I had an early meeting in town this morning so it was getting on for 10am when I tottered up to Oxford Road station, clutching a cup of tea and a pain au chocolat.

Settled on a Platform Two bench I sipped said beverage and ate all the really chocolatey bits of my late brekkie.

Thankfully I'd consumed it before a girl plonked herself down before me, unwrapped some lurid, technicolour burger thing, smothered it in tomato sauce and then proceded to wolf the lot down with all the finesse of a half-starved gannet.

I got on the train as far from her as i could to discover the train was packed to the gills with mewling babies, hundreds of twenty-something sovereign ring-wielding, tattooed, semi-naked youths and push chairs everywhere.

There were two girls sitting on the floor, age about 12, wearing less than I do in bed. In the summer.

I found myself a corner, wedged between a bike and a push chair, and tried to distract myself from the constant ringing of mobiles and the giggling of pramface I and pramface II.

I am not enjoying commuting this week at all.

A friend at work was proudly showing off photos of her daughter's wedding this afternoon while I was brewing up in the kitchen.

'Oh, I like your hat,' I said. 'Or should I say fascinator?'

(For those not au fait with modern wedding outfit get-up, a fascinator is a mini hat which attaches itself to the side of a female's head. In truth it looks like someone's collided with an ostrich, but they are very much the thing for weddings, ladies' day race meets etc)

'Yes,' said mother of the bride. 'My brother-in-law made some comment about me attacking a sparrow but his sister said "Oooh, I like your fantasiser!".'

'Ah, the fantasiser, that comes with batteries doesn't it?'

'That's the one,' she said.'I told her they stock those in Anne Summers, beside the bunnies.'

... mostly because it doesn't go where it did last week.

Now, miraculously, the 7.45 from Oxford Road bypasses Salford and Bolton and flies off (though not literally, obviously) straight to Preston before pootling on to Edinburgh.

Something to do with track work at Chorley (where the line disappears under water from time to time in the winter)I'm guessing. Obviously no explanation offered this morning from train people.

So I have to wait another half hour now to get to work.

Wait; what I mean is I have another half hour in bed before I get up for work.

Now the masters is over I don't need to get up at the crack of dawn (and frequently before dawn has even sniffed the horizon) so I can get home early to hit the books.

I can swan into work at 8.45 like a normal person.

Which this morning I managed while still stopping off to buy a pain au chocolat for breakfast.

Dear god, is there no end to my slackness?!

It's a very odd world at times.

Very strange indeed.

CLICK HERE

I used to work with ex Daily Star staff who would hang their heads at the mention of a certain MP. They swore blind they were right and he was pulling a fast one.

I expect the News of the World editorial team are having a less than great morning today. Although £60,000 damages to Max Mosely probably speaks volumes.

'Have I told you to leave me alone? Have I? Have I? Yes I f*@kin' have, haven't I. Haven't I? So f*@k off, all right. F*@K OFF.'

The blonde woman shouted the words into her mobile phone as the number 41 bus rumbled through Rusholme. Her fellow passengers gazed out the window, attempting to distract themselves from the woman's rantings by watching pedestrians on the busy street and the early diners eating in Rusholme's numerous curry houses.

However it was impossible not to hear the woman. She moved an over-sized gold hoop earring so she could continue yelling into the phone as her pursuer rang back.

'I'll tell you f*@kin' why, Josh, I'll tell you f*@kin' why, because you are never there for me. Never f**kin' there for me.

'When I collapsed in the house where was yer? Eh? Eh? Down the f*@kin' pub with yer f*@kin' mates getting f*@kin' pissed. Your f*@kin no use to me, no. No, so you can f*@k off. Do you hear me? Do you?

'Exactly what part of "f*@k off" do you not understand? F*@K OFF!'

She snapped the phone shut and shook her head, her heavily lacquered helmet unruffled. I had become fascinated with her hairline by then, where odd hairs were making an escape bid from her scrunchy. Her phone rang again.

'No I'm not telling you where I'm going. No I'm not. And you can chase round after me mates in Sale all you like but I won't be f*@kin there. None of them are going to be smackin yer, if anyone smacks you one it's gonna be me, YOU KNOB.'

The volume at which these final two words were shouted was so loud it genuinely hurt to listen. Could she rival Motorhead for volume? Possibly. She certainly didn't need the phone. If she had just stood in the street and yelled Josh and everyone else in south Manchester would have heard.

We were Withington now. A frail old man hailed the bus which pulled sharply to a halt. The bus driver gave him a fighting chance of getting to a seat before he careered off again up Palatine Road. The old man held grimly onto the rail and levered himself into the seat opposite the woman.

