So far, so good...

Is everybody having a good Tour de France so far? I'm having a lovely time. In a couple of weeks, I'll be having an even better one as I'll be in Paris for the finish, but for now I'm more than happy with how things are shaping up. Best moments do far have included the look on Lance Arrmstrong's skull of a face, after the splendid and dignified Contador put him back in his place on Friday's stage.

There was always the potential for trouble, having the pair of them riding for the same team. Although Contador is nominally team leader, and should therefore command the support and respect of his boys, Armstrong is no team player and has undermined Contador from the outset. On Friday, Contador evened things up a bit with a superb ride which ensured Armstrong would not be in yellow that night, and in the post-race interviews Armstrong appeared to be eating his own face from the inside, such were the furious muscular contortions of his jaw. The last time I saw someone in such a state of barely suppressed rage, it was, well, me a couple of weeks ago. It'll be interesting to see how this one plays out over the next couple of weeks. If Contador was found dead in his hotel room with a whole shower curtain shoved down his throat, I shouldn't be at all surprised. Let's hope not though.

On a less sinister note, it's also been grand to see Bradley Wiggins having such a magnificent ride. He' s crossed over from track to road with amazing ease and grace, and to see him more than holding his own with the world's top climbers has been wonderful. Everyone my age must have at least one mate who looks a bit like Bradley Wiggins - a personable, amiable, grounded bloke who loves his bikes and likes his music. And he's good in interviews, engaging and interesting, so unlike David Millar's monotone whine ( Millar catchprase: "It was horrible..."). You've got to wish him well, and I hope to be cheering him home in Paris.

The ITV 4 coverage has been spot-on as usual; stunning photography (I was thrilled to see some great shots of the Pic du Midi observatory, where I shall be spending a night in September), powder-dry wit and some nice shirts from Gary Imlach, and the usual strangulation of the English language from Paul Sherwin and Phil Liggett (Phil, who looks strangely altered this year - surely not a chin tuck?- has delivered on laughs with his favourite refrain "It's mano a mano out there...").

And of course I nearly died of joy when they played out with a British Sea Power track at the end of Friday's coverage. Great sweeping shots of my favourite place in the whole world, the mountains where I walk every year and the villages where I eat cakes, and all to the sound of my favourite local pop stars. And two more weeks to go (during which L will ride the Etape.). For someone who normally hates competitive sport, I'm in my element. Indulge me.

"Redefine Happiness...."

I was in the queue at a pharmacy counter earlier, when a fiftysomething man in an expensive-looking suit pitched up behind me. "Thirty two paracetemol, please," he said to the assistant. As she turned towards the shelf, he added "thirty two packets, that is," and rolled his eyes at me. "Decided to jack it all in?" I asked him. "Yeah, I think so," he said. "I'm going to bow out now while I'm still beautiful. Cross to the other side. How bad can it be? Actually, do you think you might be interested in a suicide pact?We could go together, it'd be like that song." I thought for a second. "What, 'Club Tropicana'?" I asked. "Yep, that's the one," he said. The woman who'd been serving me handed me my change, looking a bit strangely at me as she did so. "Alright then, why not," I said, putting my purse away and starting to head for the door. "Great, I'll send you the details," he said. "Cheerio."

I've absolutely no idea who he was, but I smiled all the way to the bus stop. If he turns up at my window tonight singing 'Don't Fear The Reaper', I'm going to have some explaining to do.

Engrenages...

It's DVD heaven in ISBW Heights. My last package from Amazon yielded a treasure trove of delights. which it is now my pleasure to share with you.

