Day 92: I Wonder About A Haircut

This is a (poor) artist's impression of a very strange haircut that I often see on daytime chat shows. In essence, what you do is plaster your main hair to your head, then pull out individual strands of fringe, dip them in sunflower oil, and stick them to your forehead.

Do you have this hairstyle? Do you know anyone who does? If so, can you explain why anyone would want it? It looks jolly silly, let alone slightly grubby. The wearer invariably has a pasty complexion and clothes made of nylon. My own hair (fine to the point of near-transparency, curly in an irritating way that is not heavy curls or waves, but unruly semi-frizz), naturally qualifies me as a Hair Critic.

Coming Soon: What not to wear if you're on the porky side. Includes short sleeves, bare midriffs, leggings, backless tops and very tight jeans with vests.

Day 91: I Refute Accusations of Dishonesty

What's the MATTER with you people? I don't make this stuff up, you know. A reader writes to ask whether the hotel in Newcastle I wrote about a few days ago was made up in my brain. The answer is: no, it was not. Here - yet again (and last time it was the facial hair on the dioramas) - is some photographic evidence, proving that The Royal Station Hotel, Newcastle, could be a set for a UK-based TV adaptation of The Shining, with Shane Ritchie in the Jack Nicholson role.














The first floor landing. Please note the air of Evil hanging in the air, and the mismatched carpet and wallcoverings.

If you narrow your eyes and hold your breath, you will see blood pouring down this corridor. The white light at the end is probably a ghost.












My well-stocked minibar. The white blobs at the bottom are four miniature cartons of UHT milk.














I mean really. Could you have imagined that carpet?

Day 91: I Wonder What Has Happened to Clarks

I thought Clarks shoes could only be bought in shops that smell of wee, run by men in grey polyester trousers selling Cornish Pasty shoes and cushioned insoles to the bunioned.

But in Clarks in Oxford Street, it is all white and glass with music on the soundsystem, and the shop assistants are all under the age of 16 and leap on you with their teeth bared. They have headsets on and bark instructions to the Shoe Monkeys in the basement in weirdly accented English: "For me a favour please Peter, what the shoes yes, Aldo in the size 41, black, sharp-quick please ciao ciao". There was an old lady in there but she looked a bit scared, so left and went to John Lewis where she will have been no happier.

I don't know what the world's coming to. Next thing I know you'll be able to buy nice clothes in Sainsburys and talk to people on a telephone in the street without any wires.

Day 90: I Like A Seven And Five Year Old More Than I Like Most People

I am not That Bothered about children. (I try and crush their hands on planes, for example, and think a lot of them are annoying.) I do not press my face against the windows of Mothercare and measure up all Gentleman Callers as potential fathers, because that would be foolish. If I Fall In Love With Someone Splendid I may change my mind; but I am not considering turkey basting syringes and sperm ordered off of the online.

Luckily, my friends have had children. Not only have they not turned into idiots (although they are very tired almost all the time), but I like their children. There is my god-daughter, who chews a rabbit and is magnificent, and the splendid pair I have just spent the weekend with. (They are very kind to their cats, a tiny kitten and a bigger cat who, despite having fangs, is charm itself.)

Me: Thing about whingeing is, it doesn't usually get you what you want. I know. I still try it almost all the time.
F (looking at his mother): That's what she says.
Me: Well, it must be true then.
F: Do you like Grease?
Me: Are you changing the subject?
F: Yes. I don't want to think about that now.*

Later that day, a lovely laydee turns up at Dear Friend's house. I walk into the kitchen. S, aged 5, is standing with his arms sticking out a bit, slightly rigid and wide-eyed and saying to her: "Have you SEEN (insert my name here)", as if I am the Eighth Wonder. (When you are five, your judgement is not always brilliant.)

As I was leaving today, we were all in the back of a cab.

Me: S, why aren't you looking at me?
S: Because you're LEAVING.

I wish all boys made me feel like that.


* There is of course usually a direct correlation between niceness of child and niceness of parents. Dear Friend and her Husband are particularly splendid, as are the parents of my god-daughter. DF - whilst doing a million other things - bothers to draw 'T-Birds' on the back of her sons' jackets in chalk, for example.

Day 90: I Still Hate Flying, Parts 2 - 15

Lucky me! Oh happy day! For Troll Father and two of the Troll Children were behind me on the EasyJet flight from Glasgow to Gatwick. One of the Troll Children kicked the back of my seat, put his flip down tray thing up and down and SHOUTED the whole way back. He stopped when he put his hand round the back of my seat and I 'accidentally' leant on it.

At Glasgow, we queued for an hour to check in. Then we had to take our shoes off. There was only one person on security for twelve gates, which obviously made sense. The entire airport smelt of burnt cheese. We flew around a bit. I attempted to crush the eleven year old's hand using the force of my elbow, which nearly worked and certainly shut the little bastard up. At Gatwick they couldn't open the back door of the plane, so we waited and waited, and then waited some more so we could have our photographs taken and be issued with a bit of paper with barcode on. The luggage belt didn't work, but there was a man with the biggest trainers I have ever seen throwing cases around; happily, he threw mine first, so I Legged It and then got caught in another pointless queue for another twenty minutes. Then the train, then the tube, then the bus, and finally home, in five hours. I don't mind the flying bit, but I hate everything else about it.

Flying is FINE if you have A LONG WAY TO GO (or you are going on business, tra la). But if you are going Not That Far, get a train. Read a book, eat apples, write things on your computer thing, look out of the window, have conversations with people giving out tea; swap magazines, ignore your mobile phone, look at rainbows on the East Coast Mainline, have a kip and wake yourself up snoring. Then get off at the other end in the middle of the place you are going to. It seems straightforward enough to me.