So when walking along a London street last weekend, and spotting a sign on a door that said “No! Junk mail please!”, I simply had to stop.

“What earthly sense does that sign make?” I said to Gordon in disgust, gesticulating wildly at the offending door. “I’m surprised they’re not inundated with pizza leaflets and free ads papers. They’re just asking for junk mail. Why can’t people get it right?”

At that very minute a man with a bag of shopping walks through the gate of the house. I had seen him, but what are the chances that the only other man on a long London street should live in the house at which I am staring as if it is a piece of dog poo on my shoe?

He turned out to be Chinese. And to speak English as most definitely his second language. I discovered this when he explained to me that “We put this sign, no junk, we don’t like – too much paper.”

I think I’ll go back to being a pedant in private.

Mood gremlins sit on your shoulder. Everyone has one, but you can’t see them, unless you really try. This is what the majority of them would have looked like this morning, when I got on the tube.

From now on, I’m getting the bus.

*1 middle-aged lady with reactolite glasses, nursing a croissant the size of a small hedgehog, who spoke very loudly in a posh voice about the fact that hopefully soon, she and her husband were going to sell the house in Cambridge, and shuttle between the flat in London, and the house in Burnham Market. Which is lovely, because you don’t have to drive for miles to get groceries – Tesco delivers! Failing that, the local butcher does organic meat. Hurrah.
*1 middle aged gentleman whose startling ginger nose-hair seemed anxious to venture out and taste the fresh morning air
*1 girl with a nice velvet skirt on, who entirely failed to notice that she was exposing a large expanse of upper thigh on her left leg, and occasionally her knickers
*1 fold up bicycle (new)
*13 cups of Costa coffee
*4 copies of the Guardian
*3 copies of the Telegraph
*and 3 laptops of varying sophistication

I’m attempting to do some kind of social demographic survey of the 8.15 into Kings Cross. If I fit it, I’m obviously an upper middle class multiple home-owner, with an aversion to Victor Kayam, and a penchant for horrible coffee. Perhaps this was not a comprehensive sample.

I was tempted to take a photo of the next carriage though – it was filled with men in suits, a large proportion of whom were displaying a taste for silly socks, reading a combination of broadsheets, and saying things like “Sarah, get Roger on the line for me. It’s about this morning’s 9.30 – I don’t think the graph on page 312 of the presentation has the right colour coding…” into their blackberry email-phones.

I wonder if the 7.45 is any different…

My iPod is playing Good Vibrations, and I want to sing along. This is against the rules, so I sing in my head. It’s unsatisfying.

The man next to me is reading the Sun. He’s not all that large, but he seems to take up half of my seat in addition to his. His paper keeps dipping gently over my computer screen. As he jabs me in the ribs to turn his page, I notice that Wayne Rooney’s other half, Colleen McLoughlin, is confused about why she’s been labelled a chav. Oh, and Brad and Angelina are having it off in Kenya, apparently. I love the Sun’s approach to ‘news’.

I don’t get much work done. The countryside is too beautiful, and I’d rather watch the bright fields of yellow rape pass outside the window. They always look as if the sun is shining on them, even when the sky is low and dark.

The journey is punctuated by coughs and sneezes, and by Hawaiian Shirt’s occasional belly laughter. No-one speaks, but the couple in the seats opposite me are conducting a silent conversation through winks and nods, frowns and smiles, that both of them find amusing. I’m mesmerised.

The woman opposite begins to try quietly to remove the free ‘Top 50 Gardens to Visit in 2005’ supplement that is taped to the front of her magazine. The noise is making people stare; she’s very self-conscious and withdraws, snail-like, into her seat. She eventually goes for the sticking-plaster method, ripping it off with abandon, and narrowly misses flinging coffee all over Mr Sun. He jabs me in the ribs again, and coughs. I wipe saliva off my screen, and decide to read my book instead.

When we arrive at King’s Cross, people pour from the train in a silent stream. I notice that Hawaiian Shirt is wearing sandals at least three sizes too big for him. He’s a large man, but he has very tiny feet.

Now, if there is one thing I am not, and have never been, it’s trendy. I’ve struggled long and hard to get to the point with my personal style where I people don’t snicker behind their hands when I take my coat off in the pub. I think I look ok, but I’m most definitely not a style guru.

Yesterday was a bit of a nightmare. There is something alarming going on with the back of my hair that shrieks of old lady perm. If it gets longer I’ll be entering mullet territory. Not a good look. So, my friend and I descended into the cavernous toilets. They were packed with people having sex and doing lines of coke (I expect). A very well dressed blond woman was having face cream combed into her hair by some guy who just happened to be in there. I said into an unexpected lull in conversation, “Jesus, look at these people. They’ve all got fabulous shoes. I look like someone’s mum”. The blonde woman turned round. Hmm, I thought. She’s familiar.

Then I spent the rest of the evening getting make-up tips from the guy who does the slap for Faithless.

Gosh, I’m getting trendier by the minute.

Anyway, Flatmate is a complete neat-freak. The house is immaculate. Even the cushions have their place on the sofa. I like it – it’s soothing to come back to somewhere that is uncluttered and neat. My room, however, is mine. I’m not the tidiest person, but I have been making a concerted effort over the last weeks to keep it looking respectable. Yesterday I got up early to sort it all out and hoover it before the first lot of prospective buyers turned up for their lightning visit. Then I went out.

When I came back after a night of carousing and hobnobbing with celebrities (of which more later), I came home to find that she’d been in and made it tidier. As far as I can tell, this entailed taking the water glass from beside the bed, hiding my contraceptive pills so I couldn’t find them, and squaring the duvet up. Now, I fail to see how rearranging my already neat bedclothes and making the edges of my pillows paralle, could possibly make this house more attractive to buyers. I don’t mind if she asks me first. What really makes me mad is when I feel as if my privacy has been violated. It’s my bed! My room! I’d like to feel that I can leave a pair of dirty knickers safely hidden under the covers without fear of them being exposed to prying eyes before I’m ready. Call me a slob – I care not a jot.

