Monday 1 August

10.00am. In Sit Up Britain office, simulating phone interview with Scotland Yard whilst actually talking to Jude about accidental Daniel shag.

"It doesn't count as being promiscuous if it's with your ex," Jude was saying.

"Yup, yup, officer... how come?" I quietly hissed.

"Because in the singleton urban family, many people provide the traditional functions of one old- fashioned 'husband'. You've always had good sex with Daniel without really going out with him. Besides, if you're going to have a one-night stand, far better to do it with someone you've already fucked up the relationship with."

"Why?" I said, adding, for good measure, "Chief Superintendent?"

"Then you don't have to feel like you've sat an exam - or two exams given that you slept with Mark as well - and wait for the phone to ring with your results."

"...because you know you've failed?" I wailed.

"No, no... look, I've got to go, I'm in a board meeting."

"What? Scotland Yard are actually admitting they've failed?" shrieked Freddo, Richard Finch's hideous new eavesdropping, quasi-teenage, Oxbridge sidekick. "Richard!" he falsettoed. "The Yard are admitting a huuuge policy bungle. It's a scoop!"

"Oh for God's sake, shut up, Freddo," I rasped, feeling like smoke-ridden middle-aged hack who was about to change tack and growl: 'Do you want a sherry darling? Why don't you slip into my office?'"

10.30am. Look. A woman has her Needs. I can have discreet liaison like mature, silk-stockinged Parisian woman without reflexively waiting for phone to ring in manner of Pavlov's Dog .

10.31am. Why hasn't Daniel called me? Why? Whyyyyyyyyyyyy?

10.32am. Because it's only ten-thirty and he won't have got to work yet. 

Friday 5 August

Calls from Mark Darcy: 0, Calls from Daniel Cleaver: 0.

7pm. Hurrah! Telephone!

7.30pm. Humph. My mother. "I didn't think you'd be in on a Friday night, darling. Anyway, just checking you're coming to the school concert to see Susan Howard."

"Who's Susan Howard?"

"Susan Howard, darling! The one that played the cello and got into the Royal Philharmonic? She's doing a solo with her children accompanying on the flute!"

Where was this leading, I wondered? Another dig at me for being childless perhaps? Or for having never accompanied her on flute with talented twin?

"They're adopted, of course - Chinese. A lot of people are adopting them now. Look at this Angelina Jolly." (My mother has now, like everyone else, begun to live her - or more precisely my - life according to the social mores of celebrities.)

"I think you'll find Maddox is Cambodian, Mother," I said, wearily.

"Well, same thing, darling."

"Mother! You can't say things like that in..."

"Oh don't be silly, darling," she said crossly. "The point is, Angelina adopted this little baby and then she got Brad Pitt."

"I don't think that's why she 'got' Brad Pitt."

"Oh, it was," she said airily, as if she'd been chatting to Brad only the other day at Una's Brunchtime Karaoke. "That's what attracted him, because Jen wouldn't have children because she wanted to do films. And now this Angelina's got another little baby from Ethiopia. Anyway, you can chat to Susan about it after the concert, can't you? Better than sitting alone every night!"

The thing about my mother is that she prattles on in such a cheery, middle-class way, that the outrageous non-PCness and effrontery of what's she's saying doesn't immediately hit you - ie given that am now too shrivelled to have children then maybe, inspired by Brad/Angelina and further prompted by Susan Howard's adopted flautist offspring I should adopt baby of Chinese/Cambodian extraction in order to secure man; then adopt another child from Horn of Africa.

"Mind you," Mother crashed on. "That's where some of these bombers came from, wasn't it?"

Grasped the wall for support. Could she possibly, conceivably now be doing volte-face over fears that I might inadvertently adopt potential suicide bomber?

7.45pm. Maybe is not her fault. Maybe she's just like everyone else (except people who read Economist all way through.) Her head is filled with fuzzy soap opera-like world view, based entirely on headlines, soundbites and Hollywood celebrities. But because, unlike me, she grew up in pre-media age without bombarding, conflicting images of how she should be, and has always lived in same place, with same people - she's entirely confident in herself and her views. So she feels she can spout anything without questioning it.

8pm. Oh God, though. Is this going to go on for the rest of my life? Am I going to be 80 and casting murderous glances at Daniel over dominoes in old people's home, then having one too many cream sherries, tittering coquettishly and tumbling into bed with him? Would Daniel have to use erection stimulating drug? Actually Daniel has so much superfluous sex drive that by time gets to 80 will probably just about have calmed down enough to behave like normal boyfriend instead of person chained to out-of-control maniac.

Trouble was, by the time I got to the Electric last Sunday with Jude and Shaz, had wound self into such a state re: being old and barren that in own mind was hunched, lined, Driving Miss Daisy figure. Went to loos immediately to check make-up, and... am not saying what looked back at self was Angelina Jolie, but realised was overreacting a touch. Even started to think, if did have baby, wouldn't be in Electric but in dingy room festooned with nappies, stuck poo downwards, to empty pizza cartons, with baby abandoned in cot because I was heroin addict. Simultaneously realised this was extreme thinking, possibly due to excess and confusion of cautionary Government advertising. But still.

When went back in, Daniel was at bar looking all depressed, but when he saw me his face lit up. Jude is right - is something comforting about someone who's known you forever, and seen you at your worst but still wants to shag you.

"Jones, you gorgeous little devil," he murmured. "Always were, always will be. Come and sit on my knee." Was too sudden a leap from Driving Miss Daisy to resist... Gaah! Telephone! Is Daniel on caller ID. Hurrah!