First up, ultra-cool cop series 'Spiral' ('Engrenages', in its original French, meaning gears, or cogs - an equally apposite title for this wheel-within-wheels, cleverly layered and paced drama.). The series was shown on BBC 4 a while back, where I caught a single episode and was immediately hooked (hence my purchase). It's been described as a 'French Wire', and it certainly shares the bleak, dark world view of its American predecessor, as well as it's naturalistic acting style and cast of flawed, three-dimensional characters. Overall though, its point of view remains more rooted in the world of the cops than the robbers; we get glimpses into the wretched lives of the bottom-feeders in Paris's criminal classes, but their lives are not explored in the depth that the Wire does so meticulously. In fact, I would forget the Wire comparisons, if you can, and watch it on its own merit. It's utterly French, and I've certainly needed the subtitles (which are generally good, though I feel I've missed a few subtleties here and there.). And brace yourself for one of the most unpleasant TV scenes ever in Episode 5, as a desperate drug mule finds an unspeakable way of dealing with his 'stash'. I'm already looking forward to getting my mitts on series 2. Though I'm wondering if France is really as racially divided as the series implies - to date, all the cops and lawyers are white, and virtually all the criminals are Eastern European or black Francophone African. I don't know enough to know whether this is realistic portrayal, or a significant oversight on the part of the writers. Anyone from France out there?

I'm far from alone in my devotion to '30-Rock', so will keep my praise brief. Just to say that feels like another 'Arrested Development' moment - stumbling on something that doesn't seem to have been cherished too much by TV commissioners, but which is comedy gold. Alec Baldwin is a revelation (the episode where his belligerent Irish family converge was scarily like a meeting of the ISBW clan), and there are some great supporting performances. Tina Fey manages to be perky and wisecracking without being annoying (though her voice seems to have dropped an octave for Series 2 - were there complaints?). If you haven't come across this yet, I'd advise an impulse purchase. You can give me a Chinese burn if you don't laugh.

And finally, a reprise from childhood. I was talking with a friend quite recently about children's drama, and things that stood out from back in the day, and I was terribly distressed that she didn't remember Seventies ITV classic 'The Feathered Serpent'. Set in a kind of Aztec-era South America, this was like 'I Claudius' for kids, and it certainly provided a springboard for the twelve-year old me to venture into more grown-up historical drama. The Feathered Serpent has proper actors, working from proper scripts - Patrick Troughton is amazing as the blood-lusting priest Nasca, his performance in no way 'watered down' for the kids' audience - and there's eye-candy for pimply boys and girls alike with the highly attractive romantic lead couple, Diane Keen and Brian Deacon (his leather skirt and breastplate combo worked wonders on most of the girls in my year.). It's always a risk going back to things after many years have passed, but this one certainly hasn't let me down. I'm hoping that my other purchase, 'Children of the Stones', will also have lasted the test of time.

God I love the DVD format.

Turd

I have a 'blockage', and I won't be able to get on with my life in comfort until I've unblocked it. If life were a certain sort of TV ad, I'd just nip off to the bog with a small sachet, then come back moments later smiling broadly and get down to the REAL business of discussing 'Sex and the City' with my Yummy Mummy mates. But life's not like that, not really.

Last Friday night, you see, I came as close as I've ever come to deliberately inflicting physical damage on another person. Maybe it was the news about Jacko, maybe it was the heat. Or maybe something about this 21-year old white middle class male that just jabbed all my buttons simultaneously. Anyway, I'm not proud of what I wanted to do to him, but in order for me to move on, I must confess, like the lapsed Catholic I am.

The 10.36pm train from London to Brighton is usually your last safe-ish bet for a peaceful ride home. Most of the drunks are still in the pubs, and it's still too early for the frosted-nostril clubbers to be getting to wherever they need to go. Generally, you get the luvvies from the theatres bitching about whoever they've had to 'dress', the odd dancer doing post-show stretches, and people like me trying to get home before it all goes Medieval Fayre at 11pm.

