"I'm a sushi failure"*

The lovely people at GLAMOUR invited me to attend an event to promote Johnson's Daily Essentials, their revamped skincare range at Boots' flagship store on Oxford Street. Always keen for a bit of girl bonding time (and freebies) I arranged to meet Mini Nizzle for some facial fun which sounds a bit porny but it was all legit. Once we'd been ticked off the guestlist we made it inside the velvet rope to grab some free bubbly and have our skin consultations which involved being prodded by what looked like a mini handbag sized cattle prod by a glamorous assistant.

Johnsons Lady: 'How would you describe your skin?'
Mini Nizzle: 'Err...smiley?'

Cue me getting the giggles for which I blame the bubbly - I'd had half a glass - before being zapped myself and told that I had a lot of moisture in my skin (beauty speak for oily) and dispensed to grab a goodie bag with face saving products in. After mooching about watching a presentation on achieving the perfect smokey eye, Mini Nizz suggested nipping next door to Yo! Sushi for dinner. When I mentioned I'd never had sushi before her eyes popped out on stalks like a badly drawn cartoon character and she practically frogmarched me in and handcuffed me to the seat.

Oh my god lord. To use the popular onomatopoeical adjective found on the Internet.... OM NOM and indeed NOM. It was deeeeeeeeelicious! I was as happy as a pig in muck and spent a lot of time squealing and exclaiming 'oh my god it's sooo coool' as the dishes paraded in front of us waiting to be picked. I was leaning so far over the belt I was in danger of licking the lids and if that didn't make it clear to all and sundry that I was a sushi virgin, the fact I couldn't open my chopsticks let alone USE them sure gave the game away. Plus the fact that Mini had to explain that the tickets on the top weren't the price, I mean I knew it was London and everything but 20.00 for a bit of salmon? Jog on!

My klutziness continued as in the excitement of not missing something that looked like a furball covered in custard (Hairy Prawns) I launched my Blackberry into my Chicken Terriaki splashing everything in sight. Then having worked myself up into a raw fish frenzy I decided to nip to the loo, my messy chopstick work came back to bite my squarely on the arse as I skidded gracefully on a rogue bit of rice and almost went base over apex. I pranced down the stairs high on wasabi fumes, saw what looked like a man wearing MC Hammer pants on the right hand door and so blindly crashed my way through the one to the left. The Gents. Yes that 'man' wearing MC Hammer pants, well it was a lady... Wearing a skirt... Granted it wasn't a very full skirt but it was still a skirt and there was I, stood in the gents, looking like a pervert.

Back upstairs and:
Me: 'Ooooh Mini Nizzle, what's in this little metal box?' (take lid off, peer inside)
Mini Nizz: (knowledgeably) That's fresh ginger hun,
Me: REALLY? (confused face) I thought it was sliced ham.....
Mini Nizz: (Explosive laughter like you've never heard before) HAM?!? In a SUSHI resturant?! (guffawing loudly, in danger of some sort of attack)

It seems I'm not quite up to speed with the whole sushi thing just yet. Either that or I should never be allowed out in public on my own. Once I'd finished embarrassing myself and amusing the rest of the diners we toddled over to Fitzrovia for an impromptu Tweet Meet. Lovely night, lovely banter, lots of spilled drinks (none by me, wheeeeeeee!) and yet more hilarious stories from my fab friends. Shishtini (named after a cocktail she drank that looked like a kebab) had a brainwave, 'The Jiffy Bag Diet' which I think could be the next big thing. In a nutshell when you're sat at your desk eyeing up the Mars bar that somehow made its way into your lunch you just stuff it in a jiffy and send it to someone else. In the words of a famous meerkat, SIMPLES. Plus it spreads good karma and joy throughout the land. Unless of course it causes the recipient to fall off their own diet wagon. Then it would be very bad indeed.

*Believe it or not that's a quote from Mini and not me although clearly I'm a sushi loser. In my head right now I see her singing it to the tune of 'Easy Lover' whilst dressed up as a california roll. Om nom nom.

Pimp My... Filofax?

