"Ace...two...three...four...fiveFIVEfivefivefive [slap] ouchgeddofffuckinghellyoubrokemyfingerowowowow..."

While American troops were digging evil Middle Eastern dictators out of the ground over the weekend, our happy little household was more concerned with hurting each other late into the night in a few rounds of a particularly sadistic Chinese card game which is, if you can imagine it, a cross between slaps, snap and minor GBH. This along with a range of different poker games including the hilarious and psychologically scarring Mexican poker, was how we three saw through the weekend, oblivious to the international drama until Sunday afternoon.

I've spent most of the time since the news broke resolutely disbelieving that it is in fact Saddam, but I've abandoned the cod-X Files conspiracy theories involving genetically modified, alien hybrid doubles and badly scripted large scale government cover-ups and do truly believe it is Saddam they have captured. As yet, I've no opinion on what should happen to him now - all I am considering is the fact he is now available for questioning and it is now vital he is pumped for information until his lips bleed from the talking.

Has anyone else noticed how disoriented he looks in the footage shown on every news programme so far? Why did he allow filming? Why was he so docile? How did they administer the sedative and will they continue to drug him?

My sister arrived from France for her Christmas visit yesterday and I spent a jolly afternoon/evening with her and the rest of the family, making plans for the week she is here, although my hand was hurting right up to the wrist from our over-enthusiastic and absinthe inspired card-playing the night before and I was still feeling rather green. Top of the list of Fun!(tm) while sister is here is... a curry, a big feed at one of the fast food outlets not available in France, dim sum, Lord of the Rings: Return of the King, vodka and orange juice, Bacardi Breezers, pubs and... Topshop. Though I won't be accompanying her there because I think that place is hell on earth and nothing, not even the range of shoes available there can make me spend more than one second beyond it's awful awful noisy crowded TV monitor-laden entrance.

In other news, I have almost completed my Christmas shopping and about to set off for my office party. Last night I finished one of three different presents I am crafting lovingly by hand and even though I resent and hate it, the spark of festive spirit and excitement in me is growing and getting hideously, horribly bright. I want to hug people and smile and wish everyone a happy Christmas time. Kill me. Please.

”Ali (sporting a grey fleece) hung back sullenly in the doorway to the auditorium, looking at his watch from first bell and tapping his foot impatiently.”

So records The Guardian on my minor news scoop. I was at the Almeida for the launch of a new project we are doing here at work and amongst the great canapés and after draining the excess wine from the reception bit of the evening, I looked up and spotted none other than Neil Kinnock at the Box Office. A bit later, Alasdair Campbell turned up; we watched and spied on them through the bottom of our wine glasses and then as they went into the auditorium, I scurried off to see my folks and immediately called Taxloss to tell him who I had spotted. With thanks to his journalistic sense of opportunism and a possible quick and easy remuneration, there it is in today’s paper – cheers!

In other news…have been invited to participate in a traditional Catalonia Christmas thing by friend from Barcelona. Makes Christmas logs seem even more unappetising, though as Prandial insisted last year when he found himself in that beautiful city, I'll be going along for the culture. Not for the scatological "treats," thanks but no thanks.

"Would you like some coffee H?"
"..."
"Is that a no?"
"..."
"That face you just pulled looks like you really don't want any coffee. Tea?"
"Uggghhh..."
"Hot chocolate? A smelly fruit tea? Some water? [pause] Are you alright? Are you sure don't want anything?"
"I think I'll have a glass of my special fizzy drink...[fumbles packet of Resolve]"

Okay, so I spent most of Sunday night giggling and hiding from Taxloss (sorry dude, but it's still funny), completely off my face on improv comedy and white wine. Spent most of Monday wishing I was dead. Woke up Tuesday morning feeling vaguely more alive, then toodled off to the British Library to meet Former Flatmate A and to see some exhibitions there. Former Flatmate B turned up and we took ourselves off to a bar nearby where we witnessed some performance poetry, live jazz and lovely dogs. I ended up drinking far too much white wine and shrieked non-stop with my old pals for two or three hours solid, then realised the performance poet was someone I knew from my early years at the Royal Court (she knew me when I was waiting for my GCSE results for chrissakes!) and we had a merry though blurred and oddly repetitive reunion at the bar.