We got on the train, and there he was. Blond, thin, utterly self-regarding, and swearing loudly in a faux-cockney accent that Dick Van Dyke would have been ashamed of, he smirked as he caught my eye, and then deliberately placed both his feet on the seat next to him, pausing to empty a packet of McCoy's into his mouth. He swiveled his feet around on the seat, inspected the mark he'd left, and smirked at me again. I glared at him. His mate, a scrawny Mike Skinner type, sniggered and then patted the seat next to him. "Come and sit down next to me, darling," he offered. "I don't want to sit next to you," I replied, taking the seat across the aisle, next to L. Skinner suddenly realised we were together, and at a glare from L suddenly became very interested in his phone. Blond Boy continued to smirk and grind his feet over the seat.

An Australian man in his fifties got on, and loomed over Blond Boy. "Move your feet, mate, I want to sit down," he said. Blond Boy looked at him, calculated him as unlikely to pose a serious threat, and ignored him, tipping the McCoy's packet up to catch the last crumbs. Skinner emitted a snigger like a wet fart. The Australian man looked at me. "He's an ass," I said. "He IS an ass," agreed the Australian. He bent down to Blonde Boy. "You're an ass, a nobody, mate," he said, walking away with remarkable command. BB's smirk wavered very slightly at the word 'nobody', but he stretched out luxuriously and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.

The train was about to move, and suddenly through the beeping doors leapt a fifty-something couple, he a sort of Mark Thatcher type, she a drunk Prunella Scales. In the manner of a woman very used to getting what she wants, Prunella tapped BB's feet cheerfully. "Budge up!" she said cheerfully, in cut-glass tones. "Need to park." BB did exactly as he was told. Her husband took his place opposite her. "Grand!" she continued, and turned to her new young friends. "He needs to sit down, not as young as he was, and of course tomorrow he's on duty at Buck House, aren't you darling?" Her voice carried on a breeze of booze down the carriage. "Really?" said Skinner.

"He in the army or something, then? That's cool."

Victoria to Haywards Heath is only a 40-minute ride, but this 40-minutes went on for millenia. Prunella regaled her audience fearlessly and frankly with tales of Larry's derring-do at Goose Green, his fine 'mopping up' in Kuwait after the first Gulf War ("the ragheads crawled out of holes praising our boys more than bloody Allah") and his due reward as a part-time member of Her Maj's personal guard. Larry sat and nodded a lot. And yet all was clearly not quite well between Larry and Pru, as there was a spiteful and vitriolic edge to many of her anecdotes; for every inch she portrayed his noble heroism, she also managed to simultaneously cast him as something of a hapless boob. It was a very clever, practiced piece of sly, passive-aggressive emasculation. And the boys loved it, especially BB. His Estuary English vanished, lapsing back into solid Home Counties vowels with no glottal stops, and the word 'fuck' with which he'd previously been peppering his prose, was not to be heard. "I did two years in the Cadets," he said eagerly, "and a couple of mates of mine actually joined Two Para. They're out there now, Special Ops, you know. I still think about trying for Sandhurst, but I'm on good wonga at the moment, so..."

"Oh, DON'T join the bloody Army!" exclaimed Pru. "It's full of thickos and half-breeds now. Get out, enjoy yourself, go to lovely parties...I'm having a lovely party tomorrow, while HE'S eating off bone china at Buck House..well he'll miss out on my Shepherd's Pie and champagne, won't he? No, you go to lovely parties, meet lots of lovely girls and don't get into any fights. You don't, do you?" BB shuffled a bit. "We don't," he said, "but he got assaulted a few weeks ago, on the beach...it was a Portugese bloke...turned out he's wanted for murder at home but the Police said they can't deport him because of his human rights..I mean I'm not being racist but it does seem to be the foreign people who cause all the problems..."

I probably don't need to reproduce the discussion that this nugget stimulated, but it began with a giant, equine snort from Prunella and a shriek of 'Human RIGHTS?!" You know the song, you can improvise the words. My own thoughts at this point were dominated by a single, glorious, horrible vision of me, taking hold of BB by the back of his neck, and slamming his face down on the table, again and again and again. It simply wouldn't leave me, no matter how I tried to distract myself, and at Haywards Heath my fingers were twitching as Larry and Pru got off the train, waving, and BB, resuming his 'cockney' accent, turned back to Skinner and said "they was alright, wasn't they? For a pair of old wankers, I mean."

