Thursday 14th March

There are nine Sally Hands registered to vote in this country, and I am two of them. I discovered this whilst playing with Quick Address at work, which is a handy tool based on electoral registers for tracing people who might have moved and not bothered to tell us their new address. I am tracing everyone from people I know the whereabouts of to people I did drama summer school with when I was 15. I'm frankly appalled at the number of my friends who don't show up anywhere - did Emmeline Pankhurst chain herself to the railings for us not even to bother to register to vote? There's a referendum in the pipeline (if Tony's brave enough) - don't you want to have your say? Look at Zimbabwe! People walked for miles and queued for hours to be able to vote! Here, in the bosom of democracy (cough), we have a turn out rate of less than 50%. Shocking. True, better than America (how many non-voters are regretting it now Bush has lost the plot?) but still shocking. Of course, the point should be made that, for the poor people of Zimbabwe, it didn't make much difference, what with Mugabe arresting his opponent. Now that's what I call a sore loser. I wonder what the point of international observers is if they're barred from polling stations and beaten up by the national military. I thought it was really cool how the democrats were running their campaign though - word of mouth, via the women; infiltrating knitting circles, staking out wells and setting up fruit stalls at the side of the road to avoid being threatened, beaten or beheaded by Zanu - ingenious ways of getting their message across to the people most likely to vote for a change in government - the women. Emmeline Pankhurst would be proud.

Anyway, back to Sally Hand. It seems I am still registered to vote at my last London address as well as Mother Hand's, so technically I could cheat the system and cast two votes, although that wouldn't be very democratic, and I'd have to somehow retrieve my voting card from Ajax Avenue without Mrs Gyamarti setting her dog on me or calling the police for the fictional theft of a sewing machine (it's MY sewing machine! I promise!). On the roll of registered Sally Hands, I retain my originality by being the only Sally G Hand on the list, middle names beginning with G being, evidently, a bit thin on the ground. No, I'm not going to tell you what the G stands for.

It's been a while, and for that I am truly sorry. I have a confession to make - I've fallen off the wagon. I'm back on the Tomb Raider. I actually started this entry on Sunday, but got as far as the date before being tempted by the siren-like lure of a hunt for a pair of Uzis and a jade dragon. The weekend before I spent in London, with Jen, getting pissed and booking a holiday. We met outside the Rising Sun on Friday night, after I'd bought my Evening Standard from the bloke outside Goodge Street tube (the same man who sold me the Evening Standard throughout my student days - it's nice to know some things never change) and tried to have a conversation with a beggar who asked me for a cigarette. Evidently I have been away from London for so long that I am no longer a Londoner - I no longer dole out blank stares and silence. "I know you must be desperate since these are Menthols," I quipped; he snatched the thing greedily from my hand: I don't think he even heard me. Also, when I was waiting for a tube and somebody coughed on my head I actually flinched. The signs are not good.

Anyway, the Rising Sun was full of yuppies and drunk cinema-goers so we took ourselves off to ULU (where else?) for a night of heavy drinking. "Go on, have one cider, just for old time's sake," said Jen, doing the big eyes - but one cider turned into 5, on top of the earlier vodkas, and I was too drunk to focus by the time we left. At a point early in the evening, some lads came and sat at the other end of our table and one was staring at me, so I stared back, not recognising him. He said, "I'm sure I know you from somewhere," and I said, "You must be confusing me with someone else because I'm sure I don't know you," and he said "You're Sally Hand," and Jen cracked up. It only turned out to be Daniel Bates, one of my brother's friends from school. He was my brother's close friend during the phase in my adolescence when I invited everyone round for dinner parties and served them fondue. He used to wear black, curtain hair and a perpetual scowl - so I didn't recognise him because he was in green with spiky hair and a smile. That's another small world story. He said one time, he helped me clear up and got fondue on his favourite black shirt and ruined it, and it made him all the more depressed. We all thought he'd end up committing suicide but he's doing an English degree at UCL now.

We met some other wankers thoughout the course of the evening and I had to argue with one or two when they started slagging off Portsmouth, and my tongue got sharpened when one bloke inexplicably laid into me for being a spoiled little rich girl (I have NO idea where that came from, maybe he had me confused with someone else) and in the end we stumbled out and onto a night bus, both on the phone to our respective boyfriends, neither of whom were best pleased at our excessive hammeredness, but who both calmed down at length. I fell down the stairs on the nightbus (the bastard driver braked as I was half way down) and we tried sneaking quietly towards the front door, which was going quite well (aside from the overly theatrical "SSSSSHHHHHHH"s) until I stood on a polystyrene container and Jen slammed the front door against the inside wall. It was just like old times, apart from the boyfriend bit.