Josh called again. As soon as she started the old man turned to stare with incredulity. Me and what was left of the bus passengers cringed with embarrassment as she started again.

'Send f*@kin' Happy round to talk to me, I don't f*@kin care he's not going to get anywhere. It's finished. over. No I'm not f*@kin' interested. Got that? yes I bet you are but it's too f**kin late. Too f*@kin' late. And no I am not tellin' you.

'Look, where do you think I'm going, I'm eight-and-a-half-months pregnant.'

It was about this point we reached Northenden and I got up. As I passed her, she was, indeed heavily pregnant.

And as I got off I heard her say to the old man 'I do apologise about my language'.

If you drive through my home area of Manchester, Northenden, the view isn't great.

The high street is lined with nail bars, hairdressers, takeaways... all the apparent 'essentials' of modern living.

But if you come down the river paths it's a completely different story.

The church is St Wilfred's. Very pretty.

Just back from lunch with friend Nicky.

I had four-cheese pizza and ice cream.

It is quite likely I will explode at some point this afternoon.

I am stuffed to the gills. Mmmmmm....

I am on the verge of booking a four-foot chocolate fountain for a work event.

Seriously.

Some days this job is not half bad!

It's sunny yet somehow freezing, completely defeating the object of the summer exercise thing. Stop it.

My dress keeps clinging to my tights when I walk, ruining its line and generally flashing more of my legs than I intended. I shall no doubt be moaning about the static shocks later.

The cleaner has left the window of my office open so it's freezing in here as well as out there.

My feet ache from attempting to wear ladylike shoes due to 'that lunch meeting' today.

A bit of my gum is sore so in the back of my mind I'm quietly obsessing that my teeth are going to fall out.

I am cold. Did I mention that?

Meh! Pah! Meh!

Actually... argh!!!!

Working on the ticket barriers at train stations can't be the most fulfilling job in the world.

But there is no excuse for being rude - certainly not at 7am.

There's one ticket man at Bolton who can't see properly and so points at your ticket to help focus his eyes which ruffles my feathers slightly because it looks like he is glaring and, worse, pointing. I do not like being pointed at.

But this morning I got told off at Oxford Road for not going to the right barrier to be let through with my pass.

Now he was something of a dollop so he should have been easy for me to see, I know, but they will insist in dressing them in navy, which makes them virtually invisible against a sea of commuters and it was 7am. I hardly had my eyes open.

I apologised and replied I couldn't see him (and refrained from adding 'inspite of the fact you're carrying far more weight than is healthy, ticket boy.')

But oooh, he's put me in a right mood.

Nibs has been to the library and come back with the Arctic Monkeys' Favourite Worst Nightmare cd.

It's fab. Brainstorm might be familiar. Girls dancing in their gym knickers - marvellous!

The whole cd wallops along. I'm going to be running to this all week. Yay!

Seeing as I've got 'that' lunch meeting on Monday I thought I should probably throw together a cunning plan tonight and go look at some art this afternoon to get the creative brain into gear.

So I toddled down to The Whitworth Gallery to see the Neverland exhibition.

It's all about art inspired by children. The lure for me was the promise of seeing some Paul Klee and Joan Miro's in the flesh, so to speak, and they were beautiful. Stars of that show, though, had to be the artwork created by children towards the end of the exhibition. Really very moving and impressive.

Klee insisted his son, Felix's work, rivalled his and Miro was intent on finding his way back to his childhood creativity. Judging by the work displayed created by two-five year olds they had the right idea, they were really interesting. It's on till August 17 and well worth a visit. Only downside; the echoing screeching of disgruntled small children being forced by their trendy parents to experience art. Take your ipod. I forgot.

Anyway, up stairs was an exhibition by Anne Desmet who I'd never heart of, but she's really impressive. Does all these tiny wood engraving collages. I'm completely smitten with one that's on tiny tiles of green-gold glass called Green Glass Light. I want it in my room. Greatly.

And I loved Tower of Babel, Flowers of Babel and Towers of Babble. On till 3 August.

On Tuesday I went to a Manchester PRs Network Meeting where Peter Saville, Manchester's creative director, was talking on what he's doing for the city and where he's got to since he got the job from the city council.

It took place in Malmaison which I have to say is the darkest hotel I've ever been in and the room we were in did seem to be decorated a la 1980s video.

However, Peter Saville was rather marvellous, I thought. Honest, blunt and absolutely not bothering with any PR-speak. He made some very valid points and I came away thinking of ways I could apply what he had to say to my organisation. If i come away from an event with any new ideas I think it's time well spent, personally. Especially if they are free.

Manchester's position isn't unique. It's working on a problem facing every modern city in the world, just about. For us, in the west, the industrial age is just about over. We're not making, creating and exporting in way like we used to. China's doing that now.

