Wednesday 3rd July

Natwest are useless bastards. USELESS BASTARDS. Natwest are such utter useless bastards that I am going to make them a separate page on my site, because I feel that this is a gap on the web. I did a Google search for "Natwest useless bastards" and it returned eight sites, none of which were actually about Natwest being useless bastards. So without further ado: The Natwest Bank Are Useless Bastards Homepage.

Although I was foiled in my attempt to read the horror stories of other misfortunate Natwest victims, I found two good ranting sites in my travels, which helped me to waste pretty much my entire working day yesterday (every little helps). The first of these is Smoothy's Rants. Smoothy rants better than me - he has passion, and he gets pissed off about things like trains and Dixons and doesn't try and rant about world politics or media or any of those other lofty things I don't really understand, yet attempt to concern myself with, and as such his rants page is a little easier to read.

I emailed Smoothy to inform him of my decision to link to his site. I know most people don't really care and I always feel arrogantly magnanimous when I do that ("Oh, I shall bestow approximately two hits a year on your site by linking it to my cobwebby, unvisited corner of the web, be pathetically grateful and lick my boots") but it seems like the polite thing to do. Anyway, he said that he got the idea for this rants page from the Misanthropic Bitch. Since her page has been around for about as long as this page has, I'm surprised I have not stumbled across her vitriole before, but I am glad I have now, because she's really good. Her rants are carefully thought out and constructed bundles of intelligence on very touchy subjects such as child porn and teen motherhood. She gets a lot of hate mail which is arguably the most amusing thing to read. It seems that nobody who writes to her to complain is really reading the articles properly, because they seem to be complaining about her tackling the topic rather than what she is saying. It's kind of like slapping someone in the face because they gave you a gift with ugly wrapping paper. Because that's how her essays seem - gifts of thought in a web without a brain. Please go and read her, and if you enjoy what you see, then buy her an Amazon gift certificate. I can see why Smoothy said she was a bit controversial. But it's all a matter of balance. Crudely constructed pages by hick, idiot, waddling food processors abound - it's nice to know something is out there to counteract them.

In spite of the fact it has been amply demonstrated to me that pretty much everybody can rant better than I can, don't worry - it's not going to put me off. I still cling to the belief that I have the right to be heard. However, June's diario got a little bit out of control (now you see, if I was dumber it would be OK because I never would have figured out how to update my website from work and you would have been spared about 10000 words) so I am going to try and calm down a bit. It's too much effort to get all worked up, anyway, and I haven't been sleeping much. Mr Z has twice this week removed all of his clothes in the spare room and crept to bed in an exaggerated cartoon style, only for me to snigger when he reaches the bed, having watched him tiptoe around it, trying not to break his ankle on the hoover. Still, I shall attempt to rectify this situation by the weekend by getting blind drunk at least once. Yul and Me'Julie are coming to sample my Kaju Gosht (lamb with cashew nuts for those of you who aren't Madhur Jaffrey) and Mr Z's Bombay potatoes on Thursday; and then on Friday I have been invited out to drink with members of my department. Normally I am of the opinion that one shouldn't hang out with people from work, because (a) you wouldn't necessarily be friends with them if you didn't have to maintain a civil working relationship and (b) you see them every day anyway. But they are a nice bunch. And it doesn't really matter if I get hammered and embarrass myself because I am leaving in a couple of weeks anyway.

It's quite depressing that I will have about £10 to spare on Friday and I know it will be enough to get me drunk. I have the tolerance of a lentil, after eating so many of them. After 35 minutes of boiling in a bar with no air and a bit of alcohol, I'm ready to pop. The other week I had a mere four vodkas and felt decidedly wobbly. FOUR! It's a sad day. I can no longer drink anybody under the table, except perhaps Mother Hand. It's a difficult situation because I want to be all macho and fed up about losing my ability to drink, but I am secretly quite pleased because it's going to make life so much cheaper, especially when I am on holiday. One famously strong Balearic gin and tonic, and I'll be dancing on the table in my new red pvc dress. Two and I'll be throwing up in the bushes. Three and my night will be complete.