The next day Jen had the hangover from hell but I, suffering only a slight headache (cider, it's a killer) dragged her out early afternoon in search of a Thomas Cook. We walked from Oxford Circus to Marble Arch, where we finally found one, and settled ourselves down for an hour while an eager cockney named Ben searched for the cheapest possible deal on a holiday to Ibiza for us. In vain - the cheapest was a concrete tower block in the middle of town, with flights on Saturday night - so no Saturday night out. In the end we opted for a little hotel right next to the beach, and Sunday flights; the package cost about 50 quid more but as I said to Jen, when are we ever going to go to Ibiza again? The boyfriends are already muttering, I don't know that we'd get away with it twice. Not that they'd stop us - I don't want to sound uncharitable. Their reservations are understandable, if unjustified. Ours are understandable too - we've got reservations to fly out the day before my birthday for a week of heavy drinking and being rude to lecherous men and going to clubs with dance floors that turn into swimming pools.

After the holiday had been booked and we'd forked out all our hard earned cash and I'd given some helpful advice about the length of time it takes to get from Washington DC to New York on the Greyhound to a complete stranger booking a two-city holiday to the States, we adjourned to McDonald's where Jen got a cup of iced water (which tasted like very, very weak Fanta) to mix her Resolve with and I looked happily at the brochure with our holiday displayed in it. Jen managed to choke down 80% of the Resolve but shortly afterwards turned green and I thought she was gong to throw up, so she bought a hamburger to settle her stomach and felt much better afterwards. She says she's going to have to bring a crate of Resolve on holiday with her if things are going to go like Friday night every night.

After wandering around some shops looking for bikinis and holiday clothes (I tried on something pink and sparkly and very skimpy and it was almost good enough to eat, and didn't look half bad, but I can't justify spending £15 on something I'll hardly ever get to wear) we wandered off to ULU and got some drinks in before anyone else turned up - soft drinks only, I might add. I think I managed one white wine and soda in the course of the evening, and possibly a vodka at some point (Stu was feeling generous on account of it being student prices) but Jen was on the soda and lime all evening. Kerrie and Ler turned up shortly after, and Jen signed them in, and then we sat down to consider how to get Stu in, since ULU will only let you sign in two people on a student card and Jen had already signed in Kerrie and Ler (luckily we got there before they started checking so nobody checked me). I tried to bribe a student to go and sign him inwhen he arrived but he was most unhelpful - and he was wearing a Napster Forever t-shirt too, it looked so hopeful. Then Kerrie mentioned that there was a - and you'll have to excuse my dodgy spelling here but I've never actually heard of it - capuera class going on in the upstairs hall: some sort of Brazilian dance lesson, and that while she and Ler were waiting to be signed in some people had come in, declared they were here for the capuera and gone straight up without having to produce student cards.

Quick as a flash, I got on the phone to Stu. "When you get here, tell them you're here for the capuera or they won't let you in," I told him, feeling like we were in some bawdy house during the prohibition era. He sounded a bit unsure (later he admitted he'd been thinking, "Oh god, it's another one of Sal's crazy schemes that isn't going to work") but he agreed to try it anyway. We all sat in the bar waiting for him to call, and when he did it seemed that by some miracle of fate he had succeeded and was on the third floor, lost and looking for the bar. It seems that by sheer good fortune a crowd of people ahead of him had gone in and said, "We're here for the Brazilian dancing, where is it?" and the desk guy replied, "Third floor - the lift's over there." So Stu had wandered over and just said, "Third floor is it mate?" and the desk guy had replied, "Yep, go straight up"...heh heh heh. But then of course, Stu had to follow the crowd to make his story believable, and then had to pretend he was hanging back to get a can of coke out of the machine before proceeding into the hall and got a bit lost. But nonetheless, our cunning plan was a success and discussing it caused much merriment for the rest of the evening.

It was nice to catch up with everyone, Kerrie's lost a lot of weight and Stu's trying to buy a house - in fact he had made an offer on one but ended up changing his mind and putting it off for a while. Ler's much the same as ever, although chattier than I've seen him before. As the place filled up I got really hot and decided to take off my sweater, although I was only wearing a vest top and bra underneath, but everyone said it looked alright and not too skimpy so I was convinced. The barman from South Dakota who I had spoken to briefly the night before was there again and very chatty, and it was while I was at the bar that I recognised an old flatmate of Phnarr, the one, in fact, who heinously plied me with tequila and gin chez Phnarr and at a later point called me a bitch whore from the seventh layer of hell, for some reason that I have never been able to ascertain. I spoke to him briefly but he didn't have a clue who I was and didn't appear to be uncomfortable with that fact so I didn't bother to explain.

