Kiki

Right, so great dilemma: if your niece is was 6 months on Monday, is this a present-giving occasion? Husband reckons no, I am not so convinced but also having minimal experience of babies, lost for ideas... I mean, Michael's perfect fail-safe present is alcohol and mine's a book but both seem er... a bit on the inappropriate side.

And then I'm one busy little dragon (I still love the little mood dragons on here!), and pondering another major issue. Does everyone have The Person They Want To Be? I have two: Marlene Dietrich, the celebrity you kind of admire because you like their sound-bites and their clothes but with whom it may very well be a case of "never meet your heroes, you'll only be disappointed" (hence wisely chosen someone who's safely un-meetable) and The Real Deal, the girl I've always wanted to be because you know them, you've spent days and evenings talking to them and they've never said anything that was not irreproachable in both style and content. And own some pretty damn nice clothes too, actually... Oh well, she knows who she is;) But the point I was wondering was - does everyone have that? M. reckons no, and I've always just assumed that yes...

So, out of curiosity, who else has read the Stephenie Meyer "Twilight" & sequels and what say you? I'm not sure... Reads nicely, great distraction when you're off work with a bad cold for a day but I'm not convinced just yet... Just not Lukyanenko, who is the reason I ever got into vampire books at the ripe old age of 21. Since then I have greedily devoured 'The Historian" by Elizabeth Kostova (fantastic little, OK not so little, modern take on Dracula), all of the "Nightwatch-Daywatch" series by Lukyanenko and everything Terry Pratchett has to say on the subject. And well... Edward Cullen and Bella are just a bit dull in comparison! They're madly in love and they occasionally go to school and that's ALL they ever do, that and worry about not being good enough for each other. Great, good read, I identify deeply with every one of Bella's complexes but where's the fun?

Frankie Boyle (in that lovely Scottish accent that I desperately want): Don't you think Pete Doherty is a bit fat for a heroin addict?

Hello, dear diary.... I'm still alive and supposedly creating literary masterpieces elsewhere (that would be the brown notebook I carry with me)... I am also assaulted by crucial issues of wide social importance. Two main topics. Well, three actually, but I am told by respectable sources that noone can help in the great conundrum of what is a sensible danger-free conversation topic for your in-laws...

Anyway the themes I'm currently worrying my little head about are

1) Credit crunch etiquette. How do you talk to a friend if you know that they work for a company that's just announced a redundancy programme and in your friend's department too... etc etc... Anyone got any thoughts around this?

2) How inappropriate was my valentine card to Mr Jennings? It was suitably pink and had hearts on it and said in great big letters: "This is purely out of obligation". Oh yes, and it also said "happy birthday" inside but that was a genuine accident due to failure of yours truly to read the small print beginning "message inside this card reads..."

"What is the most over-rated virtue? - Virtue" (Carolina Herrera)

"Leaders should never ever try to look cool - that's for dictators" (Ben Elton)

"Hemlines rise in times of national crisis. Meaning? Women's skirts get shorter" (Terry Pratchett)

"On ne s'habille pas pour eblouir les autres femmes ou pour les embeter. On s'habille pour se deshabiller. Une robe n'a de sens que si un homme a envie de vous l'enlever, je dis bien enlever, pas l'arracher en hurlant d'horreur" (Francoise Sagan)

"I love her too but our neuroses just don't match" (Arthur Miller)

I have 2 superbly pretty bowls - Limoges porcelain, design by Kenzo. Now, does one a)serve food in them because that's what bowls are for and it's so much nicer to eat from very pretty bowls or b)put them on display and not touch them ever again.

M. is of the "never touch them for fear of breaking camp", I serve cake on them when he is not looking. AND eat it with silver spoons. Is he right?

I resigned today!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! In 4 weeks time, I will no longer be a tax consultant - it feels AMAZING.

I will miss the people but the tax... Oh the tax... Oh the joy of forgetting all you ever knew about expatriate tax. I was going to do it next week but Mr Manager just tipped me over the edge today when he told me that I had used the wrong kind of tipp-ex to correct something on a form. Because, silly billy that I am, i used liquid correction fluid stuff and that looks too messy so go away and do it all over again with correction tape!

I contained my emotions and nodded and then went straight to the partner's office with my notice in writing. Better than chocolate, i tell you.

"Men talk to women so that they can sleep with them, and women sleep with men so they can talk to them", - is my new facebook quote. Apparently, made my friend's (very lovely) boyfriend choke on his tea in the morning. It is SO true, though. Seriously, I'm kind of still in the process of solving my dilemma about the potential possibility of friendship between boys and girls.

M. thinks it's an awful quote though and shows that women don't really plan very well becuase, you sleep with them and then they fall asleep so you never really get to talk to them

I have the best mother in the universe. It's not easy growing up with the pressure of your mother being a stunning blonde with a rather sharp sarcastic tongue, you know you have far too much to live up to. I mean, my mother looks like Brigitte Bardot on all her photos and has eyes of the sharpest blue and is naturally skinny. I am not blonde and not naturally skinny and generally have far too much to live up to. Oh and at the age of 23, I am still totally and utterly incapable of putting on eyeliner and making it look like the gorgeous pictures of sultry smoky eyes in magazines.

