On losing a phone

The most liberating thing is realising that they are never going to call.

Meanwhile, Radio!

I wake up, I go to the gym, there's a fire alarm, so it's full of firemen, I have breakfast outside a cafe, I get back and discover my Torchwood Radio Four play is announced.

Today is a good day. Of course, tonight I'm off to see The Wicker Man remake at Bad Film Club, so it's not all giddy wheee.

Overheard on a fire escape

Smoking outside means you can eavesdrop on drunker people in gay bars.

"So, the Earth fell out of the Moon. Yeah. When it was plasma. For every action there was an equal reaction in the teutonic plates. You still seeing Paul?"

Bookshopping

Got distracted from shelves by Rick who took me for a beer (Raspberry - curiously like a smoothie) and second hand bookshopping in Skoob.

It was a lovely afternoon in the Caprica Brunswick Centre, you couldn't move for organic farmer's market, and Rick genuinely appeared to be the only straight man apart from a harrassed dad in Waitrose.

Fatally, I found the graphic novels section of Skoob. I asked the hot assistant if there were any Tintin books (thinking about it: not a great opening with fit staff). He pointed to a shelf behind the counter. And Tintin there was.

"Careful," he said, "They're mine."

I also found more of the Sandman spin-off Lucifer ("oh yeah, they're mine too. Brilliant choice.") and an Authority graphic novel ("Also mine."). Is it dangerous to try and pick up a man by picking out books?

Shelves!

I haven't built shelves for ages. But, with no work to do this weekend and the sun high in the sky, I am in the mood for A Project. And so I am building a window seat.

The cat is standing on a table in the living room. Watching. With an expression that clearly states: "Is this wise?"

I can has slash!

Reader Erskine-Davidson has found the following jaw-dropping link. It is to slash fiction inspired by my Torchwood novel:

Making the most of it

This is genuinely the most exciting weblink I have been sent all year. Oh yeah, the odd LOLcat has got close, but they rarely contain sensitive, folds, moist, and cock

Oh, Erskine-Davidson, thank you.

Gymnastics ends at 5.30

I take it all back about Sarah Connor. The last episode was brilliant. Okay, minutes 38 and 39 were brilliant.

Other than that, it's been typing, mini-eggs, a ruthless cockney, Agatha Christie, a long walk in the sun, a short bike ride in the rain, and chunky chips at the Vauxhall Tavern.

Put like that, how brilliant.

At the moment, rubbish

I have been surprised by Easter. This being a year of "working from home", I suddenly found out that, ah, there's pretty much nothing to do for four days, London's closed, and most of my friends are on holidays that they planned in 2007.

I've never been any good at Bank Holidays. When I was at the BBC I frequently turned up to work on them, felt immediately foolish, and slinked home at lunchtime pretending I'd been to the gym for a really long time.

But now I'm even more rubbish at them. I look longingly at friends who spend Bank Holidays restoring their Tuscan Villa/ Paragliding in Norfolk/ On four day clubbing benders. I would now appear to spend mine talking to the cat.

It's not been that bad - I've had a whole pile of work to do (that I've done Very Badly), and I've been to Brighton (where it rained). But when I finally decided "right, sod it, let's read a book", I fell solidly asleep. It's now 9pm on a Sunday night, and bugger it, I'm going out and I'm doing something. It will be fabulous. And, if it isn't, then I shan't tell you.

Aliarse

Finally got through season five this week. I've been padding warily around it for a fortnight - do I really want to commit to 20 hours of wig-based spy capers?

The answer was yes. Possibly. Although I'm still a little baffled about what it was about. Maybe that's cos Alias is baffling. Maybe it's cos I watched the last episode after a very long very lovely evening out in one of East London's post-modern gayaterias.

I dunno. But I remember thinking as I staggered to bed at oh-god-oh-clock: I just don't own enough wigs.

Blissfully

For the first time since January, I'm on a pause between work. I've got a tiny bit of actual work to do (amendments to second book, since you ask, ta very much), but everything else is waiting for people to get back to me.

It feels weird. I have nothing to do.

Yesterday took an entire day off - pottered round Soho with Lee, walked through some parks, took in a matinee, bought cable from Maplin and instantly regretted it (what is this boy urge? why do I now have an entire crate full of semi-abandoned s-vhs to phono leads?).

Last night I sat up till oh-fuck-oh-clock drinking whisky, chainsmoking and watching DVDs. This morning I woke up late and watched Alias with a hangover. And suddenly, just as Sydney Bristow disguised herself as Anna Espinoza disguised as Sydney Bristow (more painkillers now!)... suddenly, I realised the downside of this sudden leisure time:

I have absolutely no excuse not to go to the gym. Arse.

Rotherhithe

I hate waiting for buses. It leaves you with time for nothing but soul-searching. For those difficult questions such as "Could I really find nothing better to do with the afternoon than come to Rotherhithe to get mauled by a South African web designer?".

Seemingly not. But really? Surely? No.

Targeted Advertising Fail

Think of the kittens!

I'm so glad the government has decided to leave Iceland-investing councils in the lurch, but rescue charities.

For one thing, the Cat's Protection League lost millions. And you can't blame the cats, can you? They have short attention spans, don't care about money, and the only thing they know about Iceland is that it has a lot of fish. On that basis, you can't blame them for sinking all their funds into it.

But you can blame grown adults who ran Council finance departments and, it appears, were paid large sums to ignore warnings from their share advisors. Meow.

You say dinner

"You going already?" I am putting my clothes on and saying goodbye to the man of my dreams. He's incredibly posh, arrogantly handsome, and lives in Mayfair.

"Yup, I'm having supper with friends."
"Supper?" He curls his lip, "Supper or Dinner?"
"I never know what to call it. It's not supper is it?"
He shakes his head. "No, it's never supper. What do you do for a living?"
"At the moment, I'm a writer."
"Succesful? Probably not if you call dinner supper. But there we are. I must be off too. I'm having dinner at Claridges."
"That's nice?"
"Not really. I live there. My family are also writers. Just successful ones, rather than aspiring. Goodbye."

Needless to say, I am in love.

Oddly

This could be summer and I rather like it. There's something splendid about a life that requires me to sit at home, with the cat, typing into the void, occasionally going shopping, or, as with this morning, waking up and being startled to find I'm in another country.

Well, okay, Wales. But still. It was a shock. Especially when I realised I was in Whitchurch. It's a suburb of Cardiff I've never been to before. And it's really suburban. Which doesn't help when staggering around it at 1am with no idea of where you are supposed to be staying.

What does help at these alarming moments is that there's an extra brain programme that suddenly boots up and says "If you find the flat, you can have another little drink and a smoke and check over the day's work and then you can sleep."

Which would also explain why I woke up at a bit later to find that I'd passed out on a balcony with my laptop covered in ash but still balanced on my legs.