125. Steak and Chips

Sometimes, just for fun you understand, I try to decide what I would have for my last meal. The Alabama Institute of Corrections used to have a website on which they posted all the 'last meal' requests of the poor mentally challenged black men they murdered with their gruesome capital punishment habit - and it made for rather fascinating reading. Most of them wanted a cheeseburger, which is understandable, as cheeseburgers are both delicious and comforting. Some just wanted a pint of ice-cream.

Anyway, I usually come back to steak and chips. I'd want my Mum's Chicken Liver Pate to start with, then an entrecote steak cooked medium rare, skinny chips, bearnaise, french mustard and maybe a small rocket salad (though it might be too late to worry about eating healthily). Then I'd want cheese. And all of it washed down with as much Pomerol as I could drink.

But what about roast chicken? Spaghetti Bolognese? Lobster Bisque? Fish and chips? Eggs Benedict?

It's a good thing that I'm unlikely ever to face the death penalty (although I shouldn't speak too soon) because I wouldn't be able to decide on my last meal. Do you think that my indecision would postpone the inevitable? Or would they just give me the consensus choice - a cheeseburger, a Coke and a pint of ice-cream? Actually, you know, that might not be so bad...

124. Birthday Season

With some notable exceptions, the birthdays of all my favourite people occur between the 14th of October and the 21st of November. It's a happy, festive, EXPENSIVE six weeks.

(The notable exceptions are: the 10th of May, the 20th of May, the 22nd of June, the 14th of July, the 21st of July, the 23rd of September and the 12th of December)

Birthday Season is a little different this year as we wait for the birth of BabyBF, but the best news is that he or she will be a Scorpio, born within the Birthday Season, and therefore adding a whole new lovely day of celebration.

There are those who believe that celebrating birthdays is deeply childish. There are those who simply don't acknowledge their birthdays. Some don't like them, and find them difficult. I strongly disagree with the first, respect and rather admire the second, and sympathize with the last. I used to love my birthday, and now it makes me cry. I think it's because I"m so OLD and have, as yet, achieved SO LITTLE. But that may all be about to change...

Anyway, Birthday Season is a cheerful time in a part of the year that can seem dreary and dull. It gives me a chance to give people squeezes, presents and glasses of champagne - and really, what could be nicer?

123. Power Ballad Fridays

Working in Children's Publishing used to involve the weekly stuffing of 500+ envelopes, as we sent proof copies of new books, and letters, and various sales materials out to the booksellers. It's BORING. So every Friday afternoon, when most people had found some excuse or other to go home early, my colleagues and I would organize ourselves into a mini-production line, and put on the Power Ballads. This was my idea.

The great thing about Power Ballads is that most women and gay men know the words, particularly to the classics, like Bonnie Tyler's Total Eclipse of the Heart, and Alone by Heart, which means that the lip-synching is of a very high standard. And as Children's Publishing is staffed almost exclusively by women and gay men, we were onto a winner.

So we'd put the old CD into the machine, crank it up as high as we dared, and spend a couple of hours making fools of ourselves, laughing hysterically, and stuffing envelopes. Made the time fly by, and then it would be time to go to the pub. Perfect.

So today, in the solitude of my eyrie, I resurrected Power Ballad Fridays. It was killer, and it got me past a little creative block I was experiencing. As a pastime, I highly recommend it.

122. Angry Birds

No, not angry birds, as in the famous Hitchcock movie, Angry Birds, which is a game I play on my iPhone.

The basic principle is that there are these frogs and they have built houses round themselves made of steel, wood and glass. You are given a selection of birds (angry) with which to smash up the houses and kill the frogs. The more damage you can inflict, the more points you get - and if you can kill all the birds and smash the whole house with just one bird you get three gold stars. Simple. Brilliant.

It is, it should go without saying, monstrously addictive. I'm on Level 11, Game 9. I hope there are lots of levels because I never want to stop. Angry Birds is fairly mindless, but getting those three stars does involve both skill and strategy so it's always possible to take things to a higher level.

