Road To Nowhere

I don't know if it's because I'm booking ahead or what but I'd urge anyone travelling by train for Christmas to book soon.

I can't believe how cheap some of the journeys are.

My trip back from Maastricht in December, when I get back from Eurostar I need a train from Euston to Manchester. I spotted a £8 option! I've treated myself to first class and that's only £32!

My Christmas eve train journey back home is a similar bargain and so is coming back - thank goodness some things aren't costing the earth just now.

Woman: 'Now, can you just look at the picture.'

Me: 'Do I have to say anything?'

Woman: 'No, just look at the picture.' (strange whirring noise and red lights)

Woman: 'Now I'm going to just press some air into your eye.'

Me: 'Is that were the big puff of..argh' (A small tornado wallops me in the eye. I blink furiously... well, with mounting irritation)

Woman: 'Now come over here and try not to blink, I am just going to take a photograph of the back of your eyeball. Put your chin on there, and...' (Blinding light)

Me: 'Argh, I can't see...'

Woman: 'Don't worry, it will fade.'

Me: Good, because at the moment it looks like the sun's been burnt onto my retina.'

Woman: 'Right, now take a seat over there and wait for the optician.'

And so I went through a battery of other tests for my lenses and specs, only to discover my eyesight is exactly the same, my eyes are healthy - no change. Three-quarters of an hour of being poked about and now I'm £37.50 worse off.

Still, if my prescription had changed I'd be replacing my specs lenses and so, I suppose, I should be grateful.

Ever wondered what you could do with a few thousand melted raspberry fruit gums?

Elle Macpherson does (pic 7).

CLICK HERE

The pressure in my gas boiler keeps dropping and needing topping up.

Should I be flapping?

I am flapping anyway.

Before Simon the gas man came and did stuff to it in April it used to flood the bathroom with icy water when you twiddled the blue knob under it to make the pressure go up a bit. (Yes, I know, I am dead technical)

Now it doesn't do that.

But it does make my heart beat very fast everytime I go anywhere near it as memory recalls paddling in freezing water and endless mopping.

Always in the winter as well, isn't it? The thought of no heating or hot water... brrrr!

I love it when the bbc create things like this, lovely pictures from the nation capturing our colder-than-Moscow weather.

CLICK HERE

But I also like it when they suspend idiot broadcasters who behave like overgrown children. It doesn't say how long this investigation could take...

CLICK HERE

but I'd keep them Ross and Brand off the air for six months if it were down to me, along with whoever oked their prank for broadcast.

why are we still hobbling about in agony?

I spotted a Guardian article this morning which made a very good point; we may mock our Victorian sisters for their corsets laced so tight they swooned, so why do we wear shoes that disfigure our feet?

It's been a long time since I toppled about in heels, I'm far to clumsy for that sort of thing. And as a commuter I walk far too far every day for that kind of frippery. That and the fact I go over on my ankle in kitten heels all the time, if I were any higher up I'd be in plaster six months of the year.

Actually a couple of summers ago I came acropper in a pair of wedges, somehow pulled a muscle at the top of my thigh and had to be virtually carried from a cinema by a very disgruntled Nibs (I am 5ft 8ins, it was hardly like carrying Tinkerbell, poor man).

I also have a long second toe that is less than happy at being crammed into shoes where it's expected to be shorter than my big toe. This isn't freakish, all roman statues are carved with feet like mine - just minus the calluses. Why am I ignored in the great shoe marketplace?

And why are we so attracted to shoes that injure us? What makes us want to totter in heels?

Yay, Spooks is back.

And so begins those winter evenings trying to distract myself from the mounting tension as our heroic Grid agents punch, kick and stab the living daylights out of other agents.

Astonishingly tense first episode last night.

But will it be the same without Adam? And can Guy of Gisborne fill the man-interest void Adam leaves behind? (As this is all fantasy I am not going to bother with anyone's real name).

Everyone you think is dead - Ros, Jo - is alive. Everyone you want to stay alive ends up dead. Hmmm...

Anyway follow-up tonight where Harry (or Scooter from the Double Deckers, if you like) promises revenge - served at any temperature - he just doesn't care.

That and Little Dorrit, my winter tele is sorted.

No need to say more.

CLICK HERE

Nibs is sitting downstairs in front of the tele watching cars go round and round and round.

