I have tickets to see Girls Aloud in April!!!

Whoop! Yes I seriously love these girls. And I'm also secretly hoping that the magic of being in the same (large) room as Cheryl Cole for a couple of hours my give me the same (large) hair as her. God I love her hair.

The joys of London transport

People on London trains can really piss me off. There a few types of offenders...

Firstly, people who sit on the outside seat and then tut when you say "excuse me please" to sit down on the free seat by the window. When there are about a thousand people all battling for an inch of space I think it is rather rude to assume it is acceptable to take up two seats all to oneself.

Secondly, people who don't move down. Again, when there are a thousand people all trying to squeeze into one carriage I think it is extremely rude for someone to stand half down the aisle and tut when you try and squeeze past them to make more room for the folk stuck on the platform.

Thirdly, (and this is more of an "I laugh at you because you are fucking stupid" kind of annoyance) people who run down the platform to get on the train that isn't due to leave for nearly another ten minutes. And even more annoyingly the lemming effect of others noticing someone running, and starting to run too. Chill out people! These types of offenders are usually those who do the commute wearing scruffy trainers with their office attire, and possibly carry backpacks. Another of my pet hates. Urgh!

Two weeks to go!

I cannot believe how quickly Christmas has crept up on us. It feels like only yesterday I was sitting watching the sunsets in Ibiza drinking sangria, feeling like I could never ever possibly feel cold again. And here we are in December!

But the cold got me thinking, thank goodness we have Christmas in the middle of winter. As the nights draw in we actually have something bright and festive to look forward to. It would be so strange to move to Australia and to just have Christmas in the middle of summer, and the summer holidays. I'm sure all you residents of the southern hemisphere will be objecting to this, but I just can't imagine Christmas being any other time than winter.

If anyone from down-under is reading this I would love to hear what your Christmas is really like. Does Santa dress up in a big warm coat even though it is hot? Do your Christmas cards have robins and snowmen on, or do you have special Auzzie beach themed ones? And do you still sing the Christmas carols that talk about the bleak mid-winter?

In fact, I would love to hear what everyone's Christmas' are like.

Mine is a traditional family affair. I will be leaving London a week on Friday for two whole weeks back in Derbyshire and I'm so excited to be getting home.

Christmas Eve is always a family meal of Salmon, and then down to the village pub for me and off to Church for my parents. I love catching up with the people I grew up with, and Xmas eve is the one time of year EVERYONE is back in the village local. I usually have one too many tipples and make a festive twit of myself, but this year I will be driving so none of that!

Christmas day we have champagne in the morning, open the gifts and then get on with doing the dinner. We always have Turkey with the trimmings, including my mum's amazing brussel sprouts with pancetta ham and horse chestnuts. Yum. Then in the afternoon we watch the Queen's speech, the parents will have a snooze and then we sit up till late drinking Baileys in front of the fire and playing Scrabble.

Boxing day is my traditional day to go out on the town with all my friends and get smashed, anything to fill the void left behind from the build-up to Christmas day!!

Out of all three days of the festive period though, Christmas Eve is my favorite. You can almost feel magic in the air, everyone is excited and expectant and I love thinking about all the children in bed too excited to sleep listening out for sleigh bells. I can't wait to have a Christmas with children of my own one day.

So, tell me about your days!

Crimes of Fashion: Ferne Britton

There is something very wrong about this outfit. Now don't get me wrong - I think it's fantastic Ferne Britton has managed to loose so much weight and she obviously feels great. However, she seems to be feeling so great that she has forgotten her age.

Could someone please tell our Ferne that at 51 it's not OK for her to be borrowing her daughter's Kate Moss @ Topshop ruffled mini-dress. She frankly looks ridiculous. And I hope it is her daughter's dress. If Ferne has actually gone out and bought this it somehow seems ten times worse. She is not just showing a bit of knee, she is showing practically her whole thigh. There comes an age where a woman should gracefully accept it's not quite right to show off her entire leg, and most likely her bottom too.

The huge scarf, long coat and snow-boots finish off the disaster, drowning her in layers. This whole look adds ten years on to Ferne, making her look tired and frumpy.

Please Ferne, now you have this amazing new figure - do it justice! Leave the ra-ra ruffles and mini dresses to those young enough to wear them, and invest in some beautiful tailored pieces. I'm sure you can more than afford your own wardrobe, so leave your daughter's alone!