11 o'clock passed and we went our separate ways, Jen and I via KFC and a kebab shop (she bought a fillet burger and offered me a bite, whereupon I nearly bit her hand off) and then home where we sat up searching the web via ADSL (aaccchachacchaachhh...drool) for pictures of our holiday apartments. It was all in all a very lovely weekend and I didn't even spend too much money, for once. It's good to catch up.

Here is the proof of how much Tomb Raider has got to me. Last night, instead of finishing this entry, I snuck off to explore the Wreck of the Maria Doria. It is now Friday lunchtime; I have brought a disk into work and I'm writing this in Notepad. There's not really much else to do, to be quite honest. We've had the morning quiz to see who had to walk to the sandwich shop; two out of six of us are hungover (actually, I think Dave's still drunk - but sobering up fast, and regretting every second); the printer's broken again and there are currently four men gathered around it, shifting from foot and foot with their hands in their pockets. I fear I may have to leap to its defence shortly because somebody's threatening to kick the poor thing now.

But I digress. A visit to Mother Hand's this weekend will prevent me from finsihing this entry before Sunday, so needs must. Luckily I can type quite quickly so I'm not using up too much of my lunch break.

Last weekend Mr Z and I went out to dinner with a couple from his school, Claire and Andy, and much fun and alcohol was had by all, I think. Claire suggested I attend the next staff girlie night out which sounds like a good idea, I've got to make sure I'm not going to be a Quake widow stuck at home with nobody to go out with (Mr Z has just taken delivery of his new machine to replace the one which went pop and it is state of the art and definitely fast enough for Quake games so I fear the worst) when we move in together. This too is imminent - the survey on the house we picked was done yesterday so we're on tenterhooks waiting for the results. With any luck, the roof and everything else will be in good nick and we can move in before the end of next month. I'm very excited and already planning colour schemes but I'm trying to be noncahlent and not care in case we are disappointed. It's your common or garden three bedroom end of terrace with the added bonuses of a garage and a bathroom that has been extended a bit at the cost of some space in the back bedroom so it's not so poky. It also has fantastic views out the back since it is part way up the hill Kingswood rests on top of. Hence, the garden and back windows look out onto the rolling green hills of South Gloucestershire, as well as a few suburbs. I think views are important in a house - if all you can see are other houses, I think you lose perspective. Strangely, both the front door and the back door are of the sliding, French variety so at least the front ones will need replacing and we'll have to find room for a cat door somewhere. Also some of the decoration is a bit dodgy (as the estate agent said, the current owners weren't afraid to use colours - the master bedroom is an eyesore of vibrant turquoise walls, lemon yellow trimmings and vast white MDF wardrobes), but all in all the place has great potential and, fingers crossed, we'll be lucky.

We signed the mortgage papers last Saturday, which was one reason for going out with Claire and Andy and drinking heavily - something about the 300 monthly repayments made me feel decidedly sick, not to mention the fact that we will be paying back nearly double what we're borrowing. Luckily, from a relationship point of view it's not scary at all, although it puts my cat-on-a-hot-tin-roof attitude towards marriage into perspective - I think a marriage would be easier to disentangle oneself from. Yesterday we both got letters address to both of us, which was quite fluffy really.

To further my driving ability, I took the plunge last week and booked a theory test for April 20th, on the advice of my landlord Tony, the driving instructor. Have been studying the Highway Code intermittently although I'm not sure I'm ever going to remember the stopping distances. I have, however, learnt that there are five different types of pedestrian crossing. Apparently the theory test is not too difficult - multiple choice, and you have to get 30 our of 35. On Sunday, Tony took me out for a half hour freebie to see how well I can drive and assess how many lessons I will need. It didn't help that I forgot to take the handbrake off until he reminded me and he did have to grab the wheel and use the pedals on his side a couple of times, but I don't think I did too badly considering that I haven't driven a manual car since that fateful venture in Frankie's truck last May. I didn't stall it once, and I had to do two hill starts, which I've never done before. He concluded that I hadn't done badly, and said that, since I can't book a practical test until after my theory and there's an eight week wait at present, I shouldn't start my driving lessons yet because I'll have too many, which I thought was very positive. That means I'll take my test in June or July; I'm nervous because it's important that I pass since I won't really have time to take it again before I start my PGCE, but, as Mr Z says, Tony's the one qualified to tell me how well I drive so I should trust him.

Better and better, Mother Hand has decided to buy herself a new car on receipt of her compensation pay out (she had a bad fall while I was in Vegas) and has offered to give me her iron grey Mini. I was reluctant at first because she's had to spend over a grand fixing it up in the past year, but it seems a lot of the problems were caused because she used unleaded petrol with an additive rather than the recommended four star. Am excited now, because it'll be nice and cheap to insure and she's offered to tax it for me for a year so I'll be laughing. As long as I pass my driving test, anyway.