I haven't been converted to what I will refer to, archaically, as 'computer games' because I can't be bothered with all the hardware. But the great thing about games on the iPhone is that it's all there, in your pocket. Angry Birds is the best game I've found so far (although Harbour Master can be quite diverting) and it's probably just as well. I wouldn't want to let modern technology get in the way of my telly watching, now, would I?

121. Pashley Bicycles

Riding a Pashley is like driving a Rolls-Royce. It's smooth and elegant, you're quite high up, and everybody looks at you as you go past.

Once you get past the old-fashioned looks (and weight) the bike is fitted with all sorts of modern gizmos that make life easier, like disc brakes, so it is not in fact exactly like riding an iron bicycle from 1913. Though when you're trying to go uphill it can feel like that.

They're no good for speed, or weaving through traffic, and they have three gears and brakes so their hipster rating is low. But for me riding my Pashley is an intensely joyful experience. I live in a calmer, more civilized world when I'm on my Pashley, and taxis don't try to kill me with the same malevolence that they keep for the single-speeds.

There are lots of 'retro' bikes out there now, but Pashley have been making the same bikes, by hand, since 1926. When the system will allow me, I'll put up a picture - because apart from anything else, and perhaps most importantly, these bikes are BEAUTIFUL.

120. Otters

According to Radio 4 this morning, what was recently a shortage of otters has become a surplus. Some of the rivers in Wales and the West Country are at Saturation Point apparently - there's no more room on the riverbanks. And I say, Hooray!

Otters are lovely. In a cruel twist of fate the only county in England not to have an otter population is Kent, but that must mean that Suffolk and Norfolk have lots. So when I eventually go to live up there I will be able to make friends with otters and watch their babies play in the early morning mist.

There is, in fact, an otter sanctuary in Bungay, Suffolk, that I forced Herself to let me visit a few years ago. She sat in the car reading the paper while I went round the sanctuary, talking to all the otters and finding out the otter news. I had nearly got round them all when I became aware of a strange sound - it was Herself banging her forehead on the car horn, trying to get my attention. It worked. She will not be allowed to watch the babies playing in the mist.

So, the otters are back and swimming in a river near you. What are otter babies called, do you think? Otlets?

119. Home Movies

As I write, Herself is editing some home movie footage she took 10 years ago. One particularly difficult sequence shows Herself, Myself and The Artist - all quite drunk - singing VERY LOUDLY to a medley of classics, including Dancing Queen. It's very funny, and equally AWFUL.

But she's also got footage of the Hound the very first time we met her. She's a little fat dumpling, chewing my fingers. She's got footage of her nephew when he was 5 weeks old. He might like to see how cute he was. There's stuff of the Small Brother, when he was actually quite small, rather than ironically small.

It's a nostalgic trip. We've all improved over the years (I was truly frightening to behold back then, I do heartily apologize to anybody who knew me) but that is certainly a subjective view. It's great to have it.

Of course Herself's family have footage of Herself when she was a fat little dumpling. And there's footage of her grandparents and her Mum and Dad when they were tender young things. It's all in sepia and is like treasure trove. Photos, footage, it's all good stuff. I have clutched my photos of my Granny to me over the last weeks and they have been a genuine comfort. So I'm going out this weekend with my camera. It's time to take some snaps.

118. The Telephone

It has recently become a policy of mine to return to that old-fashioned practice of speaking to people on the telephone. Because we all send so many of them, it becomes too easy to send texts or emails when honest-to-goodness human contact is what is required. It's the work of a second to misread an email, or tap out a text which the reader will misinterpret.

The useful, separating qualities of both are not lost to me, I'm not being holier-than-thou. I'll happily hide behind an email, but increasingly I feel ashamed of myself when I do. If I can't make a meeting, I'll call. If I need to talk to somebody I'm fond of about one of the many ways in which I am deficient as a human-being, I will call. Or I'll try to. I love it when my phone rings. I don't love it when it beeps or burps.

