Sex, Lies and Audio Tape

How and when exactly did it become November? I am confused - mainly because it only feels like it's been two minutes since I packed up all my belongings into a transit van and moved to Bootle. And now I've been here for three whole months! That's just bloody insane that is.

Then again, the reason time may be flying past me is because I'm having fun - even if I haven't been falling asleep in the gutters of the North West after wild nights out. I feel as though I've been slowing down recently, taking time to smell the flowers in my garden as it were. I think it's just safe to say that I'm content with my life of writing and writing and writing and baking and laughing at crap TV and the Adam and Joe show on Radio6 with the odd trip to the pub thrown in for good measure. Even bread making has become exciting to me now. I think this means that I'm getting old.

Actually, come to think of it, what do I mean that I think I'm getting old? Let's face facts here, I am getting old. It's my birthday on the 15th November - that's only a fortnight away folks - and I'm going to be the grand old age of TWENTY SEVEN. Jesus. When I was a teenager, I always thought that I'd either be dead, pregnant or editing the NME by now, so in some ways it's a bit of a shock to see that I've managed to get this far without no major catastrophe bar a minor nervous breakdown and a nasty case of eczema currently bubbling away on my right hand.

So yes. My birthday. I have no idea what I'm doing for it yet, but it's probably going to involve going to Manchester and it's definitely going to involve booze. I'm thinking of having some kind of piss-up in the Northern Quarter or thereabouts on the 13th 0r 15th November, probably somewhere like Trof or Odd. If you can read this and get to Manchester, you're invited. Otherwise it's just probably going to be me and mcgazz sat on our own telling each other knob gags. Which is a normal Friday night in for us actually. I'd quite like to go out dancing as well, but a) don't know what's on and b) you can fuck right off if you think I'm stepping foot in either the Star and Garter or Rockworld. I don't know. These things are always bloody complicated, and I usually tend to lose faith as people never can be arsed turning up anyway. Can someone - anyone - organise a birthday shindig for me whilst I just sit in the corner and neck whiskey like a more buxom version of Mark E. Smith?

{-} Man, waiting patiently to hear if you've been successful in nabbing your dream job or not is hard. It's now been three weeks since I had my interview at the Sunday Times, and whilst they did tell me at the time that it would take them 2-3 weeks to inform me of their decision, the more time that passes, the more my patience ebbs away. After all, I'm an impatient little beggar at the best of times, so sitting on my fat backside trying to shove the whole thing to the back of my mind is becoming ever harder with each passing day.
Saying all of this though, I don't know why I'm getting so worked up about it seeing as I know the answer is probably going to be a big fat NO. But still. A girl can dream, can't she? Well, it's either that or finally work up the courage to pick up the phone and just ask them outright if they want me or not.

{+} But still. At least something in my Journalistic career is going well. I had a double page spread in the Food and Drink section of the Independent yesterday which, as you might have seen from my sporadic Twitter or Facebook updates, may just be the highlight of my 27-years-on-this earth. Mainly because it was MASSIVE and situated right in the centre of the paper. Woo-ha!

{-} To celebrate this momentous occasion, I drank a bottle of red wine whilst watching Masterchef last night. Looking back, this might have not been the smartest idea I've ever had - mainly because I'm would currently sell my own (dead) Grandmother in order to get my mitts on a Greggs Steak Bakes. Alas and alack, the chances of me getting one of these in the next few hours is minimal to say the least.

{+} So, who watched Question Time last night then? I know I did, because I think the whole of Bootle may have heard me screaming at my TV "COME ON THEN GRIFFIN! I'M A RACIAL MONGREL! JUST YOU TRY TO DEPORT ME YOU FAT WONK-EYED FUCK!" Something which then made mcgazz threaten to deport me from the living room. Here's the thing right. Griffin is a twat. You know it, I know it, my next door neighbour's cat probably knows it by now. And indeed, he holds some thoroughly objectionable views, and almost certainly shouldn't have been allowed to give them - and his nasty little party - any legitimacy via going on national TV. But what will his Question Time apperance actually achieve? Absolute hee-haw. It's not going to encourage better engagement in politics, hell half of the people who watched Question Time last night are probably not going to watch it again anytime soon. Plus, essentially Griffin is a toothless political force - like a pissed family relative who shouts abuse at Newsnight thinking Jeremy Paxman can not only hear them through the TV set, but also gives a shit about what they think.
Anyway, if you want to read a good view on the whole debacle, I suggest you read Chicken Yoghurt's excellent blog post from yesterday. As for me, I'm off to find the next Liberal bunfight I can stick my oar into. Toodles!

Ahhh last weekend. I had such high hopes for you. I was going to go swimming, and then maybe for a long walk before cleaning the kitchen from top to bottom. I was going to get an early night in preparation for a 9.30am meeting I had this morning. I was going to take a long bath and shave my legs.

