The Woman Who Talked Too Much

On Tuesday morning - the day after her 91st birthday - my wonderful grandmother died. My sister has written a lovely post about her over here which says everything that I could hope to say, aside from that I'd also add about her fixation with the British Royal Family, leading to a serious Hello magazine / Point de Vue addiction and a habit of naming her budgies after ill-fated royal couples (Charles and Diana, Andrew and Fergie.) She was a fabulous woman who seems to be laughing in all of my memories, and will be very sadly missed by my family.

Please excuse a bit of silence from me while I try to adjust after a difficult stretch in Uganda, as well as this time of grieving. It is all a bit much and I can't seem to find the creative energy to be writing about it. Back to normal as soon as I can.

Last night I dreamt about Strictly Come Dancing. Well, it was Saturday after all. And then woke up under mosquito netting with the sound of Gandalady's kids playing in the next room. Yes, I am still in Uganda.

What hits you first about Uganda is the colours. Bright red earth, lush dark green vegetation and on a day like today a bold blue sky too (it is rainy season, so there has been a lot of cloud.) The dark black skin of the people. The jewel colours of school uniforms. And every shop that you pass - and almost every building you pass is a shop, even if a tiny bedraggled one the size of the cupboard under the stairs - is painted the bright colours of a company's brand, the hot yellows and pinks of the local mobile phone suppliers, the blood red of Coke, royal blue of Pepsi, and slogans, slogans everywhere: "Live on the Coke side of life!" "Cadbury's tastes as chocolatey as it looks!" "Africa's official drink of having a drink!"

And then the movement. People everywhere. Lorries, minibuses, cars, motorbikes, bicycles all weaving in and out of each other's dust. Nominally you drive on the left here. In fact it is survival of the fittest, or at least the biggest wheels. And anyway, the "left" might just be a great big hole. Cows, goats and chickens share the road with you, somehow managing to avoid getting hit. Ugandan cows have huge, long, curling horns that you really don't want wrapped around your fender. They move at a leisurely pace, unshockable. I suspect they are all deaf.

Oh yes, the noise! From those lorries, minibuses, cars and motorbikes, all hooting as loud as they can... And from the ubiquitous radio. The local stations are called Radio One and Capital FM. Sounds familiar? There is one English man who does all the jingles for every station before handing over to the Ugandan accented DJs. I imagine him as a young, blond dude hanging out at Kampala's swimming pools drinking cold beers and waiting for another radio station to start up. Ugandan taste in muic is broad. Sometimes a little too broad. If Phil Collins is tired of England he could start a new life here no problem. My personal preference is for the Dolly Parton that I hear everywhere, in cars, in hotels, on ths stereo in bars. "Coat of Many Colours" seems too appropriate here.

Everyone is warm and friendly. Elaborate greetings and even more elaborate handshakes from each person that you meet. The trick is to hold out your hand as limp as you can and let it be manipulated until the other person feels like stopping. Some handshakes defy even this manoeuvre. An elderly man holds out his arm, hand facing down. A village woman kneels at your feet.

People dress as smartly as they possibly can. Immaculately dressed women, every garment meticulously ironed, not a speck of dust on them despite the ankle-deep red mud, must look at me - creased and crumpled clothes from the bottom of the suitcase, Crocs on my feet (what looks ludicrous in London is perfect for rainy season Uganda) - and wonder what on earth I am playing at. Or perhaps they don't. A Ugandan woman speaks admiringly of the simplicity of European life. Even our politicians ride bicycles. (David Cameron's face is the first that I see stepping into my hotel, on a screen showing Sky News on the wall above check in.)

In the heart of this embracing, enveloping, charming culture is a hard stone. The people are poor. Poverty is boring to write about. What is there to say? We have money, they don't have money. We have stuff, they don't have stuff. I drive for three hours out of Kampala. Every single person I pass is poor. In the villages, you are wealthy if you have a second room to your mud hut, if you can eat more often than once a day. A family proudly display a clock, their only luxury. It doesn't tell the time. We ask whether a local school needs books. They reply that first of all they need a classroom.

Another stone: the threat to girls of enforced sex. From anyone, everyone. Primarily their teachers. How else to get good grades? Girls are sometimes pushed into sex with older men by their own families. It is a useful way to get them out of the house. After a while they get desensitised and then the borders between the exploited and the exploiter are more confusing. Girls will offer sex for university entrance, for one chapati. What does informed consent mean now? There are signs everywhere promoting abstinence. Posters in school read: "Young people refuse gifts for sex", "virginity is heathly for boys and girls", "sex does not make breasts grow" (It doesn't? Damn it). Huge billboards show a large, middle-aged African man: "Would you let this man have sex with your teenage daughter? Then why are you with his? Cross generational sex stops with you." I feel sorry for the model who has posed for the photograph. I visit a project for sex workers in Kampala. They sit guardedly, arms folded across their fronts, no elaborate handshakes from them. There are 3000 prostitues in just this one suburb. They tell stories of underage rape, unwanted pregnancy, being thrown out of home, that the sex trade is the only way they can make money. They are raped by their clients, they are raped by the police. The project promotes condom use. "We can make men wear condoms, but we are still sex workers", points out one woman: in other words, what is the point? They all want other jobs. But there are no other jobs. And for each one that leavs - or more likely, dies - there is another to take her place.

I say good bye, step back to the car. Dolly Parton on the stereo again: "Working nine to five". Did she mean nine at night until five in the morning? We drive off into the city. Everywhere, people smiling, working hard, making things, buying, selling, struggling to make a living, doing the best that they can. Children see our car passing and wave with excitement at the white people inside. It's a beautiful country.

Yes Uganda! I am heading there today for the charity Plan International as part of their Because I Am A Girl campaign. I'll be writing about the lives of Ugandan girls for an anthology published by Vintage which is due out in January 2010 - put the date in your diary now! I won't remind you! Well maybe I might.