All that noise and the fact they all look pretty much identical, how can this be entertaining?

I'm going to go into the garden, find a stick and make circles with it in front of him - round and round and round and round. See if he'll watch that for 30 minutes.

'Yes sir?' said the man in the dry cleaners this morning as I walked up to the desk.

'Umm... Well to start with I'm a woman. I know I'm tall and I've got short hair but...'

'Yes, madam,' said the man without a hint of embarrassment.

'Three dresses and a pair of trousers,' I replied. There didn't seem anything else to say.

And so £12.99 lighter and wondering whether I look like a boy with tits, I wandered back up Northenden high street. Still, I do know some men who look like boys with tits, so...

And it's enormous!

I am now Communications and Publications Manager. Try saying that after three gins. I have a team of six, once one has been recruited, and a portfolio the size of Sudan. And about the same budget (I mean about the same size as Sudan's got to spend on looking after itself - i.e. not massive).

Internal and external comms. My gang. Prospectus. My gang. Corporate publications, My gang. Digital marketing. My gang. Databases. My gang. Market intelligence. My gang. Photography and video - yup it's us.

But, it's more management experience. I'm on a management training programme, so more free qualifications, and I get a pay rise.

It's not what I wanted and I had to fight tooth and nail for what I eventually got, but it's more cash to pay the fuel bills and help cover the cost of taking on the house.

Like a good girl I faced the music and had another chat with Nibs last night and broached the subject of his moving out. He didn't look best pleased but he didn't protest either.

He seems to accept it's all over and we're just living together as friends just now.

So - all action over here, though hellishly difficult to keep it all together. I find everything emotional exhausting - thank god for yoga and pilates at dinner times, I get a little ocean of calm in the chaos.

But bearing up and going to be a damned sight more careful with my mobile from now on. Must stop careering around like I'm on castors and try to hang onto some of that inner calm i get a glimpse of now and again.

It's at main reception. Someone (thank you, thank you, thank you) has handed it in.

I thought I'd left it on my desk but I hadn't. I must have dropped it coming out a meeting yesterday.

Oh thank God. Right, calm down. *Heart beats wildly*.

Argh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

At dinnertime I'm scooting round Boots, desperately trying to find tampons and beginning to wonder whether they actually sell them.

As I whizz past the No7 counter there is a child in a pushchair screaming at the most incredible volume and pitch. Nails down a blackboard don't compare.

I scowl at the child and carry on with my mission: rushing up and down the aisles hoping tampons will miraculously appear. At last I see a woman who works there who informs me they are in the far corner, hidden with tissues and tights as it turns out.

Next... standing in the queue, which of course snakes back to the brink of eternity, but I'm nearly there now so chin up and forward.

I realise the woman in front of me is buying hair nit lotion.

I learn back.

Behind me? yes, along comes mother wheeling the still screaming child.

Sometimes your sanity can hang from a thread. Ever noticed?

I met Ian McMillan yesterday, the poet, broadcaster and all round excellent bloke.

He's a Visiting Professor at our university doing research into poets who just seemed to vanish, those who published or performed, showed great promise, but then just disappeared. He's also doing workshops with students and collaborating on a book with a lecturer in photography on mining. That's on top of his BBC Radio 3 programme, The Verb, recording with his orchestra and goodness what else he's up to.

A local magazine were in to interview him and having set up the interview I sat in to grab some quotes for the university magazine, which I write, edit and drive my designer barmy as I sit over his shoulder saying: "No, not there, there. Cut that, make that picture bigger. Ok, let's rewrite the headline then, etc..."

But he happily answered questions, posed for photographs with roses in his teeth - one white, one red to symbolise the meeting of Yorkshire and Lancashire - and was completely amiable, down to earth and everything you wish people were, all the time.

What did come out of the conversations was something I hadn't realised, how many people we see on television start in performance poetry. Phill Jupitus started as a poet, so did Mark Lamarr, for a start.

He talked with such enthusiasm about everything he does that his enthusiasm felt really inspiring. As he says: 'I do think about slowing down now, but everything is just so interesting.'

This is the recipe.

1 small cup of porridge oats.
2 small cups of water.

Sling in microwave on high for 2 mins. Take out, stir and blast again for 1.5mins.

Result: yummy, thick concoction onto which I sling some fruit and nuts at this time of year.