Oh good intentions. On Friday afternoon whilst I sat in my pyjamas furiously attempting to finish all of my work for the week, you were my friends. Pity that I managed to do exactly none of the above things (although I did manage to make a cracking Coq au Vin, watched Synth Britannia, read a frankly disappointing Jackie Collins book and laugh my arse off at John & Edward's Titanic themed "Twincest" act on X-Factor) and instead decided to drink far too much cheap wine and write a deliciously cynical piece for The Quietus. It may not have been the best thing I've ever managed to create via the means of alcohol and bile, but I'm pretty pleased with it all the same. Even more so when my editor informed me that 80% of the people who read it thought it was great, and the other 20% thought it was real.

So yes. If you fancy reading it and having a laugh, then please do. If you fancy reading it and telling me off for writing something in the style of the Daily Heil, then I wouldn't blame you for that either (although you may be surprised to discover that it's harder than it looks). And if you're read all of this and still think that it's been written by Jan Moir then we seriously need to sit down and have words.

There's a certain look that people give you when they discover that you live in Bootle. An almost indefinable curling of the lip and raising of an eyebrow. A certain snigger in the voice before they clear their throats and say Golly, that must be very interesting for you, particularly considering how you used to live in Chorlton and all.

Yup, that's right. Interesting. I get that a lot. They're not all that wrong to tell you the truth. I've lived in Bootle for just over two months now, and actually, it has been quite an interesting experience. It's interesting to discover that our local branch of B&M Bargains sells jars of Dulce de Leche and bars of dark chocolate with fleur de sel for the low low price of 50p. It's interesting that we have a local library with one of the best selections of books I've come across in years only a ten minute walk from my house - it's even more interesting that I'm going to be enrolled on a GCSE Spanish course there in November for the low low price of £10. It's interesting that we have a cheap and efficient public transport network situated near us, where I can get into central Liverpool by train in ten minutes flat. It's interesting that I live next to one of the largest docks in Europe which means I'm able to take some brilliant pictures of grain silos, cranes and shipping containers at night. It's fantastically interesting (and culturally enlightening) that it only takes me half an hour to walk to Crosby Beach where I look out across the Irish Sea whilst sat next to one of Anthony Gormley's Iron Men.

Ok, so perhaps I'm being pedantic here. But I'm a firm believer that every so-called-shit-town has something to recommend it, even if it's only the fact that they've got a cracking local chippy situated at the end of their street. I remember when I went to Uni in London, and I told someone who lived in my Halls of Residence that I'd gone to school on the Hulme/Moss Side border. It was like I'd just informed them that I did my A-Levels in downtown Baghdad. Did I ever see any drive-bys? Did I go to school with a knife in my boot? Actually, the worst thing I ever knew of during my time in Hulme was that the ice cream man who used to park his van outside my sixth form college would sell you weed on the sly. They didn't need to know that though - I informed them that the teachers would deal crack during playtimes and my Dad used to drive me to school in a lo-rider.

I think the fact here is that during my (almost twenty seven) years on this earth, I have lived in a lot of places. At one point, I thought my natural state was a nomadic one and I was forever doomed to spend my days shoving all of my worldly possessions into bin-bags and boxes and sleeping in a wide variety of strange beds, all still bearing the indentations of their former occupiers. I've lived in fancy pants flats overlooking canals, a strange broken hearted bedsit on a main London thoroughfare which came with its very own balcony and pair of crutches, a beautiful Victorian terrace house on a Greenwich hill, a council house on a rough South London estate and a bizarre Chorlton house share which contained two cats and a crab, but no curtains. But the place where my heart is happiest is in a small red coloured house in the arse end of Merseyside which continually smells of tea and cigarette smoke, and where I live with a man who appears to be intent on eating his own bodyweight in pasta, who makes me laugh more than I ever thought possible, and who I love unconditionally. And most of all, for the first time in a very long time I feel settled. Right at home.

COMPELLING REASONS NOT TO GET A TRAPPED NERVE IN THE LEFT HAND SIDE OF YOUR FACE. BY CHRISTINA MCDERMOTT AGE 26 AND 3/4

1) You can't smile. Or waggle your eyebrows. Indeed, whenever you attempt to do either of these things, you just end up looking like that Batman villain, Two-Face.

2) It will royally fuck up your tastebuds, so it feels as though the inside of your mouth has been coated with salt. Nothing will be able to eradicate this sensation - be it really spicy Thai food, pints of coca-cola, freshly made loaves of bread, or lovely glasses of delicious Shiraz. Actually, especially lovely glasses of delicious Shiraz. Wonk-face will just made it taste like you've swallowed a big glass of grapey salt, before proceeding to make your stomach start cramping like it's attempting to make an origami puzzle out of itself.

3) Mastication becomes a big old heap of FUN TIMEZ. You can't really spit. Or swish any types of fluid around your mouth without them dribbling out, thereby making you look slightly mental.

4) You get incredibly self conscious, and become scared about leaving the house in case anyone notices your wonk-face, and your fetching accompanying lisp. Which isn't particularly great on a week where you have possibly the biggest job interview of your life.

5) (And this is possibly the shittest reason of all) - Because on a Monday morning where everything suddenly decides to turn to shit, and you spend two hours on the phone screaming at people, not only will you be crying from annoyance and sheer frustration, you'll also be crying from pain.