The other authors taking part are Irvine Welsh, Joanne Harris, Kathy Lette, Deborah Moggach, Henning Mankell, Tim Butcher and Xiaolu Guo. And maybe Jeanette Winterson. In fact I should probably say that the whole list is subject to change, I don't want to get into trouble... But yeah, good company huh? Mainly it's a reminder that I really need to get a website that I didn't just throw together myself one afternoon, and that I update more often than once every six months. Praise be for Tim Butcher who doesn't seem to have a website at all.

So, what will I be doing in Uganda? Visiting some of Plan's projects and the people that they help. I'll be spending about four days in a village around three hours drive from the capital Kampala, as well as meeting some girls who are sex workers in Kampala itself. I will also be finding time to drop in on Gandalady. I'm hoping to be able to blog about my experiences while I'm there, but obviously not with the kind of regularity to which you have almost become accustomed except that every so often I skip a day without warning. However, allowing for power cuts, computer stubbornness and dysentery, I might not blog until I get back at the beginning of November, so please don't assume that no news is bad news (except perhaps for my guts).

Meanwhile enjoy the end of the month, and just in case you were tempted to get all jealous about my departure for warmer climes, don't forget that it's rainy season...

UPDATE: From an e-mail I just got, I realised I should have made clear: we authors are all going to different countries, so I am off to Uganda by myself! (With Plan representatives.) Not sure whether I'll ever get a chance to meet the other authors...

So I was almost right - Heather was in the bottom two, only with Don rather than Andrew, and pulled off a better-performed dance in the dance-off, leaving Don to go. Lilia seemed genuinely upset and so was I, I will miss Don's manners and the smile that makes him look like a small boy. Otherwise, the results show was mainly notable for the return of Alesha Dixon, singing a very catchy though not exactly good song (a sort of cross between Bills Bills Bills and Mambo Number 5) and dancing in the kind of platform heels I wouldn't even be able to stand up in.

Next week Paso Doble. I LOVE Paso Doble. Sadly I am scheduled to be in Uganda, but as long as my PVR cooperates I will review it on my return.

Meanwhile, note the rumours over on Strictly TV that either Len or Bruce is leaving. An explanation for the appearance of John Barrowman perhaps? Who would you like as the new judge, or the new presenter?

Strictly Come Dancing? More like Slickly Come Hair Oil. I first noticed it on Tom Chambers. His tidily combed barnet reminded me of when Calvin in Calvin & Hobbes clones himself as a goody-goody. Hang on let me see if I can find a pic...


Hmm - well that's the best I can do. Anyway, then I noticed it on James. And then I realised that all the men dancing the American Smooth had had their hair Smoothed down in maximum unflattering fashion, like that episode of Seinfeld with the ineffectual shower heads:



Believe me, it must have been pretty bad to distract me from Mark Foster in THAT mesh shirt. And I don't mean that in a good way.

But to the dances - I believe that is what I am here for.

First up, Rachel and Vincent dancing samba. Is Rachel bribing wardrobe to get the only decent dresses? Anyway this dance didn't get much love from the judges which surprised me because it was probably my favourite of hers so far. Having said that I essentially mark her and Vincent on sleaze, and as each week Vincent is getting less slimy, each week I like them more. Rachel still needs to get more charismatic to really convince me with her dancing though.

Next, Brendan and Lisa's American Smooth. Judges went wild over this which surprised me again, because although I did like it, much more than any of their other dances, it pales next to to the obvious comparison of Brendan and Kelly's, even with the legitimate number of lifts. I can't quite see Lisa as a real contender for the top spot, more a steady middle of the table player.

Then Heather and Brian dancing the samba. Brian's Latin is so phenomenal that he may be taking over as professional I'd most like to dance with. However I don't think it's doing Heather any favours because she just looks so wooden next to him. Her training videos always look great but she's terrible on the dancefloor, which is making me wonder if nerves are a factor. Anyway I expect to see them in the bottom two again this week, though there is a lot of competition for that spot.

Cherie and James up next, dancing an American Smooth to an acoustic version of Layla. Weird choice of music - the dance is lovely but the song sort of deads the whole thing out. If they'd danced to some gorgeous old showtune I'd have loved it, but to this I was a little bit bored. Tess couldn't resist making a comment about Cherie's looks again this week. MY GOD YOU'RE OLD - SO OLD! AND YET NOT GROSS! read my own personal subtitles.

Then Mark Foster, dancing a samba, apparently in fetish wear. In the training video, Mark was told he needed acting lessons, and so John Barrowman was called in. Acting lessons from *John Barrowman*? John Barrowman of *Torchwood*?? Did anybody think this through? Anyway, cynical old me can't help but feel that this plus the mesh shirt was a coded message to gay Strictly fans, as in: you may not be aware that Mark Foster is gay, but he is! Look at his clothes! Look at his friends! Vote for him! Sadly acting lessons have only succeeded in turning Mark from a shy man who can't dance to a shy man who can't dance but has been taught how to pretend he is not embarrassed shimmying in public. He looked less as if he'd been getting lessons from John Barrowman and more as if he'd been possessed by Gary Rhodes. But I think he will stay in this time, as a reward for his enthusiasm.

Don and Lilia followed this up with an American Smooth which served mainly to make me think that the tango was Don's finest hour and it isn't getting any better than that. Don is endearingly nervous and has a lovely smile, but that might well not be enough to save him. Still, I am going to stick my neck out here and say that there's no room at the bottom for him this time.

Austin next, with a samba. I am going to have to stage an intervention to get Erin to dye her hair black again. And maybe to eat some pies. I miss the old, dark, normal-sized Erin. Anyway, I find Austin puzzling, because he is blatantly really good, and yet I still haven't quite fallen in love with his dancing. Could this be the first year that my favourite doesn't win Strictly?