Manchester was the first modern city, according to Peter Saville. Cotton made us kings through the industrial revolution. We had the first railway station and man, you should see The Midland, which was the railway hotel, it's beautiful. Completely over the top and utterly gorgeous.

We have some stunning architecture thanks to that time. You look up at some of the city centre buildings and you can't believe the detailing, the expense, the pride that went into creating them. We were famous the world over.

But now if you leave these shores everyone's heard of Manchester, because of Manchester United. And that's ok, but it's not great. Cities don't thrive on a football club, a football club thireves on being a football club. It's not enough.

Peter Saville was talking about what Manchester needed to do to make itself a great internationally renown city again.

And, not surprisingly, he hadn't come up with a 10-point action plan, a set of performance indicators or any strategic scheme in the time he'd had the job.

Which seemd to ruffle the feathers of the corporates. Who also didn't like being told that their organisations were not the bee's knees when viewed from an international perspective and could do better.

Maybe we've got broader shoulders in our sector, or we're used to more abstract ideas and thinking, I don't know, but if anything spelled out to me that I do not fit their PR mould it was the dummy-spitting emails that flew round the next day.

I was just about to email the organisers and thank them for a stimulating and fascinating couple of hours when I spotted 'where was the agenda? Why was it so hot? Not what I expected. Waste of my precious time' missives to the organisers and everyone else who had been invited.

I sent mine and found the other unis were much of the same view in their 'thanks it was great' emails.

Maybe you lose your sense of humour, your ability to take criticism and your sense of perspective in some organisations.

Still debate is great and if we were all the same it would be a dull planet, but curious how he inspires such extreme reactions.

Changing a city's culture, how it is perceived in the world is going to take life-times. If Peter Saville can point out some cues and get people talking he's well worth the money as far as I can see.

I slept very badly on Thursday night (hardly at all, really) and so got up at 5am on Friday and went into work early so I could finish early, have nice chippie tea and get to bed.

By 9pm I had the light out and I was sleeping soundly. But my imagination was clearly working overtime.

I dreamed I was walking through the countryside somewhere stark naked.

In the dream I was wondering what had happened to my clothes but decided to just keep going - as you do in dreams.

People kept walking by and I thought 'I'm going to get arrested or something eventually' but no one said anything even though they could clearly see me.

And then I woke up. Strange huh? I wasn't anxious in the dream just a bit curious as to what had happened to my clothes.

Happy Birthday to you
Happy birthday to you
Happy birthday dear Sooty
Happy birthday to you.

That bear's looking damned good for 60. Botox perhaps?

Maybe it's the weather.

But ennui - I have it in bucketloads.

Sing it Serge... if you can be bothered...

Nibs got a letter on Monday.

From a debt collection agency.

We rang them immediately to discover someone has been using his identity and his address where he lived about five years ago to order stuff out of a catalogue. They must have used details from post that wasn't redirected.

And of course they never had any intention of paying for it so the debt is left in his name.

I'm hoping if we can prove he didn't live there at the time that will be enough to satisfy them it wasn't him.

But has this ever happened to anyone and how do you go about clearing it up without getting credit blacklisted?

Should we be reporting it to the police?

Apparently we are planning a state funeral for Margaret Thatcher.

All I can say is some people have very short memories.

Particularly some people supposedly in the Labour party.

Gordon Brown.

Yes, you. What are you doing?

I suppose it was too much to hope for that she'd make her final appearance at Traitor's Gate.

Is that why they need all those troops to line the route?

Ok, so we're back in winter mode.

It's Monday.

I'm freezing.

Cold enough for penguins? Almost.

For all of us who need a laugh on Monday, watch this.

CLICK HERE

It's possibly Stuart Hall's finest hour.

The Vivienne Westwood exhibition in Sheffield was fab.

I am seriously coveting a tweed dress and cardy from 1986, a red wool suit and, oh a pinstripe suit, a navy coat from 1996 and a corset top and... well, let's just say I how have major frock envy.

The guinness in the Dog and Partridge was top-notch, as usual, and I had yummy tapas in this place called Cubana a few doors down.

Tomorrow I'm thinking of going to see the Paul Klee stuff on show at the Whitworth Gallery now I'm back in Manchester.

Because it'll fill some time on Sunday and I am utterly, utterly bored. Sigh...

I hate them!

Those stupid, stupid, stupid overnight mini suitcase-size things on wheels people drag behind them.

The big ones I don't mind. You can see those a mile off.

No, it's the tiddly ones that sit well below eye level.

The ones you don't notice until you look round to see what you've just tripped over.

The ones people dragging them ram out beside them when they stop randomly in busy airports, usually straight into the shins of someone like me.