Hangovers...

Stink. I didn't mean to get so tipsey last night, it just happened. Sometimes I feel like I would just like the queit life and to party less, but you just get swept along by life. I don't want to stop having fun, but I do wish I knew when to stop wine and start drinking water.

Christmas is coming, and that means a whole lot more socialising. And hangovers. Although now I've passed my driving test, when I go home i'll be driving a lot and obviously not drinking. Which will be alot better for my health.

I'm of for Sunday roast in Soho now. I'll have an orange juice with that please.

Tales from the land of Brum

So I've just had one of those weekends when you wake up Monday morning and realise you are going to have to survive for the next three weeks on a diet of baked beans and soup. My online bank statement kindly informed me this morning that I had pretty much pissed all my money up the wall and I now have little over £100 to last me until payday. Luckily payday comes early thanks to Christmas, but that means I am so going to feel the pinch in January!

I started my weekend with a visit to the Covent Garden Comedy Club in central London. And it did exactly what it says on the tin, I laughed so much I nearly cried. The comedians were so funny, but probably the funniest moment of the night was a woman on the front row who started shouting at the headline artist for his joke about the blind. Apparently she had a blind son. Now the thing is I could maybe empathise if he had been offensive to the blind, but his joke was mearly saying the blind get a bum deal with a dog, and things should move with the times supplying sticks with sat-nav and inbuilt MP3 players... Not really that offensive. Well, this lady stood up and started shouting at the comedian telling him to move on... of course he told her to pipe down. If you are prone to be offended by certain themes then maybe a comedy club should not be high on your night's out agenda, let along taking a seat on the front row!

The next morning I woke with a heavy head after a long night of drinking and dining, and caught the train back up to my university city of Birmingham for one of my best friend's birthday. Birmingham is amazing at this time of the year. The German Christmas Markets are in town, which means festive shopping and large quantities of mulled wine and frankfurter sausages. So the day was spent catching up with old friends and warming ourselves in the freezing temperatures with large quantities of warm alcohol.

When our toes reached the brink of frostbite it was time to head back and get ready for the night ahead. And surely a birthday night out back home with the girls could be nothing more than perfect?? Oh dear. Well me and my two friends spent so long drunkenly getting ready at the hotel we didn't make it out until 11pm, by which time the birthday girl was already in tears due to an argument with her friends from home home. Not a good start. We had a few drinks and pep talk with our lady and things looked on the up so we all headed onto Gatecrasher Birmingham, where we were supposed to be on VIP guestlist with free entry. Only the birthday girl's friend had not quite come up with the goods and there was a disgusting door bitch who was rude to the point of insulting and made the poor girl take her coat off to check what she was wearing.

So we all pay ten pounds a head to get in, minus the VIP wristbands we had been promised and entered the worst club we have ever been to. Gatecrasher is a revamped nightclub in a venue that used to the The Works - a cheesy club right on the corner of Broad Street. It used to be chav central and awful music ahoy. Well lets just say a lick of paint and a few fancy chandeliers does not a good club make.

It was simply awful, and so falsely pretentious now since the make over. I love house music, and glamor, but this club was something else. There was no atmosphere, just a thousand back-combed wannabe's and men looking for some easy skirt. The music the cheesy end of house, and the dance floor was packed out but lacking any atmosphere whatsoever. My idea of pure hell. Combine that with a half hour bar queue and crying birthday girl and a good night you do not have.

Soph ended up leaving after an hour, leaving me, E and LM with no option to drink ourselves into oblivion. An utter disaster of a night, but a lesson well learned. Never, ever to return to the Gatecrasher in Birmingham. A leopard never changes it's spots and the Works on Broad Street will always be the Works even if you patch it up with designer wallpaper. I wish we had gone to Bushwackers, our usual Brummie haunt - small, fabulous atmosphere and amazing dirty electro and speed garage all night. Bad club aside though, it was still so good seeing my girls who i miss so much down here, and plenty of laughs were had.

So I arrive back in London Sunday dehydrated and hungover to hell to see D, whose birthday it was. I was to cook him his favorite meal of rare steak, only i fucked that up good and proper thanks to my hangover. Oh well, he was kind enough to pretend he didn't mind being presented with a cremated well done piece of meat. What a nice boy he is, and the cuddles more than made up of my empty bank balance and shriveled liver.

Note to self: next time leave the bank card at home!