Then Andrew and Ola with an American Smooth. I actually can't remember a thing about this except that I didn't like it, despite the fact that one of the people dancing was Ola, and I love Ola. Andrew is one of those people who makes my skin crawl for reasons I can't elucidate. It's interesting, or possibly not, that this is also a description of every single other man I can think of who has played Tennis for England. Also, Ola did him no favours choreographing to "You know I'm no good". I think these things work subliminally on the audience. Last week Jessie went out having danced to Help. Anyway, the other spot in my predicted bottom two is reserved for them, and I'd like to see them go home.

Next up, Christine and Matthew's samba. Christine is good, but she's not good enough to stand out, and even though I adore Matthew his choreography is never show-stopping, so this is another of those ones I can't remember. In fact, when Bruce announced that Christine was up next, I was like: Oh, I had completely forgotten about her.

I had not completely forgotten about Jodie and Ian however. I love them. I love them as a couple, and I love Jodie, who talks cheerfully about being a talentless, graceless dancer, and sort of gallumphs around the rehearsal room like she's waltzing in wellies, and yet sort of gets on with it without too much fuss and then, tonight, comes out and dances a really lovely American Smooth. I particularly like Jodie's dancing face, and I'm not being sarcastic for once. She has a really charming natural smile. I don't think she's any kind of dark horse, whatever Arlene says, and she's bound to go out in a few weeks, but I'd like her to stay in as long as possible. And consider the evidence: she improved! She's being called a dark horse! Yup, it's a Strictly Journey all right.

John and Kristina then took to the floor with their Samba. Got to hand it to Kristina, choreographing to Papa Loves Mambo, a song about a rubbish old bloke dancing. They sort of walked around the floor, except one bit when John did lots of tiny little steps. It was, as you'd expect, completely charming, and you've got to love John's offhand remark that the public will save them. Indeed they will.

Last up Tom and Camilla with a great American Smooth. I am enjoying Tom so much that it's rubbing off on Camilla and I am starting to like her too. I know! Despite the cardinal sin of wearing culottes, Camilla had been dressed in a white-and-sepia-coloured outfit which made it actually look as if they were in a black and white movie. Tom's dance was lovely, and he is using acting faces to great advantage. Much was made of Tom's getting married tomorrow, but I think it's next week rather than this week which could show the strain of that, especially as Camilla is going on honeymoon with him. Would we like that, ladies? No we would not. What about you, gents? Any thoughts?

So there we go! Definitely much more exciting this week now that the blokes and girls are dancing together, even Tess's enthusiasm seemed genuine. Dances to be found in the usual place.

By the time you read this post I will be on my way to the Frankfurt Book Fair, to be interviewed by German and Swiss journalists for the release of "Gotter Ohne Manieren", available in all good German and Swiss-German bookshops now, schnell schnell! But happily Blogger allows me to post in advance, which is a nice little feature. (Another nice little feature is my new-style blog-roll with snippets from recently updated blogs, over there on your right. How much are we loving that? How much time are we going to waste now? Per-lenty.)

Anyway, seeing as I am headed to a book fair, I thought it was a good time to update you on my book purchases from this recent post, and let you know what's on my new to-read pile.

First up, The Position by Meg Wolitzer. This is the one about the kids who discover that their parents have written and posed for the illustrations for a Joy of Sex style book. This is one of those state-of-America-through-one-family books, exploring different aspects of modern love and sex (very much not the same thing) by switching viewpoints between the four kids - now grown up - and their parents. The nearest touchpoint for tone and content that I can think of is Jonathan Frantzen's The Corrections. Like that book, it's sharp, insightful, intelligent and funny - though maybe a little less funny than I expected - and pleasingly broad in scope. It's also of the most convincing novels about sex (as opposed to novels featuring lots of sex) that I've read. My only disappointment was that there wasn't more of it - which is the best kind of disappointment to have, as it tends to mean you enjoyed everything there was. The story leaps forward thirty years after the first chapter, and you gradually discover what has become of each member of the family in the interim, but with so many characters and so much time covered what you get can feel sketchy. Having said that, this comes highly recommended from me.

Next is The Girls Guide to Hunting and Fishing by Melissa Bank. This was the biggest surprise of the three. It's marketed as chick lit - consider the blurb:

When it comes to the mating game, Jane's still learning how to play. As a teenager she tried to understand relationships by watching her elder brother falling in and out of love, and now, older and wiser, she embarks on her own affairs. There's the boyfriend with the irritatingly beautiful ex; the witty and worldly older man; the commitment phobic who calls her 'honey' but never uses her name. Plenty of fish in the sea - but how do you meet a man worth catching? When she finally resorts to 'How To Meet And Marry Mr Right', a hilariously old-fashioned guide to hunting out and reeling in the man of your dreams, Jane discovers that with love, life and men, a girl doesn't need rules...

OK. Stop there. THIS BOOK IS NOT CHICK LIT. The usual caveat: there's nothing wrong with chick lit if that's what you like. There's a lot wrong with marketing things as chick lit when that's not what they are. What happens when you do that is loads of people who would love the book never read it, and an equal amount who want chick lit leave baffled comments on Amazon saying it wasn't what they expected. Anyway, what this book actually is is a portrait of a young woman told through interlinked stories about her relationships with the men in her life: not just her boyfriends, but her brother and father. It's thoughtful and considered, a character study most of all, honest and truthful about the roles men play in our lives, and how confusing and difficult it can be to figure out when and whether love should be lasting. Yes, it's about relationships, and yes, it is funny, and yes, it is written by a woman, but it doesn't conform to the tone or any of the conventions of the chick lit genre. It's a very good book which needs a different audience to the one it's going to get.

