Codeine influenced and migraine inspired. . .

So here I am. Back in London for just shy of a week now and holed up in my boudoir following one of my humdingers of a migraine which kept me up all night sobbing into my pillow.

Two codeine tablets and three hours shut eye and here I am letting loose on the blog - not wise when one's mind is clouded, one's eyes exhausted and one's stomach is lurging with nausea. Someone fetch me a violin and I will play you such a melancholy tune. . .

It's no wonder I'm ill. Following my restful jaunt across the channel, it took all of two hours for my body to readjust itself to the screech of sirens, the relentless stress caused by striking tube workers and the constant panic I feel every time I need to leave the office on time.

Mix in a healthy dollop of the ever changing British weather, a pinch of a weekend bender and garnish with that poisonous little witch Waisel staying in on X Factor and you will find you have the recipe for a pounding head, best served resting on the cold side of the pillow.

It's absolutely belting down outside I can hear it. November rain - not the epic Guns and Roses track featuring one of the greatest guitar solos courtesy of Slash and his dexterous digits - but the sad November, UK drizzle rain. The type that gets caught in the wind, blows in your face ruining precisely applied eye makeup and destroying the perfection of many a straightened lock. It's this exact look that I was rocking shortly after midnight last Friday -around about the time Master EPL was disembarking from a bus in East Dulwich in a commandeered sailor's hat, property of Her Majesty's Navy. But that's his story to tell.

So gone midnight Friday, bucketing down, post LVPO (everyone loves a freebie) and sans umbrella, my dear friend and I, after bidding Master EPL, Wee Wallace and a drunken sailor a bon nuit, are weaving our way from SoHo to Chinatown. I don't even like Chinese food but I was absolutely Hank Marvin.

Though masquerading as a 24 hour city, London does late night eats like any other poor excuse for a UK town. Street meat and fried chicken served in polystyrene boxes can be procurred at a reasonable price at very unreasonable hours. But, if you like your late night food served on a table with crockery and cutlery - Chinatown it is. Although there was no cutlery, just chopsticks which I managed clumsily due to copious amount of alcohol previously consumed.

The aforementioned dear friend has been a friend for years. One of those who knows I once owned white stilettos and other such ghastly secrets. One of those I am completely comfortable eating like a pig and dripping beef curry all over the table in front of. One of those that knows that this lady is most definitely on occasion a tramp - not the dirty girl prostitute type, just one with very few airs and graces I'll thank you.

We had a good catch up, a heart-heart and tried to offer each other advice in between mouthfuls of my discarded sticky rice and fresh chilli. Then we stumbled to the bus stop, drunkenly pledged to stay friends for life and boarded a most welcome, uneventful nightbus before heading our separate ways home Like two kids given a cardboard box to play with, we just have a good time. Oh the contrast from the masquerade of the previous evening.

The previous night I'd been at the May Fair hotel with Elle magazine. After the event a colleague and I decided to grab a drink before she went for her dance class. Just a quiet almost the end of the week drink. The kind where you know you're on the home straight, one more gin and tonic won't hurt, but at the same time, it remains a civilised affair.

Sadly the May Fair bar was packed wall to wall with over paid, obnoxious, old aged idiots. This made standing at the bar minding ones own business somewhat difficult. Three of the above described accosted us and insisted on buying us a drink. As there was no way to manoeuvre an escape the choice was take their drink and conversation, or just their conversation. We opted for the drink. Just call it compensation for "are you wearing any knickers under that fur coat?". FYI a lady never does tell.

When you're drinking with a group of men who keep their wad of fifties in a folded five pound note, you know manners will always make way for money. But equally gentlemen you should also know that the toilet will always win out over a twat. That's right we go in pairs when we're not coming back.

We'd much rather hide in our powder room haven (and belief me if the sniffs and snorts from the cubicles were anything to go by, there's plenty of powder) to finish our drinks and indulge in conversation which may or may not pertain to our lingerie. Again. A lady never does tell.

But that's over beloved London. A facade of glamour masking a city which is distinctly rough around the edges. An endless parade of Uggs and Fuggs, the genuine article and the false effect co-existing relatively peacefully,. The fusion of real no nonsense friends with the bullshit from the desperate to impress big times make for rollicking good times, giggles and prime blogging fodder either way.

Ate: late night Chinese followed by hangover fry up with crumpets on the side
Paid: £15 for Chinese and zero for the booze. Nods appreciatively in direction of LVPO
Lived: I am dying a slow and painful death

The SKEKSIS

Goodness me, that bitch knows what buttons to press. I've been sat at my desk today like a type 4 Chernobyl reactor, circa 1986.

Now, being the master of discretion, I won’t name names, well at least not until I’ve had a glass or three of vino, (hence the sad realisation a career in the Ministry of Intelligence was not on the cards for me), anyway I digress, let’s just call her Skeksis. A playfully accurate moniker a photographer friend of mine coined (who I must say got the ‘Dark Crystal’ likeness bang on, it must be the eye for detail or something).

And let’s just say she works in my department, albeit in a position she's wholly unworthy of (let's throw in a healthy dose of backstabbing, brown-nosing and being a mercurial bitch for good measure).

Now don’t get me wrong, on day-to-day basis, I merely mask my contempt for her with simple nods of the head, the polite offer of coffee and well-timed, gay trills of artificial laughter, not forgetting of course, a smattering of feigned ‘’no....really?’ interest. (No..really... I’m actually not interested. Ha!)

I often find myself looking at her, as a mother might her child playing in the garden, or an artist taking in a serene sunset and think to myself “you know... you're the kind of person I would denounce to the Gestapo for not actually doing anything.

Except she does,

every day.

and she deserves to be punished.

Being frightfully middle class, I of course, don’t voice my concerns, ‘airing one’s dirty laundry in public’ is after all, a middle England faux-pas (the participants in any Jeremy Kyle ‘show’ will affirm this statement).

I used to opt for the very British ‘under your breath comment’ to express my displeasure. You know, when someone pushes past you in the queue at the post office, and you think loud enough for them hear ‘there’s actually a queue, my impatient friend’. Or someone (I’m certainly not saying it’s tourists... but it is) decides to walk in front of you at a glacial pace along the underground, and you make that little 'your robbing valuable seconds of my life' tut.

But I thought, what would my favourite Mean Girl, Gretchen say? Resolutely, it would be "let it all out in the book, honey", and I thought you know what, I will. I'm going to let it all out on the blog. It is 2010 after all.

Venting: done!! Glass of merlot to hand. Tuesday evening is looking up!

Ate: Endorphin enriched Chinese takeaway + 1 glass of Cab Sav (and counting..) fags don't count, naturally.

Paid: £8, fag's don't count, naturally.

Lived: Aside from the Skeksis' notable evilness, just about. Dodged inspectors at Potter's Bar followed by defective trains at Finsbury and a rammed tube from Kings X to LB. Shudder.