Diets and Dior

So, yesterday was the birthday of one of my best friends from school, Sarah, and unfortunately we couldn't celebrate with her in the style of days gone-by, because she's currently living in Manchester. Anyway, during our lengthy phone-call y'day we started taking a stroll down memory lane and Sarah reminded me of how ... well, "unwise" she used to be with money. This is a girl who, when she received the first instalment of her student loan, run up and down the corridors of her college halls, clapping her hands and squealing "Free money!" Although admittedly it's nothing compared to the time Kerry spent 10 minutes sheltering inside the Swarovski store from a storm and felt so bad for not buying anything that she emerged with a pink heart-shaped necklace. 

The high point of Sarah's early expenditure related disasters - which she once tried to pass off to her family as being an administrative error by the bank - came at the end of her first time at university, when she purchased a £600 pair of Christian Dior sunglasses. In the middle of December. She only bought them because the girl in the shop told her they were limited edition and the very last pair anywhere on the island of Ireland. Not just in Northern Ireland, but the entire geographical chunk. Sarah immediately panicked, took this as a sign from God and handed over the £600. (Next week, four more pairs were in that same shop.) To date, Sarah has worn these sunglasses twice. And announced on the second occasion that the pink lenses were too delightful to actually keep the sun out of her eyes. Not long after Diorgate, she spent £500 on a high quality handbag, which she told us was an investment because of the excellent craftmanship on the leather, before announcing two weeks later that it was too heavy to carry and was now purely for decoration. 

Good times.

Also, less Dior-related: something that has seriously annoyed me on Facebook/Twitter recently. Anyone who has read Popular will know that I am never going to be getting an award for being Mr. Politically Correct 2k11. I think mean humour is the height of hilarity, but there's a line between bitchy and bullying. I don't know at what stage people started finding things funny just because they use some low-end slur. It really irritates me when people think it's appropriate to post statuses with the word "faggot," "paki," "fenian," "hun" or anything else like that. What you laugh about in private is totally your own business, but what you put on a public social networking site is mine and everybody else's who you're friends with. It's extremely unlikely that your 700+ friends will all have the same sense of humour. And - newsflash, most people aren't very funny and if you use words like that, you belong with the cast of Deliverance not in clogging up my feed on FB or Twitter. 

Worst of all, last night when I read one of these oh-so-witty FB verbal spasms, I got to thinking about some poor 15 year-old kid struggling with an identity crisis who sees the word "faggot" and all the "likes" and the thumbs up for it on FB and therefore reaches the conclusion that there's nothing worse in this life than being gay. Don't be a good person, don't be smart, don't be ambitious, don't be an upstanding citizen - just don't be gay and you're doing fine! I think it's awful that this sends out a message that being gay automatically makes you somehow less than a full human being and your entire life is going to be lived as a punchline for some moron's sense of intellectually-underdeveloped humour. I mean, is it really worth making someone feel that way just for the sake of your stupid status? I don't think so, moron. And at what point should anyone have to feel that their religion or race makes them a target of public mockery? Never. It's just rude and unprofessional to post things that might be taken as legitimately offensive on Facebook, Myspace, Bebo or Twitter, unless you have a tiny pool of friends who all share your sense of, let's call it, humour. I don't know what happened to being witty and clever; when did this kind of nonsense becoming "ironic","cool" and funny? 

Idiots.

Anyway, rant over and I'm back to the gym to try and undo some of the damage done by Christmas. My sister Ashleigh and I got each other as Secret Santas this year and both pooled resources to give each other the world's largest collection of Jesus/Santa-themed chocolates. We wrapped them up in one giant parcel and put it under the tree with a note saying, "To Ashleigh & Gareth, We love your work. Happy Christmas from your Number 1 fans - Gareth & Ashleigh xx." We have a healthy relationship with narcissism in my family.

My trainer Allan has suggested I keep a food diary now that I'm serious about like getting back on track with the gym. Unfortunately, I haven't read anything more depressing than this food diary since The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas. Honestly, it's like reading the schedule for feeding time at the zoo! Seriously. I eat like a rugby player and exercise like a debutante. This is where it all went wrong. 