Last of all Riddley Walker by Russell Hoban. This book is set in a post-apocalyptic England steeped in a mythology that has evolved from a combination of Christian myth and the history of the cataclysm that has broken the world. Narrated in an idiosyncratic English that has evolved - or deteriorated - from our tongue, it's a technically demanding but richly rewarding story of one boy trying to make sense of his life, his heritage and his place in the world. It's an excellent, unique book, linguistically brilliant - at the author's request, it has never been translated, because the language is so integral to the storytelling - and worth every effort that you are asked to make with the prose. So yet another enthusiastic recommendation from me.

Three from three! I wonder if my latest haul will prove so rewarding? On the new pile:

- Michal Ondaatje 'In the Skin of a Lion' - the predecessor to 'The English Patient'
- Margaret Atwood 'Moral Disorder' - her latest, a book of interweaving stories telling one woman's life
- E.M. Forster 'Where Angels Fear To Tread' - a classic that I know very little about
- Penelope Fitzgerald 'The Blue Flower' - set in 18th Century Germany, based on the true story of Friedrich von Hardenberg's engagement to a twelve year old girl.

Is leftover apple crumble the nicest breakfast in the world?

Did they deliberately choose the most depressed sounding woman they could to do the station announcements on London Overground, because otherwise the constant delays would sound smug?

Speaking of which, do the staff at Marks and Spencer in Camden get special training to cope with the looped announcement telling you to hold the handrail while travelling on the extremely slow and non-steep moving walkway, which can be heard echoing throughout the clothes department at all times without a second's rest between announcements?

Would Richard and Judy's new show be getting higher ratings if it wasn't called "Richard and Judy's New Position", thus forcing you to imagine them having sex?

Here's something I hate: the use of the Royal We in reviews*. Take, for example, Sharon O'Connell's recent write-up of Antony and the Johnsons in Time Out:

"This may be verging on the sacrilegious, but we like the idea of AATJ rather more than we like their music and, if we focus too much on Hegarty's voice... its mannered wobble does our head in."

Who is this we? Ms O'Connell and the whole of the staff of Time Out? Ms O'Connell and her mates? Ms O'Connell and her dog? Ms O'Connell and the Queen? I think "we" should be told. In any case it's a bit weird that they only have the one head between them.

This is on my mind of late because the same Sharon O'Connell delivered a devastating attack on the Ting Tings back in January, which employed the same "we" tactic. At the time I had never heard the Ting Tings, but the viciousness of the review, coupled with the use of "we" implying the weight of multiple concurring opinions, caused me not to bother to listen to their album until I heard it at a friend's house and realised that it was, in fact, great. I had been so subconsciously convinced by the use of "we" in the review that everyone was on the same page about the shitness of the Ting Tings that I didn't even have the confidence to seek out my own opinion. Sad. Last Friday I went to their gig and absolutely loved it - they're brilliantly energetic live and push their album tracks up to the proverbial eleven. Had I not heard the album by chance, I wouldn't have had that great night out. And it was a great night out. Even if the mythical "they" disagree.

Ultimately using the "we" is a bit of a cheat, hiding your opinions in a group in order to make the reader feel like the left-out fool should he or she disagree. It totally defeats the notion of a review being just my opinion, no more valid than anyone else's. WE think so. Therefore YOU are wrong.

Special prize to the first person to comment saying that the Ting Tings really are shit**.

*Of course I have probably done it myself at some point. But we do love that David Tennant, now, don't we?

**Not really.

You lot are amazing. I write about having trouble with my computer, you post detailed instructions on how to fix it. I write about my mind turning to mush, you post links to interesting free lectures at UCL. I write about not being able to find Dick in a Box, you post Dick in a Box. It's like being friends with Google.

So here's another one. (This may not be my most interesting post ever.) I currently own a pair of Sennheiser PX200 headphones. I love them in almost every way. They are small. They are light. They are folding. They are comfortable. They give good sound. They are closed, so no noise leakage, and they don't bother other people. However, they have a loose wire, so one ear keeps cutting out unless I hold the cable at a certain angle. That's the second time this has happened with this model of headphones - the first was within a week, so I sent them back - and a perusal of the cheaper Sennheiser phones on Amazon throws up at least one "cable got loose" review per model so they are obviously all poor quality. Which means I really don't want to waste money on another pair like this.

Here's the question: can you recommend some decent headphones, not too pricy, which have many or (dare I dream it) all the qualities of my px200s, aside from the lousy cable?

Another five minutes off the running time, corresponding to not getting the boys to trot out their Rueda again. There's still a fair bit of padding flying around (and I don't just mean the female dancers' bras, tiddy boom) and this week the guests were SIMPLY RED for Pete's sake, who not only are ghastly eighties throwbacks but I thought had broken up, though I couldn't actually be sure they weren't being fronted by Jon Culshaw, so maybe they have. But I loved all the celebrity dances - the American Smooth is my favourite dance anyway, the Latin guests were fabulous and so quick they looked as if they were on fastforward, and Ian and Camilla's was brilliantly cheesy with so many BIG FACES that it actually made me like Camilla. I'm so fickle.

As for the result, I'm with Len - on the strength of the dance off I'd have sent Heather home and kept Jessie. I'm still in shock at the public by and large voting off the couples who deserve to go - is this a result of not being allowed to vote all week any more, so it's less about popularity and more about the dances? If so it's an excellent development. Though having said that I was so glad to see Jodie and Ian stay in, perhaps slightly undeservingly, because they are such a great couple. (I get to be a hypocrite - it's my blog.) And I think Jodie is top candidate for going on a Strictly "Journey" this series. Hurrah!