I suppose I'm starting to be more grown up. Drinking less, eating well, using a different moisturiser during the day to the one I use at night...wait, no, using moisturiser AT ALL...purchasing hair products (still can't make it go straight, dammit), doing sit ups...I am definitely looking after myself better. I feel a bit smug at my inner child who thought I'd be smoking until my face puckered like a sphincter, eating lard until my veins constricted and I needed a bouncy castle inflator to pump the blood around my body, and drinking until I had an ulcer, because I have actually managed to make an effort to look after myself. But the problem is that I don't want to feel smug with everybody else. "How do you do it?" they sigh when I lose weight every week. "You're so good!" they murmur guiltily when I order soda and lime as a lunchtime drink. "You're a tea-total weirdo," they think at the Tree. I'm not really a smug bitch. Not intentionally, anyway. I don't see how anybody can be smug with others when they have let themselves go to such an extent in the past. That's hypocritical.

That said - fat people. I am seeing them everywhere. The worst is fat girls in hipsters. Fat girls in hipsters - STOP! Hipsters are NOT meant for you. Hipsters are meant for angrogynous teens and girls with no hips. When you shoe horn yourself into them, don't you stop and look in the mirror and think, "Hmm, I appear to have a huge roll of flab cascading over the top of these trousers"? Hipsters will make huge rolls of flab appear like magic, even if you are not particularly fat, unless you are an androgynous teen or a girl with no hips. If you must wear them - buy a size bigger than usual. It's not like you have to worry about them being too big on the waist. And fasten them on your hips - NOT below your stomach. Fat girls with hipsters fastened below their stomachs are the worst of the lot. Men are allowed to have their bellies hanging over their trousers. Women are not. It's just THE LAW. Find yourself some trousers with a decent amount of fabric between the gusset and the waistband, for god's sake.

I was tempted by a pair of hipster denim shorts last week, it has to be said. They were very gorgeous on the hanger, although I might have been dazzled by the £6 price tag (sweat shops, you gotta love 'em). But when I put them on it was a different story. In spite of the fact I wear a size 14 skirt these days (only one though) and the offending articles were a massive looking 18, I fastened them correctly at my hips, turned to look in the mirror and nearly burst into tears. There I was - poster girl for obesity. I couldn't pull them up any further without damaging my genitalia and so I just took them off, threw them on the floor and stepped on them. Then I hung them back up and gave them back to the shop assistant. It wasn't to be. Hipsters are not meant for fat girls.

There is a fat girl who goes to the pub every weekend who wears hipsters often. I am constantly dying to go over to her and tell her to join Slimming World but that would put me right into the smug bitch category so I just bite my tongue and make catty comments about her to Mr Z instead, since that only makes me a catty bitch which is slightly better I think it's some sort of reverse karma - after all the sniggers and rude remarks people have made about me over the years, I feel I am justified. Anyway, she has this fondness for black hipster trousers and black tops that barely cover her midriff, and there's usually a good six inches of flab on display, in spite of the fact she leaves her jacket on all the time to try and distract from the fact she is so big (a trick beloved of the Top of the Pops fashion department - cases in point, Alison Moyet in a long black coat, the lead singer of DB Boulevard in some sort of fluffy knee length jacket). I just want to follow her to the toilets and say, "You're embarrassing yourself. Buy yourself some trousers that fit properly and a top that goes below your waist, and stop making yourself a target." Because the other week some nasty boys were taking the piss out of her, and in spite of the fact I often comment on the unsuitability of her clothing, I got all defensive and wanted to beat them up. It takes a fat girl to criticise a fat girl, if you ask me. And you should, because I know everything and I'm always right. Haven't you realised that yet?