Still, "good" to see it all written down and I actually do feel so much better about myself when I'm regularly gymming. New year's resolution was not to become a better person (practically perfect to be honest, as it is), but just to keep up gym schedule. Seems better to be realistic, rather than say something stupid like be nice or give up drinking. 

Anyone else have any new year's resolutions they've managed to keep by the end of January?

Great new musician

OK, so I say new. New to me anyway and thanks to my sister Jenny for introducing me to this guy's music. 

Tyler Ward is a really cool American musician with a great voice and I was actually listening to some of his music last night as I finished off the manuscript for Popular's first sequel. (Big thank you, by the way, to Kerry Rogan, Eric Spies and Coco Pannell for the texts, BBMs, banter and encouragement last night.  And in Coco's case, prayers - I am fairly confident God could refuse her nothing.) 

Anyway, Tyler Ward's cover of California Gurls and Love the way you lie are awesome and I'm pretty sure that in Popular, Mark Kingston, Blake Hartman and Catherine would love his music. 

You can follow Tyler on Twitter here and on Facebook here.

Happy birthday, Lover

Today is the birthday of one of my favourite friends and partners in crime, the radiant Scarlett Diamond. Despite living in the same city, Scarlett and I did not meet until we were introduced by Alex "Squire" Jeffery in Oxford two years ago. It began as it meant to go on. Laughing at somebody's misfortune (Sorry, Derek! ... We are in no way sorry) one night and drinking for seven straight hours on the second. In fact, it was in the dubious confines of Po Na Na's, Oxford, after said seven hours that we crab-danced our way onto the dancefloor and decided to tell each other how delightful it was that we had found each other. Alex meanwhile was locked in a furious battle of wits with what later turned out to be his own reflection. (Note: floor length mirrors are VERY tricky after 7+ hours of Lady Liquor's dark embrace.)

It's hard to say where the nickname "Lover" came from or why it stuck, but we now very seldom seem to refer to each other by our actual names. One friend of mine hypothesised that the reason for our closeness is because neither Lover nor I judge each other, but that is untrue. In fact, we do judge each other. Favourably. All the time. Once when I smashed a glass in her flat, by accident, she applauded my "excellent smashing skills." Lover, here is a run down of some our favourite moments in honour of your birthday - the ones we could announce on a public forum, anyway. I wanted to stick to twenty-one to be age appropriate. But I did not. In no way did I feel like limiting myself.

1. ‘I informed my mother that we had calculated that, due to my volunteering, we could freely sabotage several random others’ lives in the grand scheme of things and feel totally guilt-free about this. She was very much in favour of this and thought that our logic was exactly right.’ - Scarlett, shortly after completing work for the Diabetes campaign

2. We both insisted that we could not make it downstairs to Hugo’s birthday party, because we were too ill from the night before. Four hours later, we were leading the charge to the nightclub, taking time off to allow a cardigan wearing Hugo to tactically whitey in some poor soul's garden in Maryville so he could keep drinking at the club.

3. ‘Lover, this Belvedere vodka really does go down like water. You practically don’t even need a mixer.’- Scarlett, four hours after we started drinking

4. The time I tumbled down a flight of stairs at a club, falling like a rag doll, smacking into the wall below, but somehow still managing to keep my drink entirely un-spilled. You congratulated me on my superiorly radiant way of falling. Better.

5. SCARLETT: Lover, you have inspired me to join the Facebook group against using live dogs as shark bait. Spiritual, much?

ME: I know, lover, it’s awful.

SCARLETT: It really is.

ME: They should be using fuglies instead.

SCARLETT: Well said, lover. Let's call Ruth and ask her if she'd like to volunteer.

 

6. ME: Mark says he doesn’t like Meredith because he just doesn’t approve of people who ruin other peoples’ lives for fun.

SCARLETT: …. Interesting.