Heard something on the news this week that made me gasp in shock (I've been listening to Radio 4 quite a lot lately, and reading the Times in the break room at work, and it's rubbing off on me). Apparently, an elderly Catholic priest in the Midlands had exited his car briefly to open the garage door when thieves jumped into it and drove off - with his four year old Yorkshire terrier Rosa yapping in the back. Police later found the car burnt out, but the Priest received a call - made from his own mobile phone, no less - from the thieves in which they threatened to kill Rosa if he didn't cough up £3000 by way of ransom. He was naturally devastated, since his salary amounts to £100 a month, but refused the offer his parishoners made to raise the money. Fortunately for him, some teenaged boys found Rosa wandering, woebegone, in the street the next day and she was reunited with her owner. Luckily this story has a happy ending - thieves with a conscience or a wily canine bent on escape? I guess we'll never know.

Sadly, though, so few of these stories do have a happy ending. Last week two men were jailed for murdering a woman for her Rolex - she'd been shopping to Harrods with her husband to buy a ring for their silver wedding anniversary and they had been attacked on their return home. The thieves shot and killed her and shot and wounded her son and his girlfriend, although luckily they survived. Then there was the man the week before who got 26 life sentences - the longest sentence ever given in this country - for 26 armed robberies he committed, four of which ended with the deaths of the homeowners. Apparently he has an expensive crack habit and had preyed on the frail and elderly. What sort ofperson...? A colleague of Mr Z's had to go rushing to his mother's a while back because she woke up to find a man in her bedroom stealing her wedding ring. The cheek! The blatant cheek of it! By all means, if you're going to break into someone's house, nick their TV and video or whatever. But to enter the room your victims are sleeping in requires a particular kind of brazen cheekiness, in my opnion - in most cases, one must assume, a drug-fuelled one.

Much has been made in the past week about the new government initiative - the five new Policing Priority Areas across the country - and it's been talked about a lot around here because it was launched in Bristol, namely in Easton, which is one of the five worst spots for crime in the country, with eight times the national average level of crime. The other four, for anybody who's interested, are Camberwell Green in London, somewhere in Rhyl, North Wales, somewhere in Bradford and somewhere in Stoke on Trent. Apparently the main problem in Easton are the muggings and the shoplifting and the armed robberies and the prostitution that takes place to feed the drug habits of a community. If this is the case, I can't imagine that extra police on the streets and more paperwork associated with stop-and-searches will actually do much good - surely it will just push the perpetrators into other areas, or off the streets and into prison where they will languish for a few months before returning to much the same situation they left. True, the people of Easton will be pleased: they'll feel safer on the streets, their shopkeepers will suffer less armed robberies, their children will be safe from propositions. But then, the people of St George will start complaining - or wherever it is they've all gone. Bristol is famous for having the most heroin addicts in the country - although it also has the highest treatment rate for drug addicts: a massive 42% of all those treated in this country are treated in Bristol. Maybe we should look towards taking steps towards prevention. But where do we take those steps? And how? Lofty questions that certainly aren't answerable in this lunch hour.

Addiction has been on my mind for a couple of weeks now, ever since I saw these pictures (beware - they're quite gruesome) of a girl called Rachel, who died alone of a heroin overdose in a bedsit in a town called Exmouth - not too far away from Bristol. Much was made in the press of her "normal" upbringing - her 10 GCSEs and college course at Bath University. Her story is being used in an educational video for schools, to prove that addiction can strike anybody, no matter what their background. Didn't everybody realise this? I'm sure there are as many addicts in the upper echelons of society as there are in the lower ranks - but high up, it's a party thing: there are even pet names, "cocaine kitten" and such like; models inject into their toes. A drug habit unsupported by a trust fund, however, is evidently much more shameful.

What makes an addict, anyway? People who take heroin, or crack? People who take party pills, drop acid and sniff cocaine but would "never touch anything harder"? People who smoke dope? Where do you draw the line? "He's a drug dealer," you might say; "But he only sells a bit of blow to his mates" might be the reply. But surely that's bad enough? With decriminalisation, the line will become easier to spot - dope will be, to all intents and purposes, legal and thus its shock factor will, in time, go down. But the party drugs? Are people who take those "druggies"? Maybe it's because they are, at least physically (the jury's still out on mentally in my opinion) non-addictive, so you don't find people turning to prostitution and petty crime to feed their habit (apart from Janine Butcher but she is a bit of a special case, and anyway it's Eastenders and, as Mr Z keeps reminding me, NOT REAL). I was reading an article this week about rehabs in the States, which defined addiction as "any repititive behaviour which causes a problem" A problem for who, though?

But as I said, too lofty for a lunch hour. And if I don't get this done now it won't be done for another three days.