Friday
1 December 9st 3 (must lose half stone in order to put back on over Christmas);
alcohol units, 4 (vg); cigarettes, 19 (almost New Year so no point
giving up yet; better to smoke more, in fact, in order to disgust self);
number of chocolate Christmas tree shapes consumed out of advent
calender, 21 (bad but can always buy some more). Today
was my first chance to do an interview on camera. Ever since the
desperate Police Action Live programme the other Saturday night, which
had cameras attached to police units all over the country cutting
excitedly live to nothing whatsoever happening, Richard Finch has been
wild for some copycat live action on Wake Up Britain. Much to our
relief, he has been turned down by every accident and emergency unit
police and ambulance force in the land. But this morning, I shambled
into the office, hungover, to find him yelling "Bridget, we're on.
Fire. I want you on camera. I'm thinking fireman's helmet, I'm thinking
pointing the hose." At 5 o'clock I found myself perched at the top of the pole in Lewisham police station ready to slide down into shot on cue. Then suddenly in my earpiece I heard Richard shouting, "Go go go go..." So
I let go of the pole and started to slide. Then he continued,
"...go go go, Newcastle. Bridget, standing by. We're coming to you
in 30 seconds." I
managed to stop myself halfway down and started to pull myself up again,
then suddenly there was a great bellow in my ear: "OK and cue
Lewisham. AND CUT TO LEWISHAM. Bridget... what the hell are you doing -
you're meant to be sliding down the pole, not climbing up. Go go
go." Hysterically I turned to the camera, grinned fixedly, and dropped myself down, landing, as scheduled, by the feet of the chief fire officer to start my interview, at which point Richard Finch yelled, "OK, we're out of time, wind it up!" So
I said, "Now back to the studio," and that was it. Sunday
3 December I
wonder if I should start visiting people late at night in hospital like
Princess Diana. Sometimes I think if I did more good things for other
people instead of living a selfish single life it would be easier to
lose weight. But then how do I know that the lonely people coming round
from operations would want to see me? I often feel sorry for friends who
give birth and are trapped in hospital beds at the mercy of their least
favourite people who turn up and bore them to death for entire
afternoons. Who
knows what celebrities might start turning up in search of warm glows in
their heart if this becomes a craze? One might open one's eyes, still in
one's oxygen mask and drip, bloated, black and blue and mad-haired, and
find oneself staring at Rolf Harris or Paula Yates, or even with your
hand being grabbed alternately by Prince Charles and Princess Diana
hissing "Get off, she wants me to love her, not you." I
am with Private Eye, which some time ago issued donor-type wallet cards
saying: "In the event of an accident I do not wish to be visited by
Mrs Thatcher." I would add: "Further no's: Jane Seymour
(hair-flicking: unhygienic); Paddy Ashdown (false gravitas, bad if
nauseous); Emma Thompson (smug smiling); Perpetua. Yes:
Mr Darcy. 11.30pm.
Just went to see GoldenEye with Sharon and Jude. Thought it was VG,
except did not fancy Pierce Brosnan, who's humourless apart from
pathetic one- liners. Mr Darcy would clearly have been better. The
women were much more up-to-date than usual, but Russian baddy woman
named Ms Onatop a pathetically sycophantically obvious nod in the
direction of feminism. If Bondmakers had really wanted to show that they
understand modern women she should have been called Ms Onadiet. We were trying to work out which woman we most identified with: Judy Dench as the head of MI5, the thin, wicked beauty who crushed men to death with her thighs, or the thin, kind beauty who was a computer expert and got off with James Bond. In the end we decided it was the woman about halfway through, walking down the street with a shopping bag, who got crushed by James Bond's tank. |