The internet is playing a trick on us

Lots of us, my generation, are guilty of falling for it. 

We're constantly, unknowingly seduced by numbers (over a thousand followers? Must be a big deal) and faces (the featureless, flattering photos of Instagram) and other people's life events (the party where everyone's having the time of their lives).

And no matter how well we think we're negotiating this life stuff, these little tricks - and deep down we know they're tricks - end up making us feel bad about ourselves anyway.

So a while back I decided to cut down my online life a bit, and make sure I was doing alright without it.

A few weeks before my 30th birthday, I decided that Facebook could be where I got event invitations, or involved in group inbox conversations, or tagged in photos - but I would no longer browse what I had begun to term The Timeline of Doom.

Despite never being a particularly active user, not having it on my phone, and never big on sharing my innermost thoughts, I hadn't realised how much I subconsciously flicked onto the website in between tasks at work throughout the day, and the effect that was having on how I felt about myself.

At first, it felt a bit alien not to be entertained by the constant slew of missives from friends and acquaintances. I felt a bit of a pull towards it, and that surprised me too.

But after a few days, then a week, then a month and more, the habit dropped completely.

Now I manage quite nicely without the constant drip-feed of other people's lives - which almost never made me feel good, but did give me a lot of oh my god, why aren't I doing that - and instead, if you'll excuse my French, began to give a shit about the stuff that actually, you know, matters.

And low and behold - when you're not comparing yourself to others, or locked down to life on a laptop, or updating the world on your every move for a Retweet - it's like...bloody hell, I'm doing alright.

In fact, I'm doing good: I'm working hard, earning enough money to live the way I want to in one of the world's best cities. I can travel and see friends abroad, live in a good houseshare, occasionally date people, occasionally not, have busy weekends and quiet week nights. And all of that is ok. 

Being online a lot can warp your priorities, and change what you think you want. 

It's fine if other people aim for marriage, babies or a house, writing a book, or getting fame and popularity in a corner of the internet - but at the moment, I'm working on a different kind of future: where I work hard and earn money, not "likes", having fun and, well, a pension; because when I'm old and rickety after all the adventures, I'm going to need some cash.

A timely reminder of the digital microcosm we live in now came the other night, when I sat opposite a man I'd just met for the first time - through an app, ironically - laughing, flirting, getting along fine, and seeing a blank look on his face when I mentioned the word "Buzzfeed".

That someone my age had never heard of this huge website that dominated so much of my online feeds seemed odd - but it was also hugely reassuring.

Because most of the websites, numbers, influential people, followers, likes and carefully posed profile pictures are all part of the internet's big trick.

What matters is when you're sat in front of someone, just getting on, having a laugh. Mates, dates, your face, their face, chatting in the real world: knowing that if they like you, that's cool, and if they don't, you'll still be alright. 

And no amount of Instagram filters can help you with that.

I don't know where to put you

I'd been wanting to see them live since first hearing the album back in 2010. 

They'd been the accompaniment to my final months of travelling; me, my now Ex, and our ever present soundtrack of the same songs, in the same order, wherever we went.

Now the gig had finished, and our sentences were glazed with that post-live music wonderment - you know, when the encore's done, the lights go up and you walk out, down the stairs, onto the street and all you can say is oh, I loved that, that was so good.

"How did you hear about them?" my friend asked, and I told her how he'd been all over this stuff, we constantly listened to music, stayed up til 6am dancing to it - this was what we did.

"Have you talked to him lately?" she said, because we live in the same area and, for a time, I seemed to bump into him every time I left the house.

"Not for ages," I replied, "Not since he was walking outside my old flat last year and I saw him, then completely forgot my housemate's name."

"But it's weird." I continued, as we walked among the throng of people heading to the nearest station, "usually I'll wonder how he is, and then he'll cycle past me at the bus stop or something."

"Alright, so you know he's still got legs. That's cool." and we laughed and I said, "Ha, yeah. I've been thinking about him a lot lately, just hoping he's ok. But I suppose you always do, don't you."

We got to the station and split up, her to go underground and me over. It was five minutes later when I was faced with a closed line, forced to retrace my steps back over the road and take a different route - such is the reliability of the London transport system.

As I placed my Oyster card on the reader and stepped through the barrier, at that precise moment and time at the overly busy station, some hair caught my eye, then trainers, then my brain pieced together all the different characteristics of this person in front of me.

And even though he hadn't turned around yet, I called his name because it was definitely him.

"Hello," I said, and I can't remember if we hugged.
"Hello" he replied, "how are you?"
"This is weird, that you're here", and of course he'd been to the same gig.

Then we walked down the escalator, onto the same tube, where we placed ourselves by the doors on one side of the carriage and his friends on the other, sometimes glancing our way.

There we stood as the tube rattled from one side of London to the other, catching up, carefully skirting topics, asking after people and family and jobs and travels; vaguely referencing a time we can't talk about here, like this; occasional silences where we looked at each other, smiled a bit and didn't know what to say next.

We reached the barriers at the other side and he hung back, waiting for his friends so they could get food.