7. 'Lover, wouldn't it be a delightful idea to install an infinity pool in our chez together that overlooks a ravine. Then carve enormous versions of our faces in the rocks below, so when we push our frenemies to their deaths, the last sights they see are our faces cackling up at them?'

8. The Doorway of Cackling

9. My panicked grimace when I was unexpectedly surrounded by a swarm of tourist-Others in London.

10. Your revolted grimace anytime an Other tries to use the word "Better" in convo.

11. The time we were already 20 minutes late for a lunch, but instead decided to leisurely experiment with the dozen or so different ways I could wear my new Ermenegildo Zenga scarf before even contemplating leaving.

12. ME: Scarlett, why are my jeans hanging on the curtain rails?

SCARLETT: Lover, last night when we returned from the club, you decided to perform an impromptu striptease for me. Needless to say, I was distinctly aroused.

13. 'G, I have just heard about you falling on the ice. How generous of you to touch the ground with your radiance.'

14. Every time we have ever been to AM:PM. Ever.

15. ‘I say “interesting.” I do not mean it.’

16. When I couldn't understand why the woman at the cinema kept looking at me funny, only to realise when I got to the bathroom that I had popcorn stuck to my sweater from chin to navel.

17. The night we placed at least a dozen phone-calls to people informing them that whilst they could come round to your house for pre-drinks, it was definitely not a house party. Not. A. House. Party. Needless to say, by 10:30 p.m., we were standing in the open doorway of the kitchen with a bottle in each arm chanting, “House Party!”

18. ‘Lover, last night’s “not house party” may have gotten slightly out of hand … Do you have a polyphil gun?’

19. The night at my house when, mid-house party, we decided to dress in 18^th century aristocratic period garb, which naturally I just happened to have lying in my wardrobe.

20. The night we opened our sixth bottle of champagne, only to decide that now that it was 5 a.m. it would be a much better idea to save it for our steak and eggs breakfast we were making in the morning. In order to keep the fizz, we decided to stick a lid on it with duct tape. 

21. The night Alex Jeffery left Po Na Na’s forty-five minutes earlier than everybody else and we found him outside in the middle of a thunderstorm next to the Ashmolean Art Museum, soaked, shivering and with the world’s biggest cheeseburger in his hands.

22. When you were due in at college curfew at 11 o’clock and we drunkenly rolled up just after four a.m., in the middle of a torrential downpour, both clearly wreaking of alcohol, with Alex Jeffery swaying immediately post-whitey behind us, you wearing leather trousers, my shirt soaked with whiskey, half your hair still perfectly hairsprayed and the other half now drenched and sticking to your face, your make-up smeared and running all over your eyes and cheeks. And I announce cunningly that I will explain to the porters why you’re late. “It’s my fault,” I say. “We were at a family funeral in London.” You immediately pull a very sad face and stumble in.

23. The night we smuggled your sixteen year-old brother into a club and then he refused to let us dance with him because we were cock-blocking him. A low point, lover.

24. The Age of Pauper, which followed your telephone bill from your time in Thailand.

25. 'Lover, I thought I was nothing but nice to him in school but it turns out that apparently the night I stood outside Parlour, laughing, squealing and giggling as he was manhandled by the bouncers may or may not have made him think I was a bitch ... Paranoid, much?'

26. One morning, when you were still asleep, I asked you where the BlackBerry charger was. You were obviously too drowsy to understand exactly what had been said, so from the depths of your unconscious you quickly tried to pull a phrase which there was a 50% chance would fit whatever conversation we were having. You sighed in your sleep and mumbled, "You're right. She is so clingy, lover."

27. 'Lover, my friend Joel often mocks my stories as being too long.' 

'Interesting, lover, since that is not a description which will apply to his life if he keeps that strategy up. Time for us to get out the Assassination Birkins again.'

28. At Kyle Williamson's birthday pool party, I found you napping in his bath in your bikini. I say, napping ... Anyway, I decided to warm you up by spraying warm water over you from the showerhead, while Fergie hovered nearby, worried that this was the second time she was going to explain a stomach pumping to Ange.