Then I found myself alone with the lovely dog who kept leaping up onto the sofa to shake my hand and nuzzle me with his wet nose and I got talking to his photographer owner, to whom I somehow promised to take care of the lovely dog while he's away in Barcelona over Christmas and made extravagant plans to become a photographer too, mainly of funerals and "the beauty of homeless people. And bricks. Walls look great in photographs."

It's taken me until today to feel less like cutting out my own liver to distract myself from the crippling hangover. I am ashamed. I will be more so if I wake up Christmas morning and find the lovely dog sitting on my doorstep with a sign saying "Will you be my mummy?" Oh dear.

But yesterday was fun! Was assigned to go to a day-long cultural diversity meeting (yes, groan, roll eyes etc) and was prepped very thoroughly on how agonising and boring it would be... looking over the agenda for the day I realised my old witch-boss was likely to be representing her evil empire at the same event and so I was prepared for an agonisingly boring and anxious "blast from the past" kind of day.

However, so well prepared was I yesterday, I held my head up high and strolled in with a stack of emails/ electronic postcards from Lucifer who is currently touring China, Japan, Australia, Malaysia, Singapore, Hong Kong etc. cunningly disguised as the documents for the day for me to read in dull moments, armed myself with a strong coffee and before I sat down, I located the organisers. I determinedly walked up to them and asked straight off if anyone from the Office of Doom had arrived yet. Nice Organiser said only one person had come, pointed to the film crew and lo and behold, all my anxiety vanished for it was none other than the Chilean there and we had a merry, huggy, shouty reunion over the various bits of oh-so-familiar camera kit. The day was spent lurking in a corner with the film crew, gossiping, smoking and drinking too much coffee, just like the old days. :: sigh ::

Found out the witch-boss was due to inflict her atrocious presence on the evening section of the meeting and so I fled as quickly as I could to the safety of my pretty Georgian basement flat and my beloved Taxloss and Boatie Flatmate, pleased as always to have left her shitty company. Pah.

Incidentally, the meeting was held in a Holiday Inn Express. Holiday Inn Express - we're talking Alan Partridge territory here. Coupled with the excruciating "cultural diversity workshop" in the afternoon where we were reassured that it's okay to be white but try not to make a big deal out of it, it was all in all a variably good-awful-fucking ridiculous day. Crap sandwiches too.

How has your week been, dear readers?

"I can see you!"

Some loosely connected words and phrases to summarise what has been going on since I last drenched this site with braindrool... incidentally, I am typing this in the office, waiting for a call and therefore still working and I'm watching the office pilates class take place on the floor around me with an intriguing set of props that includes a big foam sausage, some shiny squishy rubber balls and... lycra. Yep, it's that kind of office.

roast chestnuts and splinters under my thumbnails from extensive chestnut peeling but some really fucking great soup as the result
a gin-laden reunion with Velvet Goldmine who is heading evermore Brazil-ward
a v. generous and unexpected cheque / advance pay (yep, it's that kind of office) which I have been spending merrily with little regard for what will happen next month - well, I was so sick of being poor and sensible for so goddamn long, I am quite far beyond caring
another gin-laden reunion this time with Devukha during which we were given the surfeit canapes from a nearby party - I had a vol-au-vent for the first time in several years
Taxloss informing me that vol-au-vent means "death package" in French. I believed him. I am an idiot, yes, I know.
private view at the ICA
curry, gatecrashing a party and then drinking and drunken dancing with the Elite Drinking Force aka my postgradgirliefriends
improv at the comedystore with subeditors and Paul Merton
a fit of euphoric hysteria that led me to hide from Taxloss all the way home from the Comedy Store which included me ducking behind pillars and crouching behind cars, giggling madly as a bewildered and annoyed Taxloss stood looking for me. It was funny, especially when I slipped into the flat before him, hid in the bathroom and then leapt on him when he came in through the front door. Heh. It was funny. Really funny. Really.

and a variety of other things but I gotta run. More details available on any of the above, on request. Over and out.