We hugged. A goodbye, a good to see you, a quick, distant utterance of I'll text you or something and a Yeah, do thrown over my shoulder in case I'd misheard, or hadn't, and then I walked up towards the concourse at Liverpool Street Station.

--------------

Days later, the chance meeting sticks in my mind.

He's back there in my head, of course, because he always is anyway. It's fate, or chance, or I could bump into him at any time or place and it would seem as though I'd always just thought of him that moment.

With this one, there's no box to put him in. I don't know where he's meant to go. Everything fits, and nothing does at all.

He's just there, and, as long as we live in the same city, on the same road, and listen to the same music, I suppose he always will be.

Of housemates and desks

Like being in the wrong relationship, living in the wrong place is often signposted by several small things.

And because like a relationship, renting with others requires compromise, these small things often get quickly normalised and lumped into a box marked "things you have to put up with because the location is good, the flat is nice, and you have your own bathroom."

For example, there's the dip of disappointment when you hear a key turning in the door, something that is in firm contrast with the relief you feel whenever you hear you'll have the place to yourself for a night or longer.

Then there's the lingering hope that their slightly annoying friends won't come round, or that they'll go home soon, and the "sorry, but could you turn it down a little bit?" that you never wanted to hear yourself say (and come on mate, it's a Tuesday).

There's the irritation of your belongings being moved, tidied away, just squeezed in around your housemate's stuff, or, as once happened - coming home from a trip and finding their unwanted pictures hanging on your bedroom wall.

(Your friends say "that's a bit weird", and you reply "Yes, but the flat is nice and I have my own bathroom.")

And then you move to a new place, and much like dumping the bloke you always had doubts about, the change is immediate.

It happens on the first night when - clothes strewn everywhere - my unpacking is interrupted because I've been summoned to the pub to meet their friends.

This, I think, putting down the hangers and heading out of the door, is a brave new world - and one that I will gladly toast with copious amounts of cider. On a Tuesday. 

Then it's a few days later when I'm home after work, and the key turns in the door and I realise I'm looking forward to greeting whoever comes in.

And it's not just the house, where my things can go wherever they want - and the housemates, who welcomed me in like an old friend, but the room itself: this new space I didn't have before.

Crucially, it's this one little thing: in the extra gap between the wardrobe and my bed, I have a desk - for writing, for sitting at, for putting things on.

I can't remember the last time I had one, but this small, cheap, flatpacked piece of furniture has somehow become the thing I mention. For now, it goes:

"Yes, the new place is great. My housemates are lovely. And I have my own desk."

Sunday routines

The PIB lay on one sofa and I lay on another. Both of us settled, we embarked on our new Sunday routine.

"So, a debauched week then?" I said, taking in the slumped, slightly worn out figure huddled in blankets in front of me.

"Yeah. You could say that" she replied, before launching into a story involving men, road trips and alcohol which, all things considered, could only ever happen to her. "Also while cavorting around, I basically realised I'm still not over the ex. Bloody men. After months of telling him not to contact me, he finally stops and I'm like oh. Bah. And you?"

"Well, bit the same really. I've been blaming the weather, but weirdly I've felt a bit - like, I don't know - a little bit heartbroken lately. Like a thousand tiny little heartbreaks, over no one in particular. Just all of them. The Ex, the other one, ones I didn't pursue for one reason or another and now think I should have. Wondering if there's anything I could have done differently, pawing over it all basically."

She shook her head and straightened up a bit.

"Nah. They weren't right. If you hadn't ended it when you did, it would have only happened later. And as for potential dates, things always seem rosier when you look back on them."

Deep down, I knew she was right. Because being single brings freedom, but when you're faced with so many options and choices, there's always the worry you might be making the wrong ones - especially when they all bugger off.

We chatted back and forth for another hour, pausing only for food runs. The sky darkened behind PIB's head.

"Right. I need to leave the house." I announced with a yawn. "Or I'll just flop around here all day eating."
"Yup. And I need to go to sleep."
"Next week, same time?"
"Fo sure. Have a good day."
"Sleep well my dear."

With that, my best friend's face disappeared from the screen, and we went back to our lives on opposite sides of the world.

Outside my window, the rain fell through grey skies. The perfect day to stay in and mope.

I closed the laptop.

And after a little sigh, a little stretch, and with nowhere specific to go, I put my shoes on and started Sunday.

Boredom in the rush hour

The bus was stationary, and I glanced across the road at an equally inert coach facing the other way.

There they were: 38 people seated in twos with a driver and portly guide at the front; the latter commentating into a microphone as her audience looked on.

Disengaged, half asleep, blindly staring out of the window; their tired eyes seemed to rest upon nothing and no one as the commuters around them moved with the purpose of the rush hour, while the historic landmarks of the city stood still where they have done for hundreds of years.

Unspeaking - save for two at the back pointing at a map - each person had the passive posture of someone who had nothing to do that day but listen and wait for the next thing to appear.

We sat there on our separate sides of the road, a bus of locals on one side, a coach of tourists on the other, and I looked at the passengers one by one and thought:

God, you look so bored.

I watched them, momentarily distracted from the dull feeling in my chest, the half-conceived thoughts and feelings in my head, the ideas that would never even see paper, let alone fruition, and the minutiae of life that confines itself to one solitary hour at the beginning of the day and another at the end.