29. 'Lover, the stomach pumping is not the funny bit. The funny bit is the letter of apology written to the parents whilst still drunk, in which their names are spelled incorrectly and no letters actually touch the lines.'

30. Happy birthday, Scarlett - for all the things I couldn't post here and for all the time we've had to hold each other's hair and murmur words of comfort, for the hours of chats and jokes .... Better. ... xx

Entertainer of the Year

A huge congratulations to my friend Laura Schwartz (above), who has just been nominated as one of the six finalists for Events Solutions Magazine's "Entertainer of the Year Award". Laura, who is the author of the very successful Eat, Drink and Succeed: Climb Your Way to the Top Using the Networking Power of Social Events, was formerly a Special Assistant to President Clinton and the White House Director of Events. Laura now works in Chicago with her company White House Strategies, an event, media, political and message consultancy firm. She's a phenomenal public speaker and a really wonderful person. 

Laura and I first met when she was speaking at the Oxford Union in a debate on American foreign policy and I was chatting to her wonderful mother and sister, Andrea, at cocktails after. Andrea was saying how beautiful Oxford was and there was so much to see, so I offered to tour guide and the next day the entire Schwartz family and I took a tour of the city I love. They are fabulous people and it was such a highlight of that term to meet them and hang out with them. 

Anyhoo, before I gush too much, I should thank Laura for how encouraging she has been about Popular and say how amazing this nomination is - and how deserved too! 

If you'd like to vote for the delightful Miss Schwartz, here is the link and she's in the Solo category.

And if you'd like to see Laura in action, back when she was commenting on the 2008 Presidential election, click here. She's talking about one of my favourite topics: the importance of the visual! ;) 

Good luck, Laura!

Delightful new fashion label

It's that time of year again when I stop thinking about my own wardrobe and start focusing more and more on that of my characters - particularly Meredith, Imogen and Kerry. It's so important that I stick to the right style that reflects each girl's personality and sense of fashion, but one of the hardest to have a look for (I think) is Imogen. Meredith's style is so classic and so traditional that it's easier to look around for things and know immediately whether she'd love them or hate them; Imogen, who has much more eclectic and edgy sense of chic, is constantly changing what she likes and so styling her in the pages of Popular and its sequel (which I'm writing at the moment) can be a bit more difficult. I realise in terms of jobs this isn't the hardest thing in the world, but still!

So the dress on the right was a great metaphorical find for Imogen to wear to a summer party that I'm writing about right now. It's sexy, it's fun, it's different but it's also practical (love the colour) and it comes from a fantastic new label created by Coco Fennell. Coco and I seem to have been orbiting each other for a few years, but like fortunate planets, haven't collided (do planets collide? I don't know. Science was not a strong point of mine, as the grimace of my ex-teacher showed when I shimmied back into Down High last week)...


Anyway, Coco is the younger sister of one of my closest friends from university, but I think I'm right in saying Coco and I have only met each other a handful of times. To cut a long story short-ish, Emerald recently told me that Coco (below, left - beautiful, much?) was thinking of starting up her own fashion label and since I was already reading Coco's fashion blog, I was quite excited. Naturally, I went snooping - and I love the label. Coco has basically set-up a label for girls which is all about "some lovely bits and bobs that are easy to wear, flattering and can be dressed up or dressed down." Exactly what Imogen would love to wear. Huzzah.

So far, Coco Fennell is a very small label and I'm so glad I discovered it at this early stage before it really takes off. It can definitely add to my cool credentials (v. important to keep topping them up regularly!) I'm definitely seriously tempted to buy my sister's next birthday present from CF, because this is exactly the kind of stuff she loves and which she's always saying there isn't enough of! Although, like any good VCB girl, she knows that clothes in general are something you can never have too much of.

Along with Alex Perry and Rosa Cha for Meredith, I'm v. excited to have found Coco Fennell as a new favourite label for Imogen to start wearing in the next few Popular books. 