Sunday 7th July

Some girl on the bus home from work called me a fat bitch on Thursday. She had tried to push in front of me to get onto the bus and since I was feeling feisty, I didn't let her and thrust past her to reach the ticket machine first. "Just shove me out the way why don't you?" she said, in spite of the fact there had been no physical contact. "Well, I will if you get in my way," I muttered. "WHAT did you say?!" she exclaimed, her face a mask of shocked disbelief - how dare somebody answer her back? "I said, I will if you get in my way," I enunciated. She did one of those little American girl head jerks and "Ah!" noises and I turned to make my way up the stairs, whereupon she again tried to push past me. "Going to shove me out of the way again, are you?!" she challenged, ignoring the basic fact that she had tried to push past me and that there was, again, no physical contact. "Oh I didn't even touch you," I spat back and swept up the stairs, all righteous indignation. She followed, some cowed male hot on her heels. "Fat bitch...fat bitch thinks she can throw her weight around," she said loudly.

I thought three things. Firstly, I thought, "Well, there's a lot to throw". Secondly, I thought, "Ha, but I'm not half as fat as I used to be!" and felt really, really smug because of it - even though she didn't know, I felt like I had got one up on her for some stupid reason. And thirdly, I thought, "Go and stuff your bra, you titless bimbo," but I didn't say it because I'm above that. I would have done if she'd said anything else to me, but she didn't. Poor thing. She had a really, REALLY bad hair weave, chipped nails, no tits and a badly placed tattoo that somebody must have done in the dark, so all in all, I think I come off better.

I have parted company with another company. I had everything crossed in the hopes that the last temp job would last until the end of the month when I am due to finish temping, but alas, it was not to be. Happily, they gave me plenty of notice so I have a week's work next week, at least. The team were already going out for drinks on Friday night which was well timed, I got to say goodbye properly. We had a lovely time, I haven't actually been out to any bars in Bristol before and we made it to Revolution by the end of the night, which is a place I am very fond of after several encounters with the Bolton branch on Forest forays. My replacement, Louise, who I had been training all day, came too, so there were seven of us - Adele, Dawn, Emma, Liz, Neil and me. We played the game of "Who would you sleep with - X or Y?" for much of the evening which was a lot of fun and produced some interesting results. I am still trying to decide who I would pick out of Ian Beale or Robbie Jackson - it's too difficult. I'm thinking about it way too much, it's scary. I think I talked about myself too much again but nevermind. Adele said I was really interesting and I was really happy, because I remember this time last year when I started temping and I was working with Cathie, and she did so many cool things - singing lessons, driving lessons, tapestry in the winter - and I felt so boring. So I guess I should be happier with my lot now - and I am. And it was a fabby evening. Being joined at the hip with Mr Z is not unpleasant, but sometimes it is nice to have an evening with other people, and they're few and far between since I don't know many people here. Apart from people in the Tree. I'm getting to know people at the Tree better and better, Mole even bought us an unsolicited drink a couple of weeks ago - I feel like we're "the pub couple". As solid a fixture as Ivy. Heaven forbid!

Anyway, I shall now wave goodbye to the solicitors and everyone will have to put up with less entries in this here diario because I probably won't have internet access from work in any remaining temp jobs. I don't know if anybody from the solicitors will read this, they said they might, so hello to you all if you are, and get on with some work! Liz - if you are reading, I was going to email you but I don't know your surname so I can't! Feel free to mail me instead.

On Thursday night, Mr Z and I did our first entertaining thing and had Yul and Me'Julie round for dinner. Stu said I was a right alcoholic for having the landlord and landlady of my local round to dinner. "They're a lovely couple!" I protested. "Lovely couple of what, swingers?" he enquired, which I didn't deign to reply to. It was a really fun evening, I made lamb and cashew nut curry and Mr Z did his spicy potatoes and bought some cheesecake ice cream and Yul and Me'Julie brought some wine and (thankfully) some wine glasses, so we didn't have to sup out of mugs. They caught us up on the Cherry Tree Soap Opera (Kat stuck her stilletto in Cornelius's head a few times for cheating on her friend and Kelly finally realised Mark was still smoking and punched him in the face - ooo, scandal!) and I showed them my American photo album (which, come to think of it, they've probably seen online) and told them past episodes of the Sally Soap Opera, which apparently fascinated them - but I had had quite a lot of wine by then and I'm a bit of a light weight now, so possibly not. But I had fun anyway, and so did they, and Mr Z, and Me'Julie apparently felt a bit better, because she's not very well. That's good - I didn't poison them with my curry, at least. Only myself - my stomach thought it was the end of the world on Friday, I couldn't eat anything until midday which is VERY unusual for me. It's got too used to bland things like lentils and yogurt, I expect.