Most of my day is spent communicating with a faceless, limitless outside world. If it weren't for Herself and the Hound I could easily go for days without having any meaningful interaction with another person face to face. It seems to me that the telephone is the best compromise possible. I can't be with the BF as she runs about South London going to an increasingly bizarre selection of 'how to be a Mummy' classes, but I can speak to her on the phone. I can't be with my Mum and Aunties as they come to terms with the world without their Mum, but I can speak to them on the phone. I speak to my Small Brother on the phone quite a lot. The sound and timbre of somebody's voice is as unique as their face, so why would I intentionally divorce myself from being so close to somebody I love when all I have to do is pick up the receiver and tap in a number? You don't even have to have an 'ology.

Anybody can write an email or send a text. But these days a phone call is something special.

I should work for BT.

117. McVitie's Gingerbread Cake

The 'cake' is superfluous, of course, as the reason we know it as gingerBREAD is because it was originally baked as a loaf. Gingerbread men came later.

I'm sure the McVities loaf, in its immediately recognizable racing green livery, bears no real resemblance to proper gingerbread, but it accompanies a tea-time cuppa very nicely indeed. There is something comforting about its squodgy toothsomeness, and it combines heady sweetness and a touch of heat; so much more interesting than a biscuit, less all-out sweet than cake.

I suppose you could, technically, put butter on it, like we do with malt loaf. And if you were desperate you could dish it up with vanilla ice-cream for a quick pudding.

Herself eschews gingerbread loaf with a firm hand, reserving one of her special withering looks for it whenever I bring it home. I'm not sure why. Maybe she had a bad gingerbread experience at some point. But her disdain leaves all the more for me. The dog would like some, but she's out of luck.

Cut the fattest slice that you dare and settle down with a cup of tea and preferably a cold winter's afternoon outside. Lovely.

116. The Battle Hymn of the Republic

I know. Weird, right?

In fact, it's not just this one, it's pretty much any song that was originated for troops to sing as they marched to battle. So Onward Christian Soldiers is a favourite, and I'm even quite fond of the Marseillaise.

But the great thing about the Battle Hymn of the Republic, or Glory, Glory, Hallelujah as others will know it - is that it has many incarnations. So if you don't like the Christian element of it you can sing the original - John Brown's Body - and mourn that particular abolitionist's mouldery grave forever.

I struggle with the God bits, but there is something undeniably powerful about many of the lyrics. Take this one,

'As He died to make men holy, let us die to make men free'

Now, you can quibble with the first part (and I do), but surely not with the second. It doesn't surprise me that it was the song of the Civil War and is still sung by American military choirs now - it has a rabble-rousing, hair-raising quality to it that does make the heart beat faster and, who knows, might give weary troops the strength they need to face the next bloody skirmish. I don't know, I'm not a soldier. But I was once taught to sing it by an American teacher visiting my school - and when we sang it for a crowd (and there were maybe 40 in the choir) it was an amazing, powerful, thing.

It's good for cleaning. It's good for the last half mile of a longish run. It's good for the last 20 miles of a long car journey when you're about to fall asleep. It's good when you're on your way to the dentist. If you're on your way to battle - let me know how it goes.

115. Practice DOES make perfect

I gave the 'Tribute' at my grandmother's funeral yesterday.

The final version was the seventh draft. Poor Herself listened to it all the way through 12 times, even when I had only changed the odd word or shifted a paragraph about. She helped make it better. She always makes things better.

When it came to the service, I was nervous. Definitely. But I had stuck the speech onto card so that if my hands wobbled it wouldn't be too obvious. I made sure I had a mint to suck beforehand so that I didn't get drymouth. I ignored the Priest's efforts to get me to blub. (Not just me, obviously, the whole congregation.)

And when it came time, it went off without a hitch. Practice had made if not perfect then as near as dammit. I got to the end, sat back down and had another mint. Then I held my Auntie's hand and sang The Lord's My Shepherd without blubbing and felt very much that no matter what people thought of the speech, I knew that I had given it my very best effort. And that was all she ever wanted us to do.