The Coco Fennell website can be visited here. 

Hidden Jewels and Gin

It has been delicately pointed out to me that I haven't been updating this blog as regularly as I had originally planned and so the age of snippets of life columns is upon us. This week, I was very very excited to read Liz Hoggard's interview in the Evening Standard with one of my favourite people in the world, Emerald Fennell (above), who recently completed playing Lady Lottie, the first wife of the main character in Channel 4's four part television drama Any Human Heart, based on the novel by William Boyd. Emmy and I did a lot of drama together at Oxford and I'm still at the stage where seeing her on television or in the newspapers makes me achieve kid-going-to-Disneyland levels of hyper-excitement. Ultimately my plan is to acquire a sort of Simon Cowell-Dean Martin levels of louche sophistication about the whole thing, but that is still some way off! I'll provide a link at the bottom to read the full interview and also earlier blog posts about Any Human Heart.

Anyway, the last couple of weeks have been ones of triumph and humiliation. (I refer you to my earlier article, "Embarrassing much, ice?" for my humiliation.) The triumph came in the form of finally being able to figure out what Skype is, after several years of pretending I understood it (i.e. nodding wisely when it was mentioned, much like when I decided to use the phrase "credit crunch" and "recession" at random points in conversation) and generally assuming that Skype was some weird sort of thing you did on MSN chat. Either that or a type of phone I couldn't seem to find in shops. The push over the edge came when my friend Joel said "We should Skype," to which I initially gave the usual BS about what a great idea that was and let's do it some time next week. 

And that's when I realised that Joel has a horrifying tendency to figure out when I'm lying and then wait until we're surrounded by mutual friends to announce it and point out in excruciating detail how I managed to embarrass myself. (National Anthem-gate being high on the list of examples.) This raised the stakes and I knew I had to figure out what Skype actually was. Luckily, after a mere 57 minutes in which she was forced to resort to sending me articles from Google, Wikipedia and finally to telling a parable, Alexa managed to explain the entire thing to me and it turns out that Skype is not only a delightful invention, but also one astonishingly easy to use. So, to all those friends over the years who I promised to Skype with but didn't because I was lying, I sort of apologise. Sorry Lucas, Will, Coco, Kitty, Sophie, Noah, Alexa, Amy, Tom, Matthew, Andrew ... etc.

Another high was attained when I shimmied round to my friend Natalie's for a quiet evening gin. Natalie (left) is one of my favourite drinking partners, if for no other reason than she and her mother have taken to serving me gin in some sort of novelty pint glass and Natalie thinks regular measuring cups are "for dwarves." We managed to discuss all the important things - how she had decided to insure her Chloé handbag for far more than she ever would her boyfriend, how for some reason The X Factor isn't that exciting this year and why is it that so many people are so ugly? Also, Queen's University students who flounce around the city centre wearing a glorified version of your pyjamas - you disgust us! Wash you hair, clean your clothes and remember that, right now, there are some well-heeled dogs in Malone who are better groomed than you are. Sort it out.

I also want to talk about last night when I went back to my old high school, Down High, to see their annual school play - this year a production of the musical The Sound of Music. I was back in Down High about two months ago to do an after-school talk about Popular and I got to meet some of the drama students there, all of whom seemed really nice and it was great chatting to them afterwards. My old drama teacher, Pamela Mills, (we plan to make her part of my celebrity posse) sent me two tickets to come and see The Sound of Music on its closing night. Thank you, Pamille. 

I invited my friend Aisleagh to come along as my plus one. Aisleagh is only back in Northern Ireland at the weekends for the next six months, because she flies over to London during the week to be a high-powered lawyer. Very useful to keep Aisleagh on side, considering I will almost certainly need one of those before I turn thirty. Which will be happening in about fifteen years, give or take. Aisleagh was a big participant in Drama in our days at Down High, both curricular and social, and she also loved music, so I thought she was a sure bet for TSOM. Plus, I haven't seen her properly in ages and we used to share a flat together in Oxford, so it would be good to catch up and revisit La Mills.