The Diet - day 280. My consultant, Jo, did a cruel thing this week called reverse image therapy. Basically, when she weighed us, she didn't tell us whether we'd gained or lost, and we had to really think about what sort of week we'd had and tell her how we thought we'd done, and then she'd say if we were right. I really had no idea how I had done - I didn't expect to do very well because I had concentrated very hard on it, and although I basically ate right, there was an incident with a packet of chocolate biscuits over the weekend, so I couldn't guess at all. Therefore, I was shocked and amazed when she said I'd lost two pounds - which, as I mentioned last week, was just what I needed to lose to get me up to my interim total of 50lbs. I also got my three and a half stone award, so I was very pleased with myself. Not sure about this week though, between the curry and the vodka and the wine and the nachos on Friday night...but we'll see. I can't seem to do anything wrong at the moment so you never know. Four weeks until my holiday, and another six pounds to lose before then, ideally.

Tuesday 23rd July

I did warn you all that the entries would be far more sporadic following my departure from my cushy job! I spent two weeks following the lovely experience of the solicitors in a government funded dungeon, sending out invitations to heroin addicts to attend medicals so that they could continue to claim vast fortunes in my tax money...oh sorry, BENEFITS...which they could piss away on their next fix before going and robbing some old granny of her wedding ring while she was in bed asleep and they were flying high as kites. Phleurgh, indeed. For shame. Although as Andy, my ringing captain at Keynsham, pointed out, even though they get this money for free, who would actually want to be a heroin addict? And that's a very good point. A lot of them wrote on their forms that their veins were infetced and they wanted to stop because they were having to inject methodone into their groins and they had Hepatatis C and they'd been a prostitute for x amount of years. One man, who had been on opiates for about 30 years, and was dying of AIDS and Hepatatis C, wrote on his form "I will be dead within a few months due to blatant foolishness", which I thought just said it all. Then there was one who wrote, "I hear voices in my head" which was just the biggest cliche I've heard since typing up the lonely hearts adverts at the chatline company. I know I shouldn't really have been reading the forms, but when you're sending out 200 letters a day and they're all the same, you have to get your kicks where you can find them. To be fair, it wasn't ALL heroin addicts - there were a few crack addicts and some people addicted to painkillers. Oh, OK, and some legitimate claimants with back problems, cancer, depression &c.

The job wasn't a total loss, however, since they paid better than most other places and I met a very nice young lady by the name of Fiona, who I have much in common with, from musical tastes (we are among the few English people who have heard of and appreciate the Indigo Girls) to hair type (thick, unmanageable). We both live in Kingswood (that's how I coped with working in Brislington so long, which is 2 buses away - I got a lift with her every day) and she went to uni in Portsmouth and one of her friends went to my school and we both read Cosmo and harbour desires to write for it. Thus, I whiled away the fortnight talking to her over the top of my monitor (12 inch, displaying Word 6 on a Windows 3.11 platform, oh how I laughed). She lives very near, so there is a distinct possiblity of much drinking and merriment in the future. Watch this space...

Temping is now just a bad and distant memory for me. The Medical Services people didn't want me back this week, not even for the 3 days I was willing to give them, which was slightly offensive but on the other hand I have nearly a week's worth of holiday to take so I wasn't going to argue. Thus, I have been a lady of leaisure for two days. Yesterday the toilet actually got cleaned - it's great to have time to do things. I even hoovered the computer room, and the living room and kitchen, although the hoover started spewing dust at one point which was a bit scary. All the washing and ironing is done, and the washing up, and...well, I'm getting there. Since I am leaving Mr Z alone for a month, I am determined not to leave him in a pigsty, even if I find him in one when I return. I am off to Portsmouth to work on the Playscheme, with a week in Ibiza in the middle - happily coinciding with my birthday so I won't have to work - so goodness only knows when I'll manage to update this again. Or where. Possibly from the internet cafe or even - shock horror - Mother Hand's machine, which actually works now.

