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.
 
 

NIAMH A five year old is great fun. Most of the time. The time that you aren’t debating with them who’s in charge (clue: it’s not them), or forcing them in to hated tights, or explaining why it’s not a good idea to carry the dog by its nipples. (Insert link to your fave pic of Mavis under ‘the dog’)Occasionally they render you speechless. I wish I could recreate for you the look on my husband’s face when, over a pub lunch last Sunday, Niamh announced “I haven’t slept with thousands of men”. After some gentle investigating (you have to pitch it just right so they don’t realise they’re being interrogated or they clam up like WWII POW’s) we ascertained that this was a line from her favourite film, Mama Mia. So thank you Meryl Streep.
 
FEET My feet are happy. Smooth and soft and silky, they are ready for sandals. Before my luxury pedicure in Soho, my feet were like the feet of Satan himself. After an oxygen mask(?) and some cling film and the attentions of a nice lady, they are fit to be seen. I was with two girlfriends, one of whom is about to be married, so pretty feet was our gift to her. After the whole foot thing, we drank loads of champagne in a hotel bar, saw Shilpa Shetty, and went home. Louise, one of my co-pedicurees, admitted she’d asked the therapist what she was using to get rid of the hard skin and was told “a cheese grater”.
 
THE APPRENTICE An hour of bliss, some of it watched through my fingers. I love The Apprentice, although it should be retitled ‘How Not To Succeed in Business’. The people who apply, scattering deathless quotes thither and yon (“Let’s work until we bleed”) have no idea. Some of them are lawyers. Some of them are teachers. I wouldn’t let any one of them cross the road to buy me a bottle of milk. Why do the women wear such nasty mannish suits, with ill fitting blouses underneath? It’s either that or berets and nattily knotted scarves. Surely there’s a middle way, Apprentice Ladies? A jewel coloured fitted cardi a la Nigella? And Sralan doesn’t suit thin. I preferred him with a little double chin under that carefully tended stubble. I’m waiting for the personalities to unfurl this year, but already I don’t like the Geordie bloke, who’s spitting surly criticisms. (I’ll probably end up rooting for him. That’s the way The Apprentice goes.)
 
EGG BOX-RELATED GUILT Today Niamh needed to bring an egg box to school to decorate. I bought a box of six especially. I forgot to put the egg box in her bag. And now I am suffering the agonies of the damned. I can’t deal with these blips rationally  where Niamh is concerned: I am fast forwarding from this egg box scenario to a life spent in squats taking drugs and arguing with a man called something like Shady Pete.

KNITTING A tiny little v-neck, navy blue and soft, is taking shape on my needles. It’s for Jack, who’s brand new.
 
MY EDITOR Jo edits my books. She’s petite and dark and quite quiet, and kind of fascinating. She came to lunch the other Sunday, and we all stood out in the garden with drinks in our hands. She squinted in through the window of my study, saw ‘RESEARCH’ in capital letters on my whiteboard, then clocked ‘pig disease’ beneath it. Jo voiced some concern for the next book, reminding me that I am supposed to be writing romantic comedies.
 
TODDLER-DULTS Grown men dressed like toddlers – eh? They’re everywhere, particularly fast food outlets. Big six footers with feet like canoes, clad head to toe in soft and fluffy sweatshirt material. Baggy top. Baggy trousers. Really baggy trousers, with a  gusset down by the knees. Are they trying to regress? My Dad would never have left the house dressed like a baby. It was suits all the way. Even to garden in. (Although that was an old suit.)
 
EYEBROWS I’m not sure why I’m sharing this, but I have over plucked my eyebrows and I look like 70’s vintage David Bowie, not in a good way.
 
WRITING On the home stretch with book number six. I love my heroine, she’s a little older and more cynical than my other girls. I’ve moved her to the countryside, Somerset to be precise, and I feel energised whenever I visit her there in my mind. As usual, I’ve cast the male leads in my head. The women just blossom, but the men are physically modelled on famous blokes. This time I’m dealing with Billy Nighy and Matthew MacFadyen. A tough job, but somebody’s got to do it.