The four of us were the last to leave the carriage when the train arrived in Brighton. I had a heavy bag, and L assembled his bike, quite slowly. As L put his cycle helmet on, I heard the faintest snigger from behind me, and I spun round and fixed BB with what, from the frozen expression on his face, I assume was a fairly Medusa-like glare. Apparently I'm quite good at them. He dropped his eyes and shuffled for his phone.

I stood and stared at him for a few seconds, which he may well have assumed was just for effect. It wasn't. I was genuinely weighing up the possible consequences of giving in to my Inner Beast, and driving his head into the table. I really was. A craven, unprincipled, arrogant, idiotic, racist, cowardly bully, BB was - is - a composite to make my flesh creep, and to move my normally fairly measured temperament to genuinely violent impulses - for which I resent him all the more. I'm a bloody psychotherapist, for the love of Jayzus, and all I wanted to do at 11.30 last Friday night was leave a 21-year old who I'd never met before in such a state that his own mother wouldn't recognise him. He brought out my Shadow, and I'm ashamed.

But I don't half feel better for having written it up. Try not to judge me too harshly. I'm really quite nice and I've never actually hit anyone. Yet.

My Creative Process

I won another little writing award the other week. This was one I hadn't thought I had a chance of winning, knowing the nature and remit of the 'awarding party', so I'd sent my piece off without really thinking about it (but thereby obtaining the get-out clause, when I didn't win, that 'they' were a precious bunch of literary snobs who would never 'get my stuff' anyway.). Imagine my surprise when I came first...

Even more surprising was the detailed crit of my piece, compiled with a great deal of care and thought by the Chair of the judging panel, which arrived with my cheque on Monday. My face turned crimson as I read about my cunning, unsettling plot, my bold, confrontational characterisation, my sly, insistent pacing and my underlying insistence that you, the reader, should be rendered incapable of movement from the path of my devastating, but somehow inevitable, denouement. 

All I did was write a short piece that I thought was mildly entertaining. 

I never knew I was so damn clever.

Sit On My Face

I miss Linda Barker. I miss her indomitable attempts at pan-cultural home furnishing - why shouldn't your Moroccan souk dining room nestle comfortably beside your Shinto-influenced kitchen? And having enjoyed an evening meal of finest fusion foods, who says it might be a little confusing to retire to a Belle Epoque velvet boudouir after ablutions in your lovingly recreated Icelandic Hot Spring bathroom, complete with hourly-erupting geyser?

My life has been the poorer since Changing Rooms vanished from our TV screens some years ago, and without Linda's aesthetic guidance my home has fallen into a sludgy domestic pit of beige. However I'm suddenly emboldened by the range of cushions shown above, which were drawn to my attention yesterday. In dire times, we need all the inspiration we can get, and I think we can draw something valuable from this line, which as you can see includes Churchill, Bob Marley, and, er, Anne Frank. 

Yes, that's the Anne Frank Scatter Cushion. I can only assume that inside the shop (Wigmore Street, W1, since you ask), you can also obtain the Yan Palak T-towel ("non-flammable"), the Martin Luther King egg-timer ("I have a dream of the perfect boiled egg!"), and the Woody Guthrie Gardening Glove ("This land is your land, but you don't need to get it under your fingernails, no sir."). Or perhaps not. Either way, I'd be very keen indeed to know how those particular cushions are selling. And who on EARTH buys them....

Bollocks

So, on the 65th anniversary of the D-Day landings, Nazis were elected in England.

By 8am this morning I'd already heard Nick Griffin's gloating voice three times on the radio.

What the fuck....?????