Day 63: I Have A Visitor From Europe

"I think of myself as European", I once said out loud in the offices of The Daily Telegraph. How we laughed.

I want Euros in my wallet, not pounds. As it is not the done thing to discuss politics, money or religion in polite company, I won't go in to any more detail; suffice to say the whole subject makes me jolly cross.

So you'll just have to imagine the joy I felt when today's cursory glance at Site Meter* revealed (amongst the details of my other 1.2m daily visitors), a solitary 'Europe', illustrated with the brave flag you see here.

European Visitor, I salute you.


* Tireddad, don't start.

Day 63: I Provide A Product Warning

See this? Lovely stuff, with marketing that is (for once) accurate: it is indeed "like being caught naked in a hail storm of Mint Imperials", although possibly a little less painful, as Mint Imperials weigh quite a lot. (For our foreign friends, Mint Imperials are peppermint sweets, and are another reason why all British people over the age of 35 have false teeth.)

I often enjoy the invigorating tingle of Original Source, and apply it liberally to my capacious buttocks in the gym shower whilst singing snatches from West End musicals. Today, however, I had a bit of a start. All I'm saying is: don't let the stuff near your ladyparts.

Day 62: I Try To Explain Why I Think About Horses When I Eat Squeaky Beans

I had some supper and undercooked the green beans. As usual, they made me think of horses.

It started at some point between 1978 and 1982, when we lived in Paris. I was a child (I don't know if I was sweet or not; my parents don't talk about it much, so I would guess I was Strange), who liked ponies a lot even though we lived in a flat in a city. I would spend entire afternoons with my friend Sara doing pretend gymkhanas with Britain's horses. If you had the black stallion you were in with a chance: he was unpredictable, but brilliant. But your best chance was the little grey mare, who was very reliable and had a lovely temperament.

We read Pony magazine and went on a riding holiday, where our night out was a trip to Perth to see Clash of the Titans, starring Harry Hamblin out of LA Law in a loincloth and a rubbish animatronic Cerberus. It was good. I went to Scotland a lot and cycled 8 miles uphill every day for two months to spend an hour catching a very fat Highland pony called Ewan, who I rode for twenty minutes before I had to freewheel home to my Granny. Then I had two accidents, one of which involved a badly bruised coccyx, and the other a bird, a rearing horse, concussion, and a night in hospital, from which I was woken by Monkeymother bearing strawberries. I didn't ride much after that, but I still liked horses. (I still do. I'd like one one day: a big bay with a kind face and soft muzzle who likes Polo mints and carrots, called Kind Horsey. That would be good.)

Anyway, I digress. In Paris there were meat shops that had big gold model horse's heads stuck outside them. I was very sad when I found out they sold horse meat; I couldn't understand how anyone could eat a bit of a horse, because horses were nice to people and let them ride them, even if they were a bit naughty sometimes. And then one night we went out to dinner and a friend of my father's ate raw mince with an egg on, and told me it was horse. He was fibbing, but I was horrified.

I've never really recovered. I shy away from inappropriately raw things. I despise raw celery and green peppers, but that's not the point: I'm talking about things that should be cooked more than they are, served up as if there's nothing amiss. (I don't like me red meat well done, mind you. And yes, I know it's hypocritical to not eat horses but eat cows, pigs and sheep.) Phlegmy boiled eggs. Seared tuna, which makes me gag. I should really love sushi, what with being an ex-media twat from London, but I don't. Weirdness of clammy cold rice and raw tuna. No. No. And pasta: nothing more disgusting than overcooked pasta apart from, perhaps, undercooked wholemeal spaghetti, the combination of twig and facepack.

Vegetables are slightly more complicated. British people who fancy themselves as 'foodies' (trans: twat with a cookbook), bang on and on about how ghastly overcooked vegetables are. But it is these people who, in their desperation not to look like pikeys at their rubbish dinner parties in Fulham, serve crunchy potatoes, broccoli of wood, and beans that squeak when you bite them. I cook green beans properly most of the time, unless my new neighbour comes down and gives me wine.

The thing is, I can't properly explain why I think about horses when I eat undercooked green beans. I've tried, and I get it, but I'm not sure I can explain it. There's some sort of connection there, somewhere, but it is as it is. Whenever I see a jersey, I think about the way someone once showed me how to put on a duvet cover. Vogel's bread makes me think of the Beatles. The Telegraph is Edinburgh in 1985; red lipstick, thick black headbands; all cats are Chiswick, and fax machines are Irish squirrels. But most importantly, and most regularly, squeaky beans are horses.

Day 61: I Think About Work (Again)

Sometimes, I lie in bed and think: "I know, I'll be one of them 'writers'. I like writing, it's good; it makes me happier than anything else, ever, apart from gentleman callers and eating crisps".

Unfortunately, I think that means I have to write something. I've got a sort of idea for a thing, and I often enjoy an excellent fantasy in which The Guardian phone up and beg me to write witty little pieces about squirrels and phlegm (i.e. like I do now, except good); sometimes I even talk about an idea I've had for a novel, even if it does make me sound like a knob.

I do try: I go on special missions to Borders to buy The Writer's Handbook 2007 and fuck-awful things called How To Write A Novel. But when I get home, they sit fatly on my bookshelf muttering "I told you she had no right to buy us", whilst I lie on the sofa smoking a pipe and reading £2.99 novels from Sainsbury's. And every day I write my blog.

But I don't think writing a blog makes you a 'writer'. (I've never been sure what qualifies you as a writer though; do you get a badge and a certificate from somewhere? Do you have to write well?) Not that that's really the point; the truth is that if I didn't write my blog every day, I'd be cracking open the sherry by 10 o'clock and dwelling on the fact that I might be unemployable.

When I stopped working 61 days ago, it was good. I needed some time to sort myself out, and I needed proper time - not pissy little weeks off taking work phone calls and being stalked by a TwatBerry. But it's been over two months now, and the novelty's worn off. If I 'forgot' the original point of this blog - which was to write about what it's like not-working - it's because I didn't always enjoy it. There was so much about work that I hated (doing what I'm told, being in the same place every day, being civil to fuckwits), but there were bits I liked too (having money, having something to do, seeing other people). More to the point, being by myself all day with nothing to do was starting to make me go weird.

So I think it's time to get a job. Except I don't really want to. And I sort of really do. Be good if The Guardian got on the blower, though: apparently they really like stories about squirrels and phlegm, and I've got loads of those already.

Day 60: I See A Helicopter

My mother often tells me I suffer from false memory syndrome. Not always fair, to be frank, but I am very attached to a story I tell if I'm trying to make people think I'm clever. It's not particularly complicated; I just say: "well THAT'S all well and good, but MY first word was HELICOPPER". When I see it written down, it is patently untrue. But I really and truly believe it, even if I did make it up in my head.

We hear helicopters going overhead in Brixton quite a lot (millionaires going to Harrods, I think), but I've never seen one parked up in the street. But I did the other day, just before the roundabout with the church on at the bottom of Brixton Hill. And as I walked past it I said: "Oh! Look! There's a helicopper!", out loud, with my mouth, in the street, to myself, and some people heard.

Hey ho.