuous (for a cake).
• ginger - never bothered with this one since my own ginger cake triumph. Plus I like icing, of which this has none.
• carrot - looks promising. I had a bit off someone else's the other day and it was nicely moist.
• coconut - not had it myself. My friend Jo had it by accident when she was gunning for carrot cake. She did not complain.

You have to reach in and steal your own slice using your fingers and a serviette. Slice sizes vary wildly, so some judicious observation from the sidelines pays dividends unless you suspect that your favoured type is under threat from other gluttons. In which case, jump in quick.

Level 3
The bottom level is for dull things like cans of pop, bags of walkers etc. The true trolley connoisseur naturally shuns this snack machine style offering, but the boys go for it in a big way. And not in order to admire the ankles of the trolley lady. Unless they have specialist tastes.

I believe the trolley also harbours fruit of some description, but for some reason I can't immediately bring to mind which level this is located on... Anyway, have you seen the time???

Did I mention the Trolley?

I can't remember if I've already mentioned that the office I'm working at has a 3pm tea trolley every day. The nice lady with a big voice pushes the trolley in the front door and hollers "Anyone for TROLLEY?!" and we all gather round for tea and cake.


I'm beginning to worry about my obsession with TrolleyTime.

I start thinking about it in the morning, which is when I consider whether or not I should have cake that day, based upon the relative healthfulness of the preceding 24 hours.

By midday, my lunch choices are strongly influenced whether I've committed to having cake in the afternoon. I also calculate the approximate time between finishing lunch and upcoming arrival of trolley

By ten to three, I'm busy clearing my diary/excusing myself from meetings/terminating conference calls/having a preparatory wee so that I'm not out of the room when trolley arrives.

By three pm I'm at my desk, poised. But the challenge now is not to look too desperate, so people do not realise the disturbing depth of my trolley fixation:

• Look up, nonchalantly, as if to say "Is that the time? I hadn't realised."
• Turn to colleagues and say, "Cup of tea - there's an idea. Can I get you one?"
• Grab purse, run to trolley, push through crowds, lunge for cake

Damn, damn, damn!

things that make you go hmmm...

Given that it was making the boss go Hmmm in a disapproving manner, I cannot disclose the precursor to this instant messenger exchange. But the question remains: is it me that's barking, or her?

Boss.... you know I want to hmmmmm
Me..... you are LOVING THE HMMM
Me..... don't spend it all at once
Boss.... there's an endless supply - that's the benefit of the hmmm - it's not a constrained resource
Me..... oh dear
Me..... and my credit at the bank of hmm appears to be limitless
Boss.... but could become devalued with overuse
Me..... true
Me..... the governor of the bank of hmm issued the following statement earlier:
Me..... HMMMMMMMMMMmmmmmmmmmmmmmm
Boss.... but I AM the governor of the Global Bank of Hmm
Me..... oh

How do YOU do it?

Gosh, but it was a nice weekend, wasn't it? I hope you managed to get the most out of it. I capitalised on the sunny blessing in three ways:

(i) bought an outdoor table and chair set. For £50 (bargainlicious). They're green (as in the colour, not the environmental impact - although they are steel rather than illegally logged teak, which might help the old green credentials. But then steel is somewhat high energy to produce. Sigh. I suppose the environmentally sound solution would have been to go and salvage something from a skip. Or sit on the floor.)

(ii) went for a nice 10 mile walk around Elstead and Thursley in Surrey. The walk took in Thursley bog (Site of Special Scientific Interest, because scientists are apparently specially interested in boggyness) and the Pride of the Valley pub, which celebrates some famous Welsh person (can't remember which one at this precise moment, only that it was not Dylan Thomas). It has been rather expensively done up (quite nicely too), but unfortunately the overall ambience was ruined by having the CD on loop for the same two songs the entire time we were there. Even if these had been decent songs, the repetition would have been a tad painful, but sadly they were not (I think they were Atomic Kitten and Darius from pop idol, but this is slightly outside my area of expertise). I remain somewhat scarred by the experience.

(iii) had sunday brunch with a friend I haven't seen for ages at the Bluebird Cafe on the Kings Road. This venue is one of the Conran empire (albeit the cafe part is at the cheaper end of the spectrum). It was a nice surprise to be able to get a table in the sunshine without a wait on such a lovely day. The service was unbelievably inept, so we kept our nice table for close on two hours, despite a queue forming outside.

The slightly bizarre service didn't trouble us - everything arrived very slowly, but we were in no rush, and the antics of the waiting staff (and one very irate couple) provided endless amusement. A nice but slightly perplexed-looking young man wiped down our table about 5 times during the course of our visit, and also attended occasionally to move the salt and pepper pots to a different location on the table. In addition to our own orders, they attempted to serve us a number of items destined for other tables, including portions of chips, entire main courses, extra water, and even two glasses of champagne that were meant as apologies to the irate couple. We could have eaten like kings if we had been more on the ball.

Apart from these fun things, I also had the boss round for dinner and ran round Richmond Park again.

queasy

I am working from home this morning (as opposed to "working from home" - complete with finger moves to indicate inverted commas - which requires no actual work to be undertaken and doesn't even need you to be at home). This involved eating a bowl of muesli whilst reading the budget paper of a hospital trust.

This is not a recommended activity.

I was just lifting a nice milky spoonful of oaty and raisiny goodness to my lips when I read the phrase:

"Express procedures for rectal prolapse using mesh"

Strangely, the rest of the bowl no longer appeals.