Another slightly meh night from the girls. So far this season I've definitely been finding the men's nights more entertaining, because there are greater extremes, not only of ability, but of personality, so the characters are either more charming or more abhorent - illustrated in part by their terrifyingly chaotic group rueda tonight (bottom IN, Andrew Castle, bottom IN). The girls' brigade on the other hand seems full of types who are nice but not terribly interesting. I am very much looking forward to them combining next week.

But anyway, to the dances, which is what matters after all.

Matthew struck what I considered to be a bit of an own goal by choreographing his and Christine's quickstep to "She's So Lovely" by Scouting for Girls - which, quite aside from being an irritating song, was a bit self congratulatory, a la: "Isn't she lovely though? Isn't she?" Which just invites you to go: "No, not really". Actually Christine is more lovely than not, but she comes across as a bit dull, so it's too early in the season to hymn to her loveliness. More to the point, the song is rhythmically weird, and there seemed to be moments where they stopped dancing entirely to sort of point Christine at the camera as if to say: "Yes, she IS lovely. Vote for her. Or if you don't vote for her, at least remember her. Please."

Next up, Jodie and Ian. Crikee, the rhumba is not Jodie's dance. And I speak as a Jodie fan. She had a few nice moments in the dance but overall was stiff as a priest in a bordello. I liked the kiss on the lips from Ian, who can get away with it, as a member of the gays. Judging by It Takes Two, Jodie and Ian get on like a house on fire, and it terms of sheer relationship dynamics they are my second favourite couple after John and Kristina. I don't want them to go out, but fear they haven't done enough to stay in.

Next up Heather and alien-faced Brian. I still can't get over the transformation which happens to alien-faced Brian when he gets on the dancefloor and suddenly gets all fluid and sexy and charismatic. Perhaps it is to do with him being part alien? Sadly no similar transformation with Heather, despite some great choreography from Brian. Brian is something of a Strictly genius in that he is gimmick-tastic: the start of Heather's salsa right up again the judges' table, and this week's business on the stairs. I am a bit in love with alien-faced Brian, but only on the dancefloor. At all other times in our relationship he would be forced to walk a few steps ahead of me so that I could only see him from behind.

After that Cherie! Thank god for Cherie. She really is amazing. Her rhumba was beautiful, and I write as someone who, bluntly, hates the rhumba. The dance of love? The dance of sleaze, the 1980s, and asymmetrical dresses more like. That's not love in my book (seriously, read my book: that is definitely not love in it.) A GBB reader, whose email address I lost in the recent computer meltdown, so I never wrote back (sorry, if you're reading this), wrote to me telling me that Cherie has had dance training, and to that I say the following: (a) not in ballroom - I checked, and no more than any other actress, and (b), as long as she keeps producing dances as brilliant as this, I don't care. Cherie FTW (which is for the win, in internet parlance, apparently.)

Poor Jessie Wallace had to dance after that and if her quickstep was never going to be much cop (and it wasn't), it seriously suffered in comparison. Choreographing it to "Help!" really didn't help (so to speak) - lyrically it was far too apt, and rhythmically it seemed almost impossible to dance a quickstep to. (Also, as an aside, they made her do it in some kind of diaphanous white potato sack, one of any number of viler than vile costumes for the night - Christine in queasy acid yellow, Cherie in some kind of sex toga, Jodie in a burst purple balloon, and some of the female pro dancers apparently in fishtail bikinis. Am I imagining things or are the costumes the most hideous this year than they have ever been? They made the Kids From Fame fancy dress outfits in the men's group training video look tasteful in comparison.) Anyway, it was clunky and awful, and Jessie burst into tears afterwards, and Darren said it had been much better in training which it probably was, and I suddenly realised how foul Strictly must be if you can't pull it out of the bag on the night. Having said that, Jessie was the worst, and really should go home, but having deployed the nuclear option of tears may well be saved by the public for another shot.

Then Brendan and Lisa's rhumba. Brendan choreographs great rhumbas because, as mentioned, it's the dance of sleaze, and he is sleazy. I don't think he can help it; it's something to do with his skin. Anyway Lisa was much better than last time, and even though I'm not a massive fan of Lisa she's definitely doing enough to stay in for a few more weeks at least. Perhaps she will go on a "journey" and win me over. (No sign of any journeys yet in Strictly this season, which is perplexing. The closest we have come so far is Tess telling Cherie that she has a magnificent figure - she may as well have said "Oh my god, you're old and yet not decrepit.")

Last up, Rachel and Vincent. A quickstep, to "Little Green Bag", which struck me as yet another odd choreography choice - odd choreography being one of the three themes of the evening, alongside bad outfits, and, well, see below. Anyway this was a good dance, and there was actually a moment of genuine niceness between Rachel and Vincent in the training video (her crying, him saying "am I pushing you too hard" with real concern) which almost make up for the slimy hand-kiss at the top of the stairs at the very beginning of the show (please stop it Vincent, please stop.) I'm not wild about them as a couple yet though, perhaps because Rachel has a sort of bland niceness that's hard to get passionate about.

So what is the third theme of the night? Well, did anybody else notice that the judges seem to have swapped personalities? Craig just gets nicer and nicer, Len was scoring lower than Arlene, and Bruno was actually quite grumpy (I blame jetlag from flying back and forth between Strictly and Dancing With The Stars in LA.) What is the world coming to when Craig is giving helpful constructive criticism and decent marks while Bruno describes Heather's dance as "like she was being chased around the floor by Russell Brand" (and how much do you love that this is his idea of the worst creature you could be chased by?) Next week, Bruce and Tess swap personalities, so Tess makes terrible jokes about her age while Bruce shows off a series of metallic belts and sympathetic eye-rolls.

All dances here.

UPDATE: I forgot to predict the dance off! Very tricky this week. I think Jessie might be saved by the public vote, which probably means Jodie and Heather in the dance off, Jodie to go?