And I wondered, as the bus pulled away and I prepared to join the flow of people on the pavement, if any of them had looked at me and thought exactly the same thing.

Remember when we spent our Saturdays building forts

On Saturday evening, in the downtime between getting in and going out again, eight people sat talking in a living room.

The sofas were in disarray and belongings were strewn everywhere after a failed attempt to "build a fort" (as you do).

Our enthusiasm for the childish task had gradually ebbed, and the participants, tempted away from the build by more Prosecco, now sat around on bedding, pillows and blankets talking in pairs and threes.

"It was a great party," said The Neighbour, sitting with his back against the radiator while I lay on the sofa; head on a lap, another friend's fingers raking absent-mindedly through my hair. "But there was a moment when I looked around and there were at least eighty people up on the roof".

"You weren't drinking that night, were you?" I said, remembering the night in question.

"No," he continued. "I was drinking juice and wasn't on any drugs, and everyone else was in their own world and I just remember thinking that the roof wasn't strong enough. It wasn't built to hold this many people. At any moment the roof or floors could collapse and it freaked me out. We later found out it was only meant to hold eight people."

We laughed now at the imagined, hypothetical disaster. But I remember the thought crossing my mind too that night, up on the packed roof of the old house on a London side street. And even now, on a sturdy floor surrounded by good friends in a flat that is now my home from home, the fear of things falling down was equally familiar.

In fact, these days, it seems a lot of us spend rather a lot of our time waiting for the game to be up.

We worry that our jobs aren't good enough, that we aren't good enough. We worry that we don't know what we're talking about, that our employers are moments from finding us out. That our achievements are flukes, not the result of hard work and talent, that we'll never be the people we wanted to be when we were younger.

We're starting to worry that our parents won't be around forever, and we regularly voice concerns (as we nurse the third hangover of the week, and it's only Thursday) that our lives aren't following the path they should (knowing, of course, that there is no such thing).

We worry that the boys who like us will lose interest, that the see-saw will always leave us hanging perilously in the air, waiting to be let down. We worry that our friends will grow up and move on before we do and we worry about the day when yes, that skirt really will be too short.

But this is the life we chose: the big city, the busy mid-week social lives, the 9-6 office jobs, the expensive, frenetic nights out, extended lie-ins, short commutes and rented accommodation. We wanted the freedom, the choice and not to be tied down - and that is what we have.

So we sit on pillows on Saturday afternoon, making contingency plans for the future, building forts from sofas and getting ready for the next adventure.

And all the while, we worry about the roof falling down.

How to put a dampener on a lovely summer evening

Picture the scene.

You're up on the roof terrace of a pub in Kings Cross with some friends, enjoying the last couple of hours of sunshine and demolishing fruit-stuffed glasses of Pimms as the day slips seamlessly into balmy night.

After an hour or so, you glance down at the bench next to you. Then you look at the floor. You glance nervously to the opposite seats (maybe you put it over there?) and for reasons unknown, start patting your pockets-  as if you normally pop your handbag in your jeans for safe keeping.

"What are you looking for?" says a friend, having seen your eyes step up their frantic search behind you and on adjoining tables.

"Oh, just my handbag..." you reply, all casual, like.

Others join in the search. 

"It's definitely not here."

"No" you sigh, acknowledging what you knew when you first looked down. "It's gone."

That's annoying, you think, the Pimms and Prosecco softening the blow slightly as you borrow a phone and start cancelling things. Someone alerts the bar staff, another friend tops up your glass and two others go and rifle through the bins outside, returning with three other stolen credit cards in their hands; none of them yours.

Someone tops up your glass.

You mentally list everything that was in the bag: your everyday survival kit.

Wallet (no cash these days, thankfully), debit cards, drivers licence, National Insurance card. Boots, Tesco, Necter, spare SIM card. Diary, phone, Oyster card. Bus pass. Bits and bobs you keep close. Moleskine diary, your plans for the next few months, the ideas written in the back. Your shit HTC phone that you actively urged people to steal regularly, but feel a bit lost without now that it's gone.

On your way back from checking the toilets, the calm feeling is shattered by the realisation that you've also lost the key card for your block. The keys to your flat. Was your address written anywhere?

Your glass is filled again.

The bank arrange for emergency cash, you get a taxi home. Your housemate lets you in.

The list of things you've lost continues to rack up the next morning as you start your day. Earphones. Mac cover-up. Dior lipstick.

Throughout it all, you're calmer than expected. A friend sums it up nicely with a cautious question.

"Urm, was it...it wasn't....it wasn't...The Bag, was it?"

"No, no. Thank God."

"Phew."

"I know." you sigh, hangover creeping in as you write down all the things you have to do before you can get to work. "Every cloud."

It's Women's Day, part of International Blummin' Good Friends Week

For a long time, I associated getting older with the loss of things. From hair to sanity, grandparents to friends, it always seemed I was more likely to lose rather than gain things after a certain age.