Result today: microwave full of porridge, bowl sides caked in porridge, tea towel smothered in porridge trying to get bowl out of microwave, desk smeared in porridge, porridge on dress.

How? how can that happen?!??!?!

"Dammit, another one's left now," I thought as I fired up my blog to discover one less chum than yesterday, according to the number displayed on the page which shows my latest missive..

And so I trawled through 'show all' to see which friend had baled without notice.

Having gone through them twice everyone seemed present and correct.

Then I looked at the number at the top of the page - one more than on my blog. Hmmm...

So either someone's lost in space or is in the process of leaving or the counter thing's gone funny.

One positive to come out of this cold is I've cut out tea and coffee.

I am a self-confessed tea junkie. I love tea. And I mean really love tea. But like 10-12 cups a day love. I've been known to sit at my desk at work, giving spontaneous little speeches about the brilliance of tea while looking fondly at my mug.

That's a lot of tea.

And then there was the coffee - six, maybe seven cups a day.

The caffeine DTs have been masked by the cold symptoms. What's a thumping headache when you're dealing with perpetual sneezing and coughing like a consumptive that's been smoking 50 fags a day.

So here's hoping for better sleep and clearer skin. Hmmm... sense of optimism in tact then.

Right, out into the garden to empty some of those annuals' pots and wash them while the sun shines.

I am off work sick with that cold today.

Having spent the morning in bed drifting in and out of consciousness with In the Fifth at Malory Towers and a large mug of honey and lemon I struggled down stairs for a change of scene in the afternoon.

The On Demand thingy on the tele has The Wire on. Lots of people rave about it. It's greatly acclaimed, has won lots of awards and is feted as a gritty, accurate drama portraying life for the police in Baltimore. It's up for an Emmy this year.

Maybe it's the cold, maybe it's reading three Enid Blyton books back to back and my head is now hooked to a version of English where people say "wizard" and "let's see what the new dormy's like" but I couldn't understand a bloody word. Well I could pick out "motherf*r" and I look forward to displaying blind fury with someone by brandishing my index fingers in a pointy manner (no idea what it means exactly, but it's not "I love you", that's for sure). But I gave up after 40 minutes, it was all too difficult.

I spent the afternoon watching Sherlock Holmes and Midsomer Murders. Where dectectives speak English and people don't shout constantly. I think I can feel another Modern Life is Rubbish rant coming on - must be that time of year.

Isn't Youtube a wonderful thing?

last weekend my friend Ami mentioned he's seen The Kaisers on Youtube. No, not the band from Leeds, but the beat combo from Edinburgh.

Many moons ago - more than ten as it turns out - I spent a lot of time watching The Kaisers in grubby clubs round Edinburgh's Old Town. I used to be great friends with one of the Kaisers, Matt, and his girlfriend, George.

And having had a sneaky look pre-working day it seems they were as good as I remember.

Ah, happy days.

CLICK HERE

to see Matt (wee, cut bloke, far left)

and

CLICK HERE

to see what appears to be an appearance on US cable television, sans Matt, who did have a job with an advertising agency at the time doing something very important, so I expect he wasn't allowed to go.

I have a cold.

It is on my chest and making me cough and my face is puffy and my eyes don't open properly.

Funny how you always forget how utterly hideous having a cold can be.

I am sipping fresh, hot lemon and honey drink as I type.

Ugh.

Spent a very plez weekend with friends in Buxton, sampling the local cuisine (yum) and nightlife (small-town odd), catching up with each other and all the celeb gossip we can pool from our contacts.

I love celeb gossip. it's a purient pleasure I've long-since stopped feeling guilty about since I read Ellis Cashmore's book Celebrity/Culture. We can't help it: it's a sign of the times.

Obviously I can't reveal my sources and the tale I didn't know is highly defammatory and newsy and I'm too much of a scaredy-cat to say anymore. I know what's libel and what's not and this - ouch! I'm not fooled by all that northern palliness,
I reckon this lady would be as hard as nails when it came down to it.

Staying up till 3am was a rare treat - as was watching Muse Live at Wembley till I toddled off to bed to find Shooie asleep at the foot of my bed. I haven't slept with a cat on the bed for years. And she purred till I fell asleep, ahhhh!

