THE DANGERS OF SPARE TIME  It’s been two weeks since I gave my sainted editor my latest manuscript. In that two weeks I planned to start writing a radio play, spring clean the house, visit all my neglected friends, go to the theatre, wash the dog, in short do all the stuff I can’t normally do because I’m locked in my study, superglued to my laptop. In the event I did nothing. Oh hang on. I made curtains for Niamh’s doll’s house.
 
TELEVISION  Well, The Apprentice is over and with it any hope of conversation from me. I was obsessed, to a degree that is unattractive in an adult. I knew everything about Ben, about Yasmina, about, God help me, Nirdal. I studied the way their emotions flickered across their greasy faces (who does the lighting for that show? Everybody looked like day old rice pudding) and I saw in to their souls. Now, though, I am bereft, and Big Brother simply doesn’t cut it. I can’t be party to any situation where one adult (in this case a producer) encourages another adult (in this case a publicity seeking freak) to change their name by deed poll to Dogface. Urgh. I avoided Britain’s Got Talent (which could be renamed Simon Cowell’s Got Nerve) until the final, which was mind blowingly dramatic, banal and urgh-inducing. The self pitying saxophonist was beyond parody. But it led me to Diversity. And to Ashley, the choreographer and main hottie. An exhaustive poll (of the two other women in the room at the time) proved that it is not only alright to fancy Ashley, it is mandatory.

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NO ILLUSIONS  I can’t pretend any longer. I’m officially middle class. I’ve always believed myself to be proper, old fashioned working class from solid Irish stock. But you can’t kid yourself any longer when you pay a dog behaviour expert one hundred and eighty pounds to talk to you and your spaniel for four hours. In case you’re interested, Mavis can now sit on command and has only wet the floor once in the past week. Which is more than I can say for Matthew.
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I LIKE HER  Keeley Hawes. Despite having a name that sounds like an anagram of something brutal, she’s fascinating for her meaty combination of talent, beauty and lack of vanity. She looks as if she laughs. What’s more, she’d laugh at you if the mood took her.
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I DON'T LIKE  Jonathan Ross. And I used to love him, so I’m feeling let down. I relied on him to be genuinely funny in a world of scripted toss, but then he had to go and be horrid to Manuel. I surprised myself by coming over all my Nana about that episode: I’m very broad minded and can forgive a lot in pursuit of a giggle, but he was mean to a genteel man who didn’t deserve it. Now I can’t enjoy him. I doubt if he cares.
BOOKS  The Blue Hour is a biography of Jean Rhys by a writer called Lilian Pizzichini. I’ve been whisked off to the south seas for Jean’s childhood every night in that precious ten minutes before I give in and fall asleep. Voodoo, discontented natives, a Mother colder than the Ice Queen’s noonoo – so far it’s a wonderful read. It’s going to get sadder, I know Jean Rhys had a sad, alcohol riddled, lonely life, but I trust Ms Pizzichini to guide me through it and keep me interested. Digressing, but only slightly, I mentally ‘hurrah!’ed when reading an interview with Nick Hornby this morning. He said that people in the book trade sometimes forget that most people don’t read during the day, that they read at night and they need a book that repays their half hour of effort. How true. I used to devour books, rampaging through them like a Man Utd player in Chinawhite, but now I only read in bed when the house is quiet.
MORE TELEVISION  Mitchell and Webb are back, on Thursday nights at 10pm. Proper wit, with lots of charm and originality. Although I can never quite get out of my mind the time my friend Kate described David Mitchell as having ‘black eyes, black like the devil’.
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It is not mandatory to fancy David Mitchell, by the way, although many ladies appreciate a man who can wear crumpled corduroy with conviction.
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