However, half-way to Downpatrick, Aisleagh turned to me in the car and said in her most dread voice, "Just so you know - and I'm just putting it out there - there is no musical in the world I hate more than The Sound of Music." 

I glanced at her, in shock and fear, "Seriously? How do you hate it? Which songs do you hate the least? Climb Every Mountain?" 

"If I told you I didn't like any of them, would that make it clearer?!"

Part of me was mortified, but the other half quietly pleased, because there is literally no-one in the world more fun to sit next to than Aisleagh when you're watching a movie, play, show or production that she hates. She is hilariously vicious.

We arrive at the school and things don't get off to a great start when the people collecting tickets at the door are my old Biology and Maths teachers, neither of whom exactly saw me at my academic best. I still live in fear that the Maths department will one day figure out that Sarah-Jane and I are not cousins and we did not therefore share a permanently ailing grandmother, who conveniently relapsed every time our coursework was due. 

Aisleagh and I swanned in and chatted with Miss Mills, before curtain-up and I have to say that both Aisleagh and I were pleasantly surprised. I was a bit worried that having met and liked so many of the drama students back in October that they wouldn't actually be amazing on stage, which is always really upsetting, I think, when someone is nice to talk to but doesn't measure up in the talent stakes. Aisleagh, naturally, had settled into a mood of merry bile, prepared to hate everything except the sight of her own name on the board of old Deputy Head Girls and her cunning plan for us to storm the stage half-way through and launch into our monologues from our final school production of The Canterbury Tales. I don't exactly remember mine, but that's OK - I didn't remember it when I did it the first time round, either. Luckily, as the sick grandmother shows, improv was not something I ever had a problem with. 

The show was sensational and half-way through, Aisleagh clutched my hand, tears in her eyes and sighed, "How could I ever have hated this? It's the cutest thing I've ever seen!!"

Firstly, a word of praise for the girl who played Maria: I've never met Poppy, but she was so, so good! She's only a Year 10 (i.e. about 14) and I hope that doesn't sound too patronising, because she was sensational, both as an actress and as a singer. Also I was literally staring open-mouthed at how good the Reverend Mother's singing was. Wow. The entire cast was really excellent and whilst I may have queried the dramatic decision that led to several of the junior school being dressed as machine gun-carrying Nazis, the whole thing was superb. I really, really enjoyed myself and I'm so glad we went. Aisleagh, needless to say, had some sort of spiritual conversion half-way through and was actually singing along to Edelweiss at the end, a euphoric expression on her face.

So, anyway, huge congratulations to Miss Mills and Mr O'Hara and to all those involved and especially those I met when I spoke at Down High and who were in The Sound of Music - Ruth, Michael, Lydia, Charlotte, Louis and Robbie - thanks so much for a great show and I hope the cast party was riotously inappropriate. 

GR

For the full interview with Emerald Fennell, click here and for this blog's post about Any Human Heart, click here. 

For last week's less than delightful ice-capade, click here. 

Embarrassing much, ice?

Snow and ice are now well and truly on my List. As some of you may know, Northern Ireland has been covered in a blanket of snow which has turned into sheet ice on most of the pavements/walkways. In practice, this means two things. Firstly, Britain's amazing ability to grind to a complete administrative and infrastructural standstill due to 5 cms+ of snow kicked in with a vengeance, throughout the length and breadth of the United Kingdom.  In Scotland, it was apparently tools-down even on boats (is the snow lying particularly deep in the North Channel of the Irish Sea?!) Secondly, it has meant that everyone in Belfast has very quietly but firmly been praying, hoping or wishing that they a) do not fall on the ice and b) if they do fall, no passing car will toot the horn at them, roll down the wind and shout "Yeooooooo!!!!" 