Carol and Gina also have Barney - biggest cat I've ever seen, his sister Pebbles and Rufus the slinky, Bette Davis-eyed puss who kills spiders and skips rather than runs.

And then it was home - with a hangover, a trip to a bookshop, high across the hills on a dazzlingly sunny day.

Yum!

Chocolate fountain - big hit with the 200 staff who turned up to mingle at the Welcome do this afternoon.

We've just merged two campuses and as internal *yes, as well as external* comms person I was put in charge of organising a little event to celebrate our colleagues' move to the mothership.

Naturally I almost hugged the catering woman when she suggested chocolate fountains.

In fact we had two. One dark and one milk chocolate. They came with all manner of fruit and sweeties to skewer and dip. Fudge, marshmallows, pineapple, grapes...

I think I'd rather do a chocolate fondue if I were at home but as a work toy I'd recommend it.

*Note to self: must run long, long, long way tomorrow morning*

Anyone seen that story about the Gloucester Uni students parading about in Nazi uniforms running initiations for vomiting newbies?

CLICK HERE

Apparently it was filmed and given to the BBC by one of the Uni's own Journalism students.

Love it.

And nice advert (not) for Tesco, I thought.

"And then I was like... 'yeah 'and he was, like 'whatever' and I was, 'yeah..' and I don't know what he meant but that's what he said... Yeaaaaaaaah...

"Nar, I'm go-win for a drink wiv two boys from my sixth form, yeah, i don't know them, like, but they came up to me and I've lost their telephone number now, but yeah..."

Ah, freshers. Most irritating mobile users of any day.

I have decided to be a cat for a while.

Our cat had the life I envied most as a child.

As I prepared to walk a mile to school, she lay curled up by the gas fire.

Some 30 years on and I'm now travelling 14 miles to work, which is polished off with a mile walk up from the train station.

Have I improved my lot?

Of course the cat is dead, but...

... and mellow fruitfulness.

Keats didn't mention anything about it being three degrees and flamin' arctic in Ode to Autumn, but it is both of those here today.

Fished out the fleecy jarmies last night and slept like a log.

Nothing to do with the steak, salad and baked spud I had for tea, followed by half a bar of dark chocolate. I love winter food. It's the winter weather I can't stand.

I'm focusing on my planned trip to South of France, late Spring, now. Splashing about in the Med, looking up at chubby clouds from the beach at Ventimille.

it may be bad to wish your time away but roll on summer.

'And lower yourself into plank position.'

*argh!!*

'And remember to breath...'

*ow!*

'And up...'

*argh!!*

'And now side plank...'

*Oww! Argh! I'm falling, I'm falling...*

'And stretch and relax.'

*Nice*

But I now have smile on my face, my shoulders are no longer round my ears and I feel all zen.

And it's chocolate fountain day tomorrow and someone is making me a cup of tea.

*Wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!*

Too much of work + too much on my mind = sitting a lot, sleeping-ish and eating stuff I can bang in the microwave.

Well the gym and sport centre's back on line now, the big, work, time-consuming event is done and the students are all in, so it's time to pull up my running socks and shift my backside.

Latest revelation from the bright sparks at Brunel is music can enhance your capacity for exercise.

Not exactly a massive shock that one.

I do find it hard to believe that The Heat Is On inspired anyone to do anything but run out of the gym - but I'll suspend disbelief.

I've got pilates tomorrow and then I need to get back on the river footpath on Saturday morning and jog through some mud - yay!

Ponders... can I get a research grant from Brunel to confirm chocolate is yum, makes you a bit chubby if you eat too much and Blayka is mad for maltesers?

Apparently ITV2 has a new series about Superheroes in a pub: No Heroics.

I've already missed the first episode but apparently it features Brian Eno tune - Needle In The Camel's Eye, from Here Come The Warm Jets.

Thursdays. 10.30pm.

Full marks for musical taste anyway.

This is where I have been for the past week.

The Earl of Wessex, Prince Edward, opened a new building on campus yesterday.

I think there is a short clip of the top of my head at one point, if you are looking for me. But my job is to make media coverage happen, not end up in it.

The weather was end of the world stuff, from what I could see outside, as I careered about with two mobile phones, talking to a lost tv crew and guiding in journalists who were trying to attend another event on campus by mistake.

Right - now back to business - and finding out what you've all been up to for the past seven days.