It's no wonder, really. All through school, university and travels, the emphasis is always on making friends. Once all that's out of the way, there's a shift. Girls aren't supposed to look for friends any more, they're supposed to look for a relationship. If that fails, the solution never seems to be "go and make new friends", it's "grab your old friends, and go and find a new man".

What nobody tells you is that if you do find yourself single at 27, that you can still make friends - lots of them, in fact - and they'll probably end up being the best, most honest, generous and like-minded ones you ever had.

It's International Women's Day today, and there have been lots of reminders floating around the internet about female solidarity both online and off.

The reminder came for me on Tuesday night, as I hung around the office sending e-mails to friends as the clock ticked past 6pm. Truth was, I wasn't relishing the thought of going back to a house where I no longer feel all that comfortable.

Eventually I headed home leaving the e-mail chain in mid-flow, and hopped on the tube. A voicemail came through as I was killing more time in the Co-op.

"Hey love, I'm leaving for Brussels tomorrow, so my flat's free if you want to get out of your house. I'll be round the corner tonight and I have a spare key for you. Come and meet me. Byeee!"

While I was gearing up to call her back, my phone rang. It was one of the other girls, offering to meet me for a drink so that I didn't go home and sit there feeling crap all night. I grabbed the key and a quick hug, then hopped back on the tube into town to the pub, having gratefully taken both friends up on their offers.

The next day, the following sentences at the end of an article in Stylist magazine caught my attention:

At around the same time...I experienced the surpassingly odd sensation of making a new friend. A genuine friend, a good friend. It really was, and remains, a bizarre feeling. I never expected it to happen again at my age. I brighten every time I get a text from her and can’t wait to meet up with her every week to put the world to rights. It is like the beginning of a love affair but without the sickening doubts or sexual anxieties. It’s absolutely brilliant. 

And I couldn't have put it better myself.

Just so you know, this is what we're up against here.

Every time I get an e-mail alert about a new property, I do a few checks before calling to arrange a viewing.

1. Price 
Is the flat at the top end or bottom end of my budget?

2. Description 
Is the flat above a commercial building, a.k.a, a rancid kebab shop?

3. Pictures
Is there cat shit on the carpet? Is there carpet?

4. Map of area
Because sometimes, they say "Islington" when what they really mean is "Essex".

And when I'm satisfied that it might be what I'm looking for, I do one final thing.

5. Google Street view

Technology: Saving you time since 2007.

Experience the joys of flat hunting in London

Flat hunting in London is a very special experience. 

In fact, if you've never felt your hope deflate, melt, and accumulate slowly into a pool of disillusion at your feet in the space of 30 seconds, then I highly recommend you try it.

Because 30 seconds is usually all it takes, and I'm not talking about that "oh, you just know" instinct that buyers harp on about. I mean literally: you walk through the door and within 20 seconds you've seen the living room, kitchen, bathroom and two bedrooms of wildly varying proportions, which leaves another few seconds to pause and take in the damp using only your nose.

And because the estate agent's standing there while you open various doors looking for the secret Narnia cupboard that £650 per month would probably get you up in Newcastle, you make the best of it.

You find yourself saying things like "Without that bed, you could probably fit a desk in there", and "Oh, well it's not like I'd need to get to the kitchen much anyway", before shaking hands and leaving, stepping over the puddle of despair on your way out.

It also doesn't take long to realise that basements are good for a lot of things; storing bicycles, hiding boyfriends, even raising children you fathered with your daughter, but they seldom make for light, airy, sweet smelling living spaces.

Likewise, when even the "enough room to swing a cat" cliche would be pushing it in the bedrooms of the split level maisonette you're viewing (n.b. fish-eyed cameras lie), it's all you can do to cease wondering where the second level got to and quip to your Future Housemate, "Well, on the plus side, the bedrooms are the same size".

And ah, Gumtree listings; where Marylebone means Edgware Road, Camden means Holloway, "shabby chic" means your bed's in the living room, and £240 per week means you're the wrong side of Finsbury Park Station.

Samuel Johnson said when you're tired of London, you're tired of life.

I say when you're tired of flat hunting in this city, you're probably only just getting started. 

More reasons why I love London* (*not you, Mayfair)

After 27 years of living in London, there are still some things I can't quite get my head around.

One of those things is the sheer volume of slow moving tourists constantly migrating through Leicester Square.

And another is Mayfair on a Friday night. 

For those who aren't familiar, Mayfair is an area of London where bare legs are a winter standard, all hair swings with Middleton gloss, a pout is the entirely un-ironic pose of choice, and £14 is a perfectly reasonable amount to pay for a G&T. 

But it was here that I found myself on Friday, after The Actress secured a table at one of the area's better known clubs for her birthday. The table came with complimentary entry, a thorough once-over, rigorous clipboard consultation, and a free bottle of vodka. Not my usual crowd, not my usual choice of club - but as the saying goes: if it's good enough for Prince Harry, it's good enough for me. 

It was from the comfort of our square foot of table space, where we got reprimanded by the club's very own Bride of Chucky every time we breached our allotted seating quota, that I watched - slightly baffled - as a sea of shimmering dresses, bare legs and straightened locks started writhing about on the dance floor.