Alien-faced Brian greets his mother on live TV with a kiss on the lips and the words "I love you."

How ineffectual is the British Library bag search? You may be wondering why the British Library has a bag search at all. You might imagine that it is not exactly the number one target for terrorist attacks. Apparently, the reason for the bag search is that the library is in such close proximity to St Pancras station that it makes it the ideal place from which to detonate a really big bomb. That there are no other bag searches in any other buildings in close proximity to St Pancras station, that indeed there is no bag search to go into St Pancras station itself unless you are taking the Eurostar, is an irrelevance. Anyway, there is a bag search, which I suppose by the above logic would make the British Library the safest building in the King's Cross area, were the bag search of any use whatsoever. That it is in fact completely desultory is illustrated by the following: on the way into the library the other day I had my overnight bag with me, including a sponge bag full of toileteries. The security guard opened my overnight bag, felt the closed sponge bag without opening it, and said, "Lunch?"

LUNCH? Who carries their lunch in a sponge bag? A sponge bag that is in the same bag with a pair of pyjamas and some clean underwear? How unobservant is this security guard? How lacking in common sense, and even a basic bit of curiosity? When I said "Er, no", without elaborating on what was actually in the sponge bag, he just handed it back. He didn't even look inside to make sure that it wasn't lunch-shaped bomb-making equipment. If you're going to have a bag search, at least open the bags!

(It occurs to me as I write this that the secirity guard might have been asking me if I wanted to have lunch with him, but I don't want to eat meals with a security guard with no sense of security.)

...does anybody know why you can't get the original version of Dick in a Box on Youtube any more?

On tonight's It Takes Two, Ian on Jodie: "I really hope she produces her breast on Saturday." I think he meant "best"...

We're not going to talk about the computer, OK? Not until after I take it to be examined by geniuses at Apple. I just... can't... *sob*

On to scarcely brighter matters. On Sunday I went to see the Turner Prize exhibition. You remember the Turner Prize, right? Britain's premier contemporary art prize that goes to the best show of the year yadda yadda thingy bla. Now I like art - I even like conceptual art - and I get very irritable when I'm walking around galleries listening to people say that their six year old could paint something that their six year old could under no circumstances paint. But the Turner prize this year is AWFUL. AWFUL. AWFUL. And surprisingly interesting. Which, in case you are wondering, is a breakdown by artist.

Here's my advice if visiting the Turner exhibition. Hotfoot it through Goshka Mauga (derivative collages, soulless sculpture), Cathy Wilkes (ideas-lite installation), and Runa Islam (unimaginative films) and do not pass Go, do not collect £200, until you reach Mark Leckey's Cinema In The Round. The work he displays is entertaining enough to look at (and quite the relief after, say, Wilkes' shop dummy with tampon and birdcage on head) but better even than that is the video he presents of himself delivering a lecture on aspects of art. I have no idea how I rate this as an artwork in itself but it is actually a fascinating lecture, in which Leckey discusses different works of art, from Philip Guston to The Simpsons, in which two dimensional pieces seem to take on three dimensional weight and presence. The sections on cats and the shoeness of shoes are particular joys. It's a long time since I have heard a lecture on - well - anything, and Leckey is pleasingly unpretentious and clear, while thoughtful and complex enough to be genuinely thought-provoking. And did I mention he uses clips from The Simpsons? I enjoyed it so much that I started to panic halfway through, realising how rarely I actually feel like I am learning anything, how rarely I enter a realm of ideas that hasn't been chewed up and spat out for me like a worm for a baby bird, how much time I waste on crappy TV and regurgitated commentary and how little on original thought, and how I must must must do more than that. Then I went home and spent the evening watching DVDs (Northern Exposure, since you ask) and the Strictly results. So it didn't really last.

But then today I saw a news piece that Oxford and Cambridge are putting their lectures on iTunes. So perhaps there is hope for me yet.

died again before I could do anything. Arse.

(Techie update: got the firewire, connected the computers, opened up my other computer on my laptop, but couldn't figure out how to actually get at all the stuff that I needed, especially because most are on e-mail but when I opened Thunderbird remotely it only had emails on it up to June, and then as I was figuring that out my desktop disappeared bafflingly off my laptop, I can't get it back, so I will probably have to buy a new monitor, which I don't want and will be a total waste of money, because the only reason I'm going to use it is to get everything I need off my desktop and onto a memory stick so I can put it on the laptop and then never use the desktop again so that everything is in one place, because one thing I have learned is that even with a manual and a firewire I don't know how to fileshare, unless anyone has any better ideas, but I have to do it this week because I am in big trouble with all the stuff I haven't got, and I am a bit annoyed by the whole kerfuffle and can't realy afford to go buying monitors I don't want, also while we're on the subject how do you sync two versions of iTunes so I can get all my music onto the laptop as well, and gaaaaaah.)

So farewell then Gary Rhodes. You were really very bad. This is mysterious and new: a series of Strictly where the public are actually voting off the worst dancers. It's messing with all my predictions.

Also: ten minutes knocked off the running time of the results show was a very good move, BBC. Keep Bruce under control and you could knock off another ten no problem.

Also: did anyone else think that some of the moves in Vincent and Flavia's rhumba were really, really weird? I'm talking about that row-row-row your boat moment, people.

Also - oh my god my monitor screen just came alive! Gotta go!

The headbanging. Oh god. The headbanging. We can approach it any way we like but this week's Strictly was all about Andrew Castle headbanging. It was the last thing I thought about when I went to sleep last night and the first thing I thought about when I woke up this morning. It will scar me for life. Andrew Castle. Tennis player and GMTV presenter. Headbanging. In a TANGO. I hope Ola Jordan is thoroughly ashamed of herself.

It happened quite late on in the programme. I will attempt to get through the rest of proceedings in an orderly fashion.

