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.