Oh and my mother has IT, the X-factor... She is cool and she knows it. She was always the prettiest one at parents evenings and the most relaxed about school results. And it always made you feel like you could not bear to be anywhere below perfect... And she knows me better than i do. Top marks for "...and if it's inevitable, then it's inevitable", she uttered on Thursday...

I still have not worked out whether "Secret diaries of a taxation technician" is a good or a dreadful title for a book. It could have post-modernist edge and all the drama of compromising my childhood dream of being a fashion designer for cats or it could just be dull. But i still want to write the story about how much every big city firm is like a big school, with all the gossip of the class disco, the favourite teachers etc...

I am pondering my great theory that humanity has evolved into a world where being lent a CD by someone is more meaningful than sleeping with them (more of a chance that he'll talk to you again, at least)... Or I could just be trying to convince myself I'm more important than I am...

"How can a woman be expected to be happy with a man who insists on treating her as a perfectly normal human being?" (Oscar Wilde).

Guess what I bought this week? An object of fantastic incomparable kitsch called "Perfect Wedding" magazine. The thing is full of wisdom: did you know you're supposed to

18 months before the wedding: set up a wedding spreadsheet to start allocating your finances
12 months before the wedding: organise wedding insurance (anybody know what one of them is?)
9 months before the wedding: choose the cake-maker
6 months: book transport
3 months: test-drive fake tans
2 months: remind key guests about their speeches (i would not trust any of my guests to make speeches!)
1 month: copy supplier contracts and give to the venue
2 weeks to go: pack your honeymoon clothes
1 week to go: hold wedding rehearsal (what do they do - walk you through your steps so you dont get lost down the aisle?)

OK, i think it's late enough and I've had a glass of wine and a top-up so I have an excuse to be profound and ramble on about feelings:) I've just had a fantastic sunday reading books, namely "Man and Wife" by the rather superb Tony Parsons... And then trying to advise a friend on what to do when ex-lovers ask to be your facebook friend. To which I said that you clearly play it cool and become their facebook friend and comment on their best photos occasionally. Or at least that's how i intrerpet doing the cool thing...

And then I proudly announced my most grown-up pearl of wisdom about feelings: "Growing up is when you actually realise that when that wonderfully intelligent boy with the longest eyelashes in the galaxy (well, it my case he was), didn't text when you thought he should and would and didn't really carry on with what looked so wonderfully promising, he was the one doing the the good, decent and noble thing, not you with all the made-up great love and suffering malarkey. And you feel really really grateful to someone because they dumped you.

See how profound i'm getting in my dull semi-married state? Right, i'm off to ponder the unanswerable questions: "Why is it that all these different groups of people i know always want to schedule parties and get-togethers ON THE SAME DAY AT THE SAME TIME?!

"Vimes maintained three trays: In, Out and Shake It All About; the last one was where he put everything that he was too busy, tired, angry or bewildered to do anything about" (Terry Pratchett, "Thud!") - now do you all love the fantastic Terry Pratchett as much as I do? I'm trying to communicate his greatness to my shiny new fiance, but hey this is the man that does not particularly like "Mumiy Troll" that we're talking about... Oh well, MJ's quotes are as good as Terry Pratchett's most of the time, so i guess he can afford it...

Superb column in "The Times" today:

"My daughter woke up in hysterics. She had a nightmare, a witch on a broom was hovering above her window. My, I wish I saw witches in my nightmares, I just see bank statements"

Ahh, the joys of being a lady who lunches:) I have 2 days off:) So i watched "Desperate housewives", switched on the washing machine, watched some more "Desperate Housewives", went out to meet a friend for lovely Chinese dim sum lunch...

Great quote from above-mentioned friend Masha:

Masha: So how's it going with Michael?
Me: Yeah, things are going well. The parents met recently, though, and that really did NOT go well. I think they actually hate each other.
Masha: Oh that's a good sign. If the parents hate each other, that means you'll get married soon...

And now I'm off to watch Brainiac and Tina Turner with her Bunsen burner...

Ouch... Friend Cat went to a wedding during the weekend. It was a big church wedding, all v. lovely and then 20 min into the wedding reception the bride and groom were yelling at each other at the top of their voices with every swearword imagnable. He thought that her parents clearly had the better seats at the the reception than his family... Argh - there you go, I knew I've always mistrusted weddings for a reason. I think that'll be my new excuse for why I'm not married.

Watching "Mock the Week":

"They thought it was an armed robbery. He thought he was just playing golf with his mates"

Hello, my very neglected diary... I've been on my first romantic holiday a deux and seen some very nice trains. The real Mallard. And not the duck variety. How cool am I?:) I've also seen the best opening hours sign on a shop. It said

Monday: 10am - 3pm
Tuesday: 10ish - 3pm
Wednesday: 10am - 3ish

I think that even beats my favourite ice cream kiosk in Japan that advertised its exciting new broccolli-flavoured ice cream. You could also burdock, salt from Hakata, cabbage and natural viagra flavours in that place... I was boring and had strawberry and chocolate...