It was a little bit like the arrivals area at Terminal 3, what with all the expectant eyes scanning the room, desperately searching for something. Their next millionaire, perhaps, or more likely, their own reflections in the mirrored walls and ceiling of the club. 

And that, in a nutshell, is why I found myself escaping into a black cab, having "lost" everyone else after a trip to the toilet.

"Back to normality, please, driver" I didn't say, directing him to Tottenham Court Road. It would cost too much to go the whole way home, so I planned to get a bus from there.

Having ranted about my night the whole way and racked up a modest £4.50 fare, we drew up at the bus stop, and I proffered a tenner.

"Sorry love, have you got anything smaller? I've got absolutely no change."

"Ah, no, this is all I've got. But, in that case" I continued, all nice and warm in the cab, "you could take me as far as you can for a tenner?"

He thought for a few seconds. "Where are you headed?"

I told him my nearest tube station, which would easily bring the fare up to over £20.

"Oh, I'll just take you all the way there."

"Are you sure? It's quite a way?"

"Yeah, it's my fault not having the change. Plus it's late, and it doesn't exactly sound like you've had a good night. The least I can do is get you home safe."

And with that, the cabby took me all the way home for half of what he should have charged, refusing to drop me anywhere else apart from right outside my front door.

Which brings me to the third thing about London I'm yet to understand: its propensity for being really quite nice, right at the moment when you least expect it.

It's Sunday morning. The house is empty apart from me.

My housemates are away for the weekend, and this means I am experiencing the small yet perfectly formed joys of being alone in a shared abode. 

The kitchen has been Detolled into spotless submission, there are no pubic hairs in the bath (or sink, for that matter. Don't ask.) and the toilet is well and truly flushed. Later, I might even go all out and clean the shower. Maybe even mop the floor, and buy a bin to replace the Tesco carrier bag on the back of the bathroom door. 

I think you'll agree; a truly exciting day awaits. 

Prior to starting this new permanent job - which is going well apart from the daily abject terror that I will not be able to deliver what is required of me, that I will fail monstrously and not live up to expectations and shrivel slowly into a puddle by my desk wailing "I'm melting, I'm melting" - there were a lot of things I wouldn't have been able to consider.

One of those things was getting my own place, something that job security will one day afford me even if, for now, the salary doesn't.

It would be my own one bedroom flat where everything is as I left it - food in its rightful place (i.e. not blocking the drain), toilet roll in the bathroom (i.e. not in bedrooms, kitchens, living rooms and anywhere else frequented by a runny nose) and water confined to places capable of both holding and disposing of it (i.e. not on floors, walls or any surface within a two metre radius of the tap).

It's not even that I dislike living with people. Not at all. I have bloody good housemates, I'm a sociable beast and research tells me these are problems I'd have no matter who I shared with. And anyway, it's nice to hear the low-level buzz of other people downstairs, to have a mini-social life in your own house when illness, money or general laziness keeps you indoors. 

But one day I'd like to live alone in lovely London, create my own mess, and not hurl £600 a month into my landlord's Spanish villa retirement fund in doing so. 

And when that happy day comes, I will gaze wistfully into the kitchen sink and sigh:

"Yes, there is egg  from three days ago nestled in and around the plug hole. But it's my egg, god damn it, and that makes it ok."

Pro tips for starting a new job

If there was a guide on how to prepare for your first day at a new job, there would probably be one point written in all caps, surrounded by an array of asterisks, an abominable amount of exclamation marks; maybe bold, underlined and put in red for good measure. It would say this:

******DO NOT GET DRUNK THE NIGHT BEFORE!!!!!!!!!!!******

But alas it happened, as these things tend to, entirely by accident.

One minute myself, PIB and new friend Brummie Girl were taking a leisurely stroll up Portobello Road after a Monday afternoon dim-sum binge. The next we were in a pub several glasses of wine down, huddled around my HT-Shit phone trying to work out how to delete my Facebook status, which I'd just updated with PIB's ex boyfriend's name. That's what happens when you're trying to delete someone when you've had a few: you mistake the "share" button for "search" on Facebook mobile, and helpfully, there's no option to remove.

Following an inadvisable finale which began "Oh dear, quite drunk now. Better make the last one a G&T", I went home, rectified the Facebook Status Boo-Boo (yes, he had noticed), went to bed, and the next day woke up feeling like my uncle's vegetarian girlfriend probably did one Christmas, when she realised my Grandma had wrapped her Linda McCartney sausages in bacon: a little bit sick.

Helping matters along immensely was the Northern Line, which didn't get the message that I'd pressed snooze five times and really needed a Charing Cross branch train - like now, right now - and put on three Morden via Bank's in a row instead. That sentence will make absolutely no sense to anyone who doesn't use the tube - but while you're here - can I borrow a tenner? My monthly travel card appears to have done its annual January magic trick of increasing by an extra £6, so I'm saving for a team of huskies instead. 

Anyway, aware that I was arriving five minutes late for my first day at a company which has around 24,985 fewer employees than my last one, ergo-these-things-might-be-noticed-a-tad-more, it was beyond me why I then answered my new bosses "How are you?" with "Struggling a bit this morning, if I'm honest".