It’s cold out there today, but beautifully brisk and clear. As I breezily cycled past Spitalfields market this morning, I sympathised with all the people outside ABN Amro who wait patiently for their daily caffeine intake from the mobile Mr Coffee (He’s so frothy – apparently). They all looked as if they had their heads in their own personal clouds.

I’m still churning inside. Yesterday all the waiting put me in such a state that at one point I managed to accidentally dribble down my front with no provocation whatsoever – not even a cup of tea or glass of water on hand to blame.

Here’s to a dribble free day, and an envelope for me sitting on my mat when I get home. Cross your fingers for me.

I loathe my doctor. Just thinking about him makes me nauseous. He’s made me cry both times I’ve been to see him, and he refuses to either look at me or touch me (thank Christ). I think he hates women. Really. His voice on the phone sounds like a million slugs crawling down the wires. It slithers. My skin is still crawling from making the appointment just now.

Stupidly, once I realised that he was both incompetent and inhuman, I tried to change doctors. I didn’t realise that all the doctors in the Lewisham area (and believe me, I spoke tearfully and desperately to all 40 of them) are full up, and have waiting lists. Mine is one of the few that has spare patient places, and bitter experience has shown me why. What happens to people who can’t get a doctor? Do they spend their lives going to A&E whenever they’ve got a problem?

I’ve become resigned to this man now because I’m pretty healthy, and flatmate has put the house up for sale, so I’ll be moving soon. I’m not really very excited about next week though. I don’t know how he’s going to administer my tetanus shot without coming into physical contact with me. Maybe he’ll ask his grey and downtrodden receptionist to do it. In fact, I think I might prefer that.

I’ve never been anywhere like The Foundry before. For those not in the know, Hoxton, the area in which I work, was once the place to be seen out and about if you wanted to be part of the trendy set in our great capital. So I never came here. I haven’t got an asymmetric hair-cut for starters, and frankly, if you’re not in the running for a Jarvis Cocker looky-likey competition, you’re on a hiding to nothing anyway. I still have palpitations about going out round here in case I get arrested for wearing clothes without rips in.

BF and co. were on at about 10, so we went for some dinner, and moseyed on back at around 9ish to see what was on. We’d missed the main event – the lead singer spent the rest of the gig floating around the front of the stage in a white silk dress, wearing white pancake makeup and a blonde beehive wig, and dancing as if her legs were being held up by beanpoles. Occasionally she’d throw herself into a frenzy of Irish dancing a la Michael ‘Riverdance’ Flatley. The first thing we saw was a very odd duo – I didn’t catch the name.

There were two members. The main man looked as if he’d spent his life trying to look like a miserable version of Terry Nutkins from Animal Magic. He played a combination of instruments, one of which involved him waving his hands about between two metal sticks to make a screeching sound. The other one involved lots of knob twiddling, and the finale came when he put a pink child’s welly on his hand and stamped it up and down the keyboard, eyes closed, head thrown back in an orgy of self-expression. His band mate was wearing a pair of trousers that kept falling down round his bum. He was playing a cello, after a fashion. Mostly it was just irredeemably awful noise – the proverbial thousand monkeys attempting to recreate Mozart on a thousand electric keyboards. I couldn’t stop laughing. I know I shouldn’t, but it was so horrendous, I couldn’t help myself.

I kept looking around to see if anyone else had noticed how bizarre the whole thing was, but no, they applauded, and off he went to smoke a giant bifter at the table, accompanied by his three mates. These blokes, all of whom were wearing trousers that showed their underwear, were clad in an arresting combination of women’s hats. They’d been out to the organic food shop nearby, and come back with some corn crispbreads and a lump of cheese, which they proceeded to eat at the table. I swear it was like some horribly twisted WI tea party.

Then on after them was a very intense girl with a brown bob, who sang intense versions of Nina Simone songs as if she was the only person in the room. She came back a bit later, during the final act (Australian in curly wig and sunglasses, screaming rock songs about wombat sacrifices in Victoria) to do a bit of intense headbanging.

But the piece de resistance was an act called John Callaghan’s AutokaraokeThere’s nothing I can say that can do this man justice. He was brilliant. He went through a blinding variety of clinging dresses, and ended up wearing half a suit, but he started off the act inside a cardboard box on which were 2 painted ping pong balls for eyes, a sponge with a slit in it for a mouth, and a stuffed babygro. I enjoyed it immensely. We ran into him on the tube on the way home, and he was telling us he’s had the box for years. It’s in pretty good shape, considering.

I still think BF and co. were the best though. But then I would.

For some reason, Spearmint Rhino, the UK’s premiere Gentleman’s Clubs apparently, has decided that the Lewisham male is the ideal demographic for an advertising campaign. Thus, daily, I am invited to partake in the delights of my own personal lapdance, while 12 foot high luscious lovelies beckon alluringly from behind the railway bridge.

They’ve changed the ad this morning, and now a rather generously endowed girl in a fluffy white bikini gazes down at me with her come-to-bed eyes. “Come to Lapland”, she incites. I imagine that the place is lit up with Christmas lights, bedecked with fake snow, and full of fur un-clad women promising things that would make Santa blush.

I’d quite like to go. I’ve never been to a lapdancing club before – I’m curious as to what it’s like. A friend of mine got briefly, but expensively, addicted to them once, and it was an education for me, I can tell you. I don’t think I’d be welcome though, unless I shoved a pair of socks down my pants, and went in drag. Oh well.