First the presenters. Bruce's jokes are getting out of control. Not only are they getting less and less funny, he now insists on having an additional period of what seems like several minutes afterwards to comment on the joke, whether it was cruel, whether it was funny, whether it was satire, whether he is doddery (bad catchphrase, and he is. The audience should just leave him in pointed silence after, "I am not doddery, doddery I am...") The only light relief is to watch Tess's "listening face" on the occasions when she is standing next to him. It is a work of unintentional comedy genius.

To the dances. First up, Erin and Austin's jive. I have trouble recognising Erin even after three weeks because of her awful new hair colour and tooth veneers. In the training video, we are introduced to Austin's jiving dad, who appears to be Chris Evans in a white wig. The dance itself is very skillful but I fail to enjoy it, perhaps because I am distracted by Auston's sleeveless top and huge great gallumphing elephant arms. They have muscles like treetrunks which is a bit disconcerting when Austin has the face of a ten year old boy.

Next up, Mark and Hayley. A tango. I had to look it up because I couldn't remember. Mark does nothing. Hayley is dull. Please go home.

Then Gary and Karen dancing a jive. I was very mean to Gary in last week's post, and I also voted for him, which indicates some confusion. This week I felt hideously guilty about both, because Gary is a truly awful, awful dancer, and he probably can't help it, and I should never have forced him to do another week, and I am filled with immense sorrow on his behalf if he stays in and has to do more dances, and yet I do kind of want him to stay in because he is so entertaining. Needless to say this jive is terrible.

John and Kristina follow this up with a tango. I am in love with them. I can't help it. Kristina has only been in it for three weeks and already she is one of my favourite professional dancers. It's the way she wears skin-tight leopard print and fawns over John like a mail-order bride. (I mean this as the sincerest possible compliment. We are in a ballroom dancing context after all.) Their tango is as sweet as their waltz, but tangoes are not supposed to be sweet, so they lose marks. My friend immediately pledges to vote for them because they MUST stay in.

Next is Andrew and Ola and OH GOD IT IS ALL FLOODING BACK. Actually it wasn't a bad tango at first even though Andrew was dancing with his bum out. But he was actually dancing, which is more than you can say for Mark, and his tango face was priceless. (For non-watchers, the tango face is very important. You can practise at home. Look as constipated as you possibly can. You've got it!) And then - NO NO NO NO NO - the HEADBANGING! Like a sort of angry turkey trying to get through a door. WHY? Ola is noted for her dancing gimmicks (remember the under-the-kilt move with Kenny) but this was just WRONG. NO.

Moving swiftly on to Tom and Camilla's jive. I fancy Tom, because he reminds me of a sexy ex boyfriend, and he is a bit camp, which I totally love. He also seems to be a bit arrogant which I pretend I don't love but probably do. His jive is great. I would like it even more if he was partnered with anyone other than Camilla. Why does she get the sexy men every year? Why? Is it to distract us from her teeth? Notably, she is my brother's favourite, so maybe it's one of those things where women don't get it but men do.

Lastly, Don and Lilia. Don was in the dance-off last week and only saved by Len's casting vote, and was really pretty rubbish. This week he was fab. His tango face is truly terrifying (what have you been eating, Don?) and he was properly in time with the music and dancing and everything. Lilia is some kind of genius teacher. Affeared that he doesn't have a fanbase, and bowled over by his improvement, Don gets my vote.

So, for the dance off? I think Gary could be saved by the public a la Kate Garraway, so I am going to be optimistic and go for the dance off I'd like to see: Mark versus Andrew, Mark to go.

All dances can be watched here. BE WARNED about Andrew's, BE WARNED.

My computer monitor has just made a pitiful fizzing noise and died. Right now I am writing on my laptop. Which actually works very nicely as a desktop especially now I've plugged the keyboard and mouse from my desktop into it and propped the laptop up so it's on a reasonable level with my eyes... and it's faster than my desktop... so everything would be hunkydory, *if* I had synched my laptop and desktop say, ever. So I have no access to my e-mails, by which I mean the stored ones and the ones I'd downloaded but not read yet, my diary, all the info about the trips I am going on to Germany in two weeks and Uganda in three weeks and, oh yeah, Warwick tomorrow, and so on, and indeed so forth. The clever thing to do will be to plug my desktop into something else, say my TV (??? with what lead??????) and then get everything over onto my laptop and forget my desktop ever existed. But in the meantime, if you have tried to contact me today, or we are supposed to be meeting up but I never turn up, etc, please bear with me. I am nothing without my electronic devices...

Last night I went to a comedy gig at a pub near where I live, a charity fundraiser for a local community garden. There were three comedians on the bill. I have forgotten the name of the first one, which is a mercy for him and for me, because it means I can slag him off with impunity. Very patchy, very smug, and lost all my goodwill with a "joke" about rape which almost exactly described the circumstances of my friend's rape, my friend who happened to also be in the audience. I think the punchline "what on earth were you wearing?" could best be described as ill-advised. Next up was Josie Long, who was lovely: very funny, completely charming, slightly bonkers, all of which is to the good.

And then came the headliner: Simon Amstell For the Canadians (and other foreigners, I know I get other foreigners, make my book number one in your country and I might mention you by name too), Simon Amstell is a very famous, very successful comedian in Britain, who presents a prime time BBC2 comedy show and has won awards for his stand up. He doesn't need to go to a pub and do the whole of his Edinburgh set for no money. It was clearly a big favour to the organisers, and judging by size of pub / number of punters, he'll have made thousands for them. And he was hilarious: I absolutely love him on TV, but this was better - intelligent, self-deprecating, sharp, and managed to make jokes about rape that were actually jokes and didn't offfend my friend at all. (The quality of rape jokes is not how I judge a comedian I promise, but it was an interesting point of comparison and does show what a skilled comedian Amstell is.)