In hindsight (or straight away after he'd raised his eyebrows in surprise) I realised that "Wonderful, fresh as a daisy, thank you" might have been more appropriate.

The day progressed with no further misdemeanours, except the bit where I didn't ask where the kitchen was and kept wandering purposefully into, and then out of, adjacent offices without luck in a frantic search for water.

But apart from the delays, hangovers on a school night, honest replies and partial dehydration, I've made it to day two and the new job is good. Nay, probably the best one yet. Relief all round.

And anyway, as all pro-tips in this field suggest: you must start as you mean to go on.

Keeping London warm

For all its inclement weather, expense and overcrowded shops, December is my favourite month of the year.

It's not just a Christmas thing, although as I encountered a half-eaten banana in the fridge yesterday morning, the thought of spending a week at my perpetually toasty, spotlessly clean family house (with fully stocked cupboards) is a massively appealing one. 

I think it's all the excess; the chilly cold followed by central heating, the big pub lunches behind steamed-up windows; party plans and obligatory hangovers.

When it comes down to it, December is all about comfort. 

But London is full of pertinent reminders that for some, December is probably the most uncomfortable part of the year. 

The reminders sit on the pavement on the main road or outside shops, rubbing their hands together and asking for change, or curled up in a doorway in sleeping bags. They're in your disrupted journeys home; the increasingly frequent announcements of "...has severe delays due to a person under a train at...", and in the dirty paper cups full of pennies at tube stations. 

As I walked along Euston Road last night on my way to an aforementioned warm pub and a huge table packed with this year's new friends, I passed an old man sitting on the pavement. Away from the shops of Tottenham Court Road, he would have cut a lonely figure had it not been for the woman leaning over him, talking to him, checking he was ok and - the gesture that warmed me the most as the breath blew white from my mouth - pulling his woolly hat right down around his ears. 

When I left the pub later that night with a half eaten box of Celebrations under my arm, I looked for the man, but he was gone. I shared my chocolates with the night bus driver instead, emptying a load under the glass barrier like change. "Thank you!" he said.

It was today on my way again from one warm place to another, that I saw a second reminder, sitting on the ground outside Sainsburys. 

The bus stopped, I glanced down from the top deck and saw a man leaving the supermarket with two bags of shopping. The homeless man asked the usual I expect, "spare any change?" and in response the man handed him one of his shopping bags, full of food, and walked away; the homeless man gazing after him in amazement. 

The bus pulled away and I headed home: gloves, scarf, and feeling like London and December have something big in common; both can be cold in every sense of the word, but tiny little gestures like these make this big anonymous city that little bit warmer. 

The problem with getting home...is getting home.

Last Thursday I stood under the bright lights of a bus shelter and realised that of all the things that irritated me about the world, being stood here was pretty high on the list.

It wasn't raining. The bus wasn't late. In fact, I wasn't even waiting for a bus: I'd just got off. It was half past 12, I was on my way back from the cinema and my only agenda at that point was to get home to bed. 

But minutes earlier, I'd identified the bus stop as being the most well-lit and therefore safest place to be. I waited, eyes alert and watching, heart rate clicking up a notch, while my brain did automatic things drilled into me since school - switching my music off, taking out both earphones. Removing house keys from my bag and tucking them between my middle and forefinger. Feeling for my phone in the other pocket, making a mental note of who I'd call. 

The man - older, drunk, rough looking - raised a heavy, almost apologetic arm, before crossing the road and disappearing into the distance. 

However innocent, his behaviour had buzzed as odd in my head. He'd got on the bus just one stop earlier, fixed me with a stare and spoken words I couldn't hear over my music. Then he moved to the front of the bus. My stop arrived, I got off, the doors shut.

Seconds later, the driver re-opened the front doors at the man's request and he got off, too. He continued to speak to me. I stopped in my tracks, still ignoring him, let him pass ahead - and walked back under the light of the bus stop. 

And there I stayed for a few minutes before continuing on at double speed, checking behind me the whole way; newly conscious of my heels on the pavement as they echoed down the quiet road.

Perhaps I was never at risk, maybe everything I did was just common sense and therefore the whole episode unremarkable. But what's not unremarkable is just how often this kind of stuff happens.

A conversation with three girl mates at the weekend revealed the following: one had moved to a different area of London after being followed home too many times. Another had been curb crawled twice on her road. My housemate has been "approached" - although that word seems too passive - two or three times in the years since she moved to where we live. All have found themselves running home out of fear at least once.

What really annoyed me as I continued my walk (keys ready before I got to the door, of course) is that it won't ever get taken seriously, all these minor little instances on dark roads: passing comments, words, jeers, watching, following, unwelcome attention. Nothing worth reporting and no laws being broken.

It's ingrained from a young age that as a girl you've got to be careful. Take precautions, keep an eye out, get a taxi instead of walk.

After all, we're girls, and that's just the way it is.

Being British and the Cake Conundrum

There are many, many wonderful things about being British.

Like, when three people are standing around a kettle in the office kitchen waiting for it to boil, the lull in conversation can always be filled with mindless observations about the sun, rain, clouds, heat, cold (or lack of it).