They are a health and safety hazzard. They don't look they would hold more than a pair of jarmies and a toothbrush.

What's in them that can be that heavy? Why can't people just carry their case?

Lazy, I call it.

I am rewarding myself with a half-day, claw-back of time in lieu tomorrow and going to this:

CLICK HERE

I am a huge Vivienne Westwood fan.

As we know I love frocks. Love them, love them, love them.

And Vivienne Westwood makes the most amazing creations. The design is so innovative, she can make fabric do things I've never seen before.

I love how her clothes are so different and yet so English.

I am the proud possessor of one Vivienne Westood skirt that I have worn for three years now at least once a week. It looks as well as the day I bought it, which is no mean feat considering how clumsy I am. And a ring, which could happily double as a knuckle duster, which shop assistants in frock shops have been coveting for the past ten years.

Anyway, I am going to have a lovely time and drink yummy guinness in the Dog and Partridge pub afterwards. Yay!

Here we are, yesterday morning, before our graduation ceremony at the University of Leicester. That's Blayka on the right and Kisty, middle.

Don't we look comfortable in our gowns and mortarboards?

Graduations are a terrible faff. There's no where to put anything. You need someone to carry everything for you. You seem to be walking about constantly collecting this, collecting that. Everyone talks to you like you're 12.

But the ceremony itself was quite fun. They have a seriously flashy mace and a lovely set of wands at Leicester and the chairs for the Vice Chancellor, Chancellor and Deputy VCs looked like they'd been inspired by the first Star Trek series. The live music made a great addition to the general pomp and ceremony, but it did seem very long.

And so we were out by 1pm and back into the rain.

Blayka is in Manchester for the next couple of days, touring football stadiums, so we nipped to her hotel for a farewell drink before saying our good-byes.

So, it's all done. I have the certificate to prove it. Masters in Mass Communications - with Merit.

Now, next challenge... hmmmm!

Just looked down at my keyboard to see what looked like a shard of glass.

Stared at it with incredulity.

Pondered whether contact lens had fallen out and shrivelled instantly.

No. Can still see.

Stared at it a bit more.

*Ting* Remember to shut mouth when crunching glacier mints at desk.

Blayka and me are graduating on Wednesday.

Dressing up in academic gowns and going up on a stage to collect our masters degrees at the University of Leicester.

It'll be lovely to see her again so soon - and Kirsty, our friend.

I'm going to miss our emails about essays and dissertations and what the hell we are supposed to do/buy/wear/not wear to this grduation ceremony.

We had so much fun at the last conference together. Learning stuff and being in a little gang that laughed constantly. We will just have to stay interested alumni and go back once a year for the annual Mass Communications conference.

Still; onwards and upwards. Things can't stay the same *looks wistfully into the middle distance, attempts wise and noble contenance. Looks, in actuality, a bit confused*

Bit of a 'mew' moment though, it has to be said.

Oh, and I'm in charge of photos, so standby!

Midsomer Murders is back on tele.

YAY!!

I had one of those intriguing, detailed dreams last night.

It's all quite complex and meandered madly but this was the best bit:

We ordered drinks in this restaurant. And I don't know what they were called but when they arrived - wow!

They were cups sculpted out of dark chocolate, shaped like birds, filled with brandy and you drank the brandy through the beak of the bird and then scoffed the chocolate.

And there was a range of about six with different drinks in them.

I want them.

For a while now I've had this suspicion I'm so fond of my ipod we are developing a relationship.

No, not like that. I mean ipod picks songs for my mood when I put it on browse.

But this morning it decided I was running to power ballards or nothing else. They came to be on there because Blayka has power ballards on in her car all the time and that's why I listen to them. They remind me of being with her in Croatia and Slovenia.

But today it wouldn't let me out of the playlist so I set off down river with Meatloaf declaring with great insistence that he would do anything for me.

A couple of miles later somehow I got lost jogging round Fletcher Moss Country and it was 20 minutes before I realised I lived downriver and so running upriver wasn't going to get me home. About turn and onwards with Reo Speedwagon telling me how it didn't matter about all those men before because we were still together and they were going to keep on loving me.

I was walloped by the time I got home, though I had had empthic moments with Heart recalling lying in the dark alone, wondering why he wasn't answering the phone and was quite cheered to hear Simple Minds didn't want me to forget about them (though I had).

You have to have irony in your head and your tongue rammed firmly into your cheek, but I do enjoy them. And Roy Orbison: I Drove All Night; a genuinely wonderful song.

I've been watching the ladies wimbledon final.

Two great amazonian sisters smacking hell out of balls.

Should be really exciting.

So why am I so bored?

I have lost my tennis eye.

Even the word looks silly.

Tennis, tennis, te