Got ticked off by my colleague Gok this morning for 'not injecting enough action' into the blog but sadly as I wasn't the victim of an attempted kidnap plot on the way to work, nor did my car spontaneously combust propelling me into a handy stack of cardboard boxes I can't give you what I don't have. So Gok oldfellamelad you'll have to either cool your jets and be patient on the action front, or you'll have to go all out to make my days more interesting to you and no, that doesn't mean you can set my stapler in jelly or some other office based schoolboy prank. 

Having chickened out of contacting that fella who said I looked like a member of his family I was surprised that he got in touch again to plead that I contact him because he thinks I'm so lovely. Looking at his profile once more to decide whether he looked familiar to me or not, (sleep easy kids he doesn't look like anyone I'm related to) I realised he looks a bit like a chunkier, oranger Errol Flynn. Sadly he isn't the man to swash my buckle or indeed buckle my swash as I'd be too traumatised that he'd slip up and call me Mummy in a moment of passion.

Another chap got in touch though however his status was 'wants to date but nothing serious', I mean it may as well have said 'Hi, I'm looking for a quick shag. I won't make you climax as I'll be too worried about my own spaff and then I'll bugger off into the sunset leaving you with nothing more than a bad taste in your mouth and quite possibly herpes and/or gonorrhea'.

Is that too judgemental? Am I reading too far between the lines with that one or have I got it spot on? I'd say only time will tell but actually it won't as I'm not going to go there. Nor will I be contacting my friends soon to be ex hubbie who turned up in my matches using a photo of himself taken on the morning of their wedding.... 

The problem with the online dating world is that it can be like six degrees of separation, or should that be six degrees of sexperation?* In the past I've been matched to an old schoolfriend I had been convinced was gay, most recently I was matched to a friend who's online profile I had just finished writing on his behalf. I'd like the Universe to answer me on why it appears to be so difficult to put me in the path of a tall man, maybe with thick glasses so he can take them off and we can both pretend I'm Cindy Crawford, that I am not already connected to in some way and who can deal with my burgeoning love for my filofax? 

September = new school year = new stationery = Oh my days I shouldn't be allowed in Staples unattended but oh my gosh I now have a fully pimped out filofax that will not be leaving my sight. Love it.   

*No I don't know what sexperation is either but I needed to make it suggestive somehow so that's what I went with okay? Although sexperation - chance would be a fine thing! 

Mish Mash!

I ventured down to the forest for dinner and drinks on Friday night with Treasure and Owen as they're making the move down to the west country to start their new lives. It was brilliant to spend time with them but I'm going to miss them being all the way down in deepest darkest bumpkin land!

A late night with lots of wine meant that when I woke up on Saturday morning I was feeling a bit like a badger had slept in my mouth and got the shock of my life when I clambered off their sofa bed to check out the damage in the living room mirror.

'WHEEEEERRRRRRGGGHGHGHGHHHHGGGGHHHHGGGGGGGGGGGG'

My bottom was massive, I mean super massive, bigger than it had ever been when I was at my heaviest.... I looked like I had some sort of glandular disorder, like the long lost sister of Fat Bastard from Austin Powers. Had I eaten the entire contents of Treasure's fridge in my sleep? Had I been bitten by some wee beastie that had caused me to puff up overnight? A swift step to the right and reality was restored - the funhouse mirror had struck again. It apparently used to hang above a radiator and has warped so weirdly that one side makes you look like the Incredible Hulk and the other is normal, making it quite fun to pose in front of apart from when you forget and it catches you on the low ebb of a hangover and you think 'feck me I look horrific'.

The rest of the weekend passed on a bit of a low tide, I slept a lot, felt a bit blue, listened to music guaranteed to make me cry and then got over myself and went out into the sunshine for a wander aimlessly round Bedford Place. It was bliss. A great reminder that sometimes I need to not be so insular and look for solutions outside of 'mope'.

Today after work I faced one of my fears head on, I went to the dentist. I can count on one hand the number of times I've been to the dentist in the last 13 years since I had my braces taken off so needless to say, I was shitting it when I sank into the chair and the dentist started poking about in my gob. I got off quite lightly today, a scale and polish that made me want to punch her in the kisser a couple of times, 4 x-rays and a referral to have my wisdom teeth wrenched out. I also got a quote for some sexy adult braces, two beautiful new veneers for my grim front teeth and a bout of whitening. It was gulp inducing but hopefully will be worth it, let's not mention the pain part though eh?