And no matter how chaotic the shop, there will always be a staunchly adhered to queue at the pay desk, populated by people who possess the ability to communicate using only tuts and rolls of the eyes.

Then there's the way the transport system in our capital city is governed by a set of rules based on maintaining order and politeness: letting people off the train first, allowing those in a hurry to get by on the escalators, giving up your seat for someone who needs it, and then shutting the hell up so everyone can brood at the lack of space in silence.

We live in a country where "sorry" is probably the most spoken word in our collective vocabulary, uttered even if we're annoyed and complaining about something - which we frequently are - and yep, we do that really well, if quietly, too.

But for all these entertaining little British nuances, these little quirks based around maintaining order - sometimes there's the feeling that people can be just too damn polite. Not wanting to tread on toes or rock the proverbial boat, we'll often say the opposite of what we want when asked. I like to call it The Cake Conundrum:

They say: Would you like the last slice of cake?

You think: Yes. Say yes. You're starving. Say yes. Yes, yes, yes.

You say: Oh, no thank you. I'm stuffed. And I ate yesterday, so I really shouldn't.

All of which keeps the world a lovely polite place, but doesn't really do you (or your rumbling stomach) any favours.

The Cake Conundrum can be reversed and applied to many situations, but the end result is the same. One person doesn't say what they really want, and ends up feeling worse, maybe even a bit resentful for it. The other person has their cake, eats it, then feels rude when they later find out, usually by via someone else, that they deprived someone of much needed food.

To carry the metaphor to its healthy end: I suppose sometimes, I feel like I eat a lot of the cake.

You ask me a question, you'll get an honest answer. If you're dithering, I'll decide. You see a husky dog on the tube with a face like a cuddly bear and stare at it longingly; while I'll bound up to the owner, pat the dog on the head, ask it's name ("Bonza") and smile all the way to work.

Because politeness is good, politeness is great. Politeness makes this country go round.

But sometimes, it's good to shelve the weather talk, tell the cashier to hurry up, ask that person next to you to get their bag off your lap, and not automatically apologise when someone else bumps into you. Aside from anything else, you'll feel better for it.

And always, always smile at the dog.

Girl on the train

Last night I was on the tube when a young girl flounced onto the train. 

Laden with large envelopes, a couple of posh looking branded material bags and about five Google Map print outs, initially I was annoyed. She'd sat down next to me and plonked her bags half across my lap. Even my shuffling about didn't alert her to the space infringement, so intent she was on studying the route mapped out on the bits of paper. 

A few stops along she got out her phone, clicked down to "Mum" and pressed call. Clearly stressed, she vented that she'd been running around London all day, delivering envelopes and having asked if she could finish up tomorrow morning, they'd said no. She didn't know what time she'd be home. My irritation fell away.

I glanced down at the top envelope and saw the name of a PR firm written in the corner. We went underground and she finished the call, got out a tube map and started comparing it with the Google version, which showed three markers dotted around east London.

It was well after six o'clock, and we were still west. I took out my earphones.

"Do you know which route you're going to take yet?" I said, pointing at the maps.

It transpired the girl - who was on an unpaid internship with the PR company - lived in the Home Counties, and would still have to get back out there once she'd finished the "drops", which had to be done tonight. With what I estimated to be (at least) another hour of walking ahead of her, she wasn't even close to going home. 

She was, effectively, a free courier.

I looked at the maps with her and told her the quickest way to go, which tube lines linked with where and what I hoped was an easier route than the one mapped out. Making a mental note of the PR company name, I wished her luck and got off at my stop.

Now, I don't know how long this internship was, or any other details apart from the company name*. What I do know is that there was a young, stressed out girl on my train home who wasn't getting paid for what was well over a full day's work.

And quite frankly, if the documents inside were really that important and really couldn't wait until the next day, why would you give them to an intern to deliver on foot?

The internship situation is beyond a joke. Yes, work experience is probably the most valuable thing I ever did, and let me find out which industry I wanted to work in. But I did short term, well managed placements. I never felt taken advantage of and working past 6pm was always a choice, not an enforced rule. 

It's one thing to offer valuable experience. It's another to give someone all the jobs you don't want to do yourself or pay for, and call it an "internship". 

You'd think they'd make it against the law. 

Oh, wait...

*No names, it'd probably do more harm than good.

Week Ending

It wasn't just a Bank Holiday Weekend. It was an anniversary.

Under the excitement about seeing friends and dancing to long awaited DJs lay slight trepidation. Not being a frequent visitor to South London, the last time I went to Clapham was exactly two years ago. As the bus took us through town and out again, my memory was jolted by the mundane.

There was the newsagent we'd stopped at to buy sweets (him, Fruit Salads; me, too hungover to contemplate food). There was the train station where we said goodbye after a night of no sleep; the road I'd distractedly taken a wrong turn down on the way back.

And as my friends and I walked across the Common on our way to the music-filled tents, there, through the trees, was the pub where me and him leant against the same bench, and met.

Was it just going to be a day of reminders?

The rain stopped and the sun came out. Day turned into dramatic sunset, and then it was dark. Stage lights flashed over thousands of people with their hands outstretched to the last remnants of pink sky. Basslines rippled through the crowd; me and my friends danced with our arms round each other, crouching down on the damp, trampled ground, and leaping up in time for the drop on command.