Yesterday, scenario B occurred to me without scenario A. En route from the gym, I decided to walk down Balmoral Avenue, basically the main entrance way to Malone and one of the busiest roads in the entire south section of the city. Bear in mind, I have my gym bag swung over my shoulder and my i-Pod earphones in, merrily lost in a world of how utterly delightful my life would be if it did indeed have a soundtrack. Then, suddenly, just between the old Public Records Office and the entrance to Malone Park, my right leg decided to go on safari from the rest of my body and shot out in front of me, thanks to our good friend, Mr. Ice. In order to save myself, I was forced to execute something very much like a 1970s' disco dance move in order to save myself from falling flat on my back. My arms flung up and out like a confused Eva Perón, my gym bag swung round and smacked into my crotch and my earphones fell out of my ear. At that moment, three cars honked their horns and one driver somehow magically wound his window down in time to shout out, "Crackin' dance moves there, son!"

Needless to say, I immediately dashed into Malone Park, assuming that the area in which Meredith, Imogen and Cameron live in Popular could not possibly let me down after this horrific in-street humiliation. To my horror, I realised that the entire tree-lined avenue's pathways were coated with a thick layer of ice-rink like ice. I stared down at it, wondering how in the name of Sweet Baby Jesus I was going to make my way across it (it's the longest residential avenue in the United Kingdom) without falling flat on my face.  I looked down at my shoes, cursing the fact that I hadn't brought either an ice-pick or a team of huskies. Then, from one of the houses on the left, a girl emerged with sunglasses on her face, an enormous Louis Vuitton bag slung over her arm and shoes that were definitely not ice-friendly. Not once did she trip or look in anyway perturbed by the ice underfoot. It was in that moment that I knew, more than ever, that I had set Popular in the right place. Furthermore, I could be thankful that despite my Stayin' Alivesque shimmy, I had not in fact fallen either on Balmoral Avenue or in Malone Park.

Today, however, there was no such luck.

On the way to my totally super-cool early morning lecture on late medieval vernacular theology (Julian of Norwich is my home girl), I decided to cut down Rugby Avenue, incorrectly assuming that if I'd successfully navigated the treachery of Malone Park the day before, nothing could fell me now. I had a copy of The Cloud of Unknowing, Mirror of the Blessed Life and GQ in my arms as I strutted my way towards university through the student heartlands. There was some ice, but not much.

Then, as I slipped slightly (quick check for no cars this time!) I saw a mobile phone lying on the ground. I walked on, before remembering how infuriated I had been when no-one handed by BlackBerry in when I lost it a few months ago. And also, in general, I can't think of anything more annoying and irritating than losing your mobile. So, I turned back to go and collect it. I figured I could hand it into lost property at the School of Sociology and then get to class.

The mobile, still lying in a little pile of snow, appears in my sight line again. A girl in uggs is walking towards me. Another, slightly dishevelled creature, approaches from the opposite side of the road. And that, dear friends, is when both of my legs swung out from under me like a demented go-go dancer and I ended-up flat on my back. In the split second it took my back and arms to make contact with the concrete underfoot of Rugby Avenue, I had just about enough time to choose to save my head or my BlackBerry. 

There is no scratch on my phone. And my head hurts. A lot.

At more or less exactly the same time, the girl in ugg boots also did a half-somersault and ended up lying next to me, gazing up with a sort of traumatised expression at the grey sky. Dishevelled girl has, by this stage, arrived and picks up the mobile phone. "I fell here earlier," she explained, retrieving her mobile. "Are you two alright?"

Ugg girl is still staring up, mortified, at the heavens. Apparently too humiliated to move. "The one thing I asked Jesus for this week was not to fall," she explained piteously. I scrambled to my feet and helped ugg girl up and that's when it hit me. I had fallen on my back in broad daylight in the middle of Belfast.

I fell. On my back. Broad daylight. Middle of Belfast.



Good.


No, good. Sweet.


And it's funny, but you know, it's one of those things that you fear and then when it happens ... it's every bit as awful as you imagined.

The one thing I will say is that I now regret cackling myself into a coma about that man on RTE news last year - we have so much more in common than I thought.


I need to start throwing salt out wherever I go.