So, it's goodbye Office Angels, HELLO Bradley R, and all the other kids on the Playscheme. HELLO bouncy castles and picnics in the country parks. HELLO swimming and trampolining and playing in the paddling pool and getting a tan. HELLO sleeping on Mother Hand's living room floor and suffering from horrendous cat allergies for a month...oh well. Can't have it all.

Yul and Me'Julie came to dinner again last week, we had roast chicken and lots of fun, although I managed to make lumpy gravy even though it was granules out of a jar (one of life's great mysteries, me and gravy). It's nice to be able to entertain them in our home seeing as they are always entertaining us in their's...well sort of...if you can call the pub their home. Which it is, the upstairs, anyway. Babble babble. Mr Z and I have done a couple of Parties lately, between that and Cartwheels of Caroline. Caroline is a PE teacher at the school who holds bi-annual parties - her fireworks one features in this diario last November. Last year her summer bash resulted in her getting so drunk she tried to do a cartwheel and fell over, hence the name. This year's resulted in me getting so drunk I ate about 5 puddings and then fell down a hill and had top crawl back on my hands and knees, although luckily I didn't spill all my wine. Claire went into the paddling pool with one of the teaching assistants, and when I say paddling pool I mean a 4 foot deep pool affair, and I was tempted but luckily not quite drunk enough. There were no cartwheels, but lots of interesting conversation and Amaeretto bananas, and I'm sure lots of weight gain this week, but time alone will tell. I really haven't felt like it this week. A couple of weeks ago I gained two and a half pounds, and although I lost two pounds the next week, I know I'm not going to get to my 4 stone award before my holiday so for the moment I think I have stopped trying, a bit. Well, I mean I'm still trying...just not very hard. I can't even be bothered to work out what day number it is. Oh go on then...Day 296. Three stone, seven and a half pounds lighter. Hopefully Playscheme will do the trick and help me over the summer, heaven knows it made me starving last year. I don't think I've ever eaten so many chocolate biscuits in such a short space of time.

Am very excited about the prospect of the Ibiza holiday now. Only 10 days to go! Ish. I have my red pvc dress made and my Britney outfit prepared (mega short black lace dress, slit to the waist, very classy...honest....as long as I don't bend over). I've got shorts and a denim skirt and all my old sun dresses fit me now because of the weight loss. Then of course there's the bikini. I've got sun tan lotion and hair protection sun oil and waxing kits and Buffy the Backsdie Slayer body scrub and hats and head scarves and sarongs. I've got my E111 and money to change into Euros. I am possibly the best prepared tourist ever, although I haven't actually pakced yet. But then...I'm not leaving for 10 days. Except that technically it's two days because I have to take everything to Portsmouth with me...but oh well. I am looking forward to going down, and not just because of work - Fiona turned up at work last Friday with such a fantastic hair cut that I immediately booked into the Portsmouth branch of the same chain so that they can work their magic on me. I was going to get it cut anyway, but I wasn't going to push the boat out on it. However, since I am trying to grow my fringe out and I am fast reaching the end of my tether with the curly thing, I thought I'd got the whole hog and dpend 30 quid on it, although my gran is paying for part of it as my birthday present. And I haven't had my hair professionally restyled since I was about, oo, 10, when the fringe first made an appearance, so I suppose it is overdue.

Wednesday 24th July

I am leaving tomorrow morning for exactly one month. I hope to be able to add some sort of update between now and then but it may not be possible due to a change in living cicumstances - ie, I am now to be installed in a flat which, whilst having fantastic views and being only 3 minutes away from the beach, has neither computer nor phone line. This will give me lots of time to study (yey!) but less time for boring all of you with my CRAYYYZZZZZZEEEEEEEE (© Chris Evans) antics. So keep checking in but don't hold your breath, and don't write to my asking if I am dead because I probably won't reply and then you will think I am departed and go and buy funeral outfits and enormous wreaths and tear your hair out whilst sobbing hysterically, and it will all be for nothing.

Hope you all have a fantastic summer! Apart from the fact I have to be absent from Mr Z for so long, mine is shaping up to be pretty special. More when I have the technology.