Encore done, our group headed for the exit, feet crunching under a carpet of plastic cider bottles. We split into two halves: those staying south, and those going west. Music drifted over from the pub, but my heart was thumping as we turned in the opposite direction, adrenaline making the journey we'd done by bus earlier now welcome on foot.

We headed west, stopping at a Shepherds Bush bar for a whisky and ginger ale nightcap; where our wellies and mud covered cardigans met a Notting Hill Carnival after party in full swing.

In 2009, I went to a festival, met a boy and had the perfect day.

In 2011, I went back with some friends and a slowly mending heart, and had an even better one.

This week things are changing. There's never been a better time to leave him behind.

I am the least excited I have ever been about anything. Fact. True story. Totally couldn't care less.

If this year has taught me anything, it's "try not to get too excited about good fings wot happen, because the minute you do, they'll probably go tits up".

Granted, it's not the most positive lesson to impart on a Monday afternoon. But in a year that has so far seen a failed move into central London, coupled (no pun intended) with the sudden demise of a relationship; it's one I've had to reluctantly embrace.

The last seven months have been a rollercoaster inspired cliché; as well as sporadic attempts to find new housemates, there's been the ongoing search for a job. There have been three interviews; two bad, and one which left me waist deep in expectation right up until I opened the e-mail telling me I hadn't got the job. Aside from that, the process has generally consisted of me getting well excited, applying like mad and hearing nish all in return. Seriously, potential employers. If we're failing miserably, at least send us a generic, one size fits all note to let us know. It don't half placate the application-addled brain.

So given all that, you'd forgive me for feeling a little jaded when, out of the blue, two opportunities toddled their way towards me in the final days of my holiday. There had been no application forms, no scouring of websites, no pimping myself out in carefully constructed covering letters. Just ten days of sunshine and relaxation which somehow culminated in two separate people with separate positions to fill, choosing me.

Once I'd finished rubbing the lucky stars out of my eyes, the talking started. "So, what's the deal with this room, then?" I said, tentatively broaching the subject with my two good Uni friends at lunch yesterday. The lessons about getting too excited ringing in my ears; I'd already convinced myself that in the time between texting about it and seeing me, they'd clearly have had a re-think about their choice of housemate.

Instead, they seemed just as enthusiastic about me joining their North London abode as I was. And so it was agreed that in September, all being well, I'll be moving out. Again. Hopefully for longer than three weeks this time.

Oh, and if the God of Fate who reads my blog and then pisses on everything I get cautiously excited about on here could click "unsubscribe", that'd be even better.Ta.

When London Transport and Interviews Attack

'No, no it's cool. I've left an hour and a half to get there, and it should only take 45 minutes. I'll be fine.'

In London, these are what we like to call "famous last words".

My interview was at 9am and the train - packed, delayed, stationary - was devouring my travel time. A child screamed, then moved his sticky fingers from my coat buttons to the wire of my ear phones, giving them a hearty tug. I clung precariously to a sweaty hand rail next to a pushy woman and the child's buggy. Enraged passengers at each platform, unable to find room for their ample, incredibly rude backsides, yelled angrily at me to move down the carriage. "WHERE?!" I replied, "Shall I get into the buggy?". Then "Oh, sorry" as they spotted the offending object. "Oh, sorry indeed".

Things were not going well.

A bus ride, an apologetic phone call and a quick shoe-change later; I arrived at the interview three minutes late.

Let me start by saying this. Had I known an interview for a writing job could involve being tested on division, multiplication and number sequences, I'd have spent the night revising GCSE Bitesize rather than scouring my brain for witty content ideas. From what I could discern, the 50 number and word puzzles that were placed in front of me seemed to serve only one purpose: to remind me how utterly shit I am at maths.

Maths makes my brain shrivel. It panics me, flusters me and makes me wish I understood the strange finger-formula for remembering my nine times table. That is why I write. Because if my career choice depended on knowing how to divide big numbers in my head, I'd be spending my days mine sweeping in McDonald's.

Fifteen minutes passed and my exam paper was collected.

Shit the bed, I thought as the HR Woman left the room, What next? "Put these trainers on love, we're off for a run"?

My mind hullaballooed by cryptic word and number problems, I stumbled through the verbal interview that followed. If given the job, what would I be told to improve on after three months? I entered two minutes of very deep thought, which produced two extremely vague answers. "And a third?" she prompted.

The heavy thinking resumed.

"Err, make more cups of tea?" I japed into the silence, somewhat unwisely. There are several stock answers to this question, and that probably isn't one of them.

I struggled on. The tables turned. What questions did I have? I asked about the potential salary, stated as "Dependent on Experience" on the job description. She told me. I was disappointed. She asked my current salary. I added five grand to her number. "Oh."

"Well, if you want someone with a lot of experience who can just get on with writing good stuff, then that's me."

But if they're looking for a mental arithmetic enthusiast with no interest in ever leaving home (or buying a new pair of shoes ever again), and a flair for telling HR Managers exactly what they want to hear...let's be honest.

It's probably someone else.