And the audience were vile. It was baffling. Not the whole audience to be fair - most of us were laughing and clapping and having a great time - but the front row seemed to be entirely taken up of drunk hecklers who wouldn't stop interrupting the show, over and over again. Possibly the fact that the gig was in a tiny pub with a foot-high stage made it too intimate and people felt they could say what they liked; I was standing by the bar, about three feet from Amstell on eye level, which isn't how I usually experience comedy (except, you know, in real life conversation) and at times it did feel like we were just chattting. Chatting without me speaking though, because HE was performing and I was NOT. But it wasn't just the size of the place, because the same people didn't heckle the first two acts, not even the first one, who kind of deserved it. But they were unbelievably aggressive with Amstell. At a charity gig. Which he was doing for free. And in which he was brilliant. Why?

The comedy and heckling thing is weird. I was talking to another professional comedian recently who told me that he thinks the hecklers reckon they are helping the comedian: they heckle, he coems up with a brilliant put-down which gets the biggest laugh of the night. But comedians don't want to get their laughs from putting down hecklers, they just want to do their show. And people don't really heckle anywhere else. If you're watching a play and you come up with a witty riposte to what's going on on-stage, you don't shout it out. (Actually I went to the cinema in New York once and the audience were heckling the action, which was astonishing to me, not least because the actors on screen can't answer back.) I absolutely loathe heckling, it always spoils my night and I just wish people wouldn't do it. I have paid to see the comic, not some drunk loser in the audience. After the show Simon Amstell walked past my table and I nearly apologised to him for the audience but I didn't, because it would have been idiotic, and also because he was so good I didn't want him to think it had spoilt the night, even though, to a certain extent, it had.

The only equivalent I can think of to heckling at comedy is this bizarre notion that it is perfectly OK to talk all the way through music gigs. A while ago I went to see Jill Scott and all I can remember of the night was the long, loud conversation the two girls next to me were having about allergies. Surely if someone is performing for you it is polite to listen? And even if you are not interested in politeness, if you have paid to be there, wouldn't you want to listen? If not, you could just stay at home and listen to the CD: way cheaper.

I may officially be the Woman Who Talked Too Much but I do know when to shut up. And if any of you are coming to my reading tomorrow (Warwick, Northgate Methodist Church, 2pm, £8.50 including afternoon tea, plug fans!) and you start to heckle, watch out: I will be very cross and not in the least bit funny about it.

Seriously, I went on the New Statesman site and there it was. It was the first piece I clicked on, which tells you something about my aspirations to seriousness. And it is a pretty serious piece as it happens, or at least compared with my coverage anyway...

Hmm. (a) Send my cv to New Statesman in hope that they might like a more playful TV writer? (b) Crawl back under my rock of frivolity?

The other day, waiting for a train, I was browsing in WHSmiths for a magazine. I'm not a big fan of women's glossies as I take little or no interest in skincare, make-up, how to improve my sex life, fashions I can't afford, celebrities I've either never heard of or wish I'd never heard of, or real life stories about women whose lives are nothing like my real life, so I was looking around to see if there were any other titles that light take my fancy; but it turns out that I'm not interested in cars, golf, mortgages, HiFis, breasts, computers, pregnancy, gadgets, weddings, heavy metal or cats either, or at least not enough to buy an entire magazine devoted to any one of them. There's no such thing as an intelligent general arts magazine, which is what I'd really like to read (Time Out comes close, but I already subscribe), so as usual I found myself looking at the current affairs mags.

Trying to get over the fact that Prince Charles was the cover star of The Economist's Intelligent Life quarterly, and David Milliband was on the front of Prospect, I did delve inside and scan the contents page of several of them, only to make the somewhat unsettling discovery that each of these magazines could essentially have been subtitled "what men think about the world". They have almost no female contributors at all. A review here and there, the odd piece, an admittedly stronger showing in short stories, but that's it. Otherwise it's male editors and male writers all the way.

I am loathe to cry sexism here, because I can't believe that intelligent male editors don't want women writing for their publications, and it's miserable to contemplate that they might be offering articles to their mates or thinking male writers bring more gravitas and ending up with a token female or two. I'm more inclined to wonder whether we women writers are sidelining ourselves. I can think of many female journalists who I admire, but when I take away the ones who are writing about lifestyle, or humourous columns about their own lives, or serious articles but that are largely about women's / gender / family issues (important as these issues are), I'm left with hardly anyone. Are women pitching stories outside these parameters and getting turned down, or are we staying within our comfort zones and leaving the "hard stuff" to the men? Or perhaps are editors of current affairs magazines comissioning articles that ony really appeal to men so they aren't getting female writers or readers? I draw your attention to the aforementioned Milliband / Prince Charles covers (though hard to believe those appeal to anybody.)

I'm guilty of this self-sidelining myself, in large part because I prefer to write humourously whether fiction or non-fiction - it's not that I can't write seriously, but when I do, I feel like I'm pretending to be someone I'm not. So I don't anticipate being given 5,000 words on the economy for Prospect any time soon. And I'm not going to stop writing about Strictly Come Dancing - quite aside from anything, that would be letting the New York Times win. And somebody needs to chronicle David Tennant's every move. But I do feel uncomfortably like I have been coccooning myself in my little world and thinking my frivolous thoughts, leaving the business of commenting on the real world to the men.

And I didn't buy any of those current affairs magazines. They just seemed like chat overheard in a gentlemen's club. So the self-sidelining continues. (I didn't buy anything and read Riddley Walker on the train instead.) I feel like I could and should do better, though whether on this blog, or by pitching my serious thoughts elsewhere, remains to be seen. (I'm sure that I have serious thoughts sometimes.)

PS can't help but notice on that IL cover the only piece by a woman is AS Byatt on... fashion.