Hello there readers. How the bloody hell are you? I'm rather hungover - mainly because last night, myself and mcgazz got riotously pissed thanks to the wonderful hospitality afforded to us by my parents and a bottle of Jameson's Whiskey. Ooof. I don't remember getting to bed, but I do faintly remember lying on my back on some grass, and snogging Paul in front of my father's legendary two sheds. I also had a dream in Gaelic. Bear in mind, I only know two phrases of Scottish Gaelic which are a)I like cake and b)Three pounds. So you can imagine what a fantastic bundle of laughs that nocturnal adventure was.

Anyway, this is all by the by. Whilst I could do without being hungover, it's a situation which will be quite easily rectified by a good night's sleep and some marathon viewing of Cycle 6 of America's Next Top Model. However, once again I need your help. As you're all probably very aware by now, I write recipes and general food-related stuff for a wonderful blog called Domestic Sluttery. We're launching our fortnightly newsletter tomorrow which is going to be filled with SUPER EXCLUSIVE CONTENT and which includes a new column from me where I tell you what I have hidden in my store cupboard and why it's ace. (Or at least it will when I get around to writing the thing. Blasted hangovers). Anyway, take my word for it when I say that you really want to sign up for this bad boy. How do you do that? Well, you click on this handy little link which will take you to our homepage, where you'll see a lovely little box telling you where to sign up for our cupcake scented missives. Just put your email address in there, and hey presto! Sluttery on a fortnightly basis. How can you say No to that? Here's a tip. YOU CAN'T.

GOOD:

:: It was mine and mcgazz's one year anniversary last Sunday. We celebrated in typical "us" style by sitting around in our pants all day, sleeping, eating Haggis and Curly Fries, drinking excellent whiskey and watching dirty movies. I was going to write a massive soppy post about how we met, but then I thought better of it because Lord knows you're probably all bored to death listening to me go on about my love life by now. Needless to say, here's to another year. And another. And another.

:: It's only taken me two years, but I can now say that I am a PROPER food Journalist. I knew that hoarding all those recipes and reading all those food blogs on my Google Reader would come to fruition sooner or later. Why the sudden vote of confidence? I hear you ask? Well, because this morning, the Manchester Evening News called me up in a blind panic saying that they would pay me a rather handsome sum of money if I could interview the Hairy Bikers for their Manchester Food and Drink Festival coverage. Being a nice type of writer lady, I told them that I would be more than happy to help out, and very lovely the aforementioned bikers were too. They offered to buy me a pint the next time we were in the same building (something that - coincidentally - Richard Hawley offered to do as well. More of this kind of thing from my interviewees please!) and gave me a rather nice sounding recipe for Portuguese Salt Cod. Cracking stuff. I do so like stretching my genetic heritage to breaking point by packing my body so full of complex salts and fats that it's not sure whether to have a full blown heart attack or just pass out on the spot.
In even more exciting news, I managed to break a proper national newspaper's print food and drink pages last week. Yes readers, I have officially managed to hit the big time, if only because the Independent are paying me money to travel to London at the end of the month to go SCRUMPING. I'm also hoping that this assignment requires me to drink lots of cider, but doesn't involve me climbing (before proceeding to fall out of) any trees.

:: I have Laphroaig (arguably the king of all whiskeys), rather posh dark chocolate with fleur de sel which I found in the Bootle branch of B&M Bargains for the ridiculous price of 49p, and have just discovered an obscene amount of Songs:Ohia material on Spotify. If you hear a vast amount of tuneless howling coming from the Merseyside area, that will be me attempting to sing along. Just throw rocks in my general direction, and I'll probably give up on the idea before it's my bedtime.

:: It's Autumn! Undeniably my favourite of all seasons. I'm particularly loving the Liverpool-Manchester train journey at this time of year, particularly the part of line where the train turns the cover and you see the GRANADA TELEVISION sign looming out of the dusk. It always makes me feel warm and comforted...like I'm home, much in the same way that a fine drizzle on a grey Friday afternoon whilst sitting on the number 50 bus travelling down Oxford Road always makes me feel at peace...

:: ...Although saying that, I went for a long walk around Liverpool Pier Head after running some errands on Monday and wondered how I'd been so ignorant of the beauty of my adopted city for so long. Particularly as I had The Story of the Blues Part 1 by The Mighty Wah on my earphones, and it all felt so right, despite the fact that I openly asked fate what plans it had in store for me as I looked across the water at the Irish Sea. Next time I'd quite like to take my camera with me, and see if I can catch the Liver Birds flapping their wings.

BAD:

:: The past few days have been all about debt, and fear, and more debt, and more fear, leading to a whole host of sleepless nights where I toss and turn whilst fretting about life, work, money and everything inbetween. I'm feeling as though I'm hanging onto things by my fingertips at the moment, and whilst I'm trying desperately to take each day as it comes, that impatient part of me is fed up with waiting for things to happen and just wants to take action, be it for better or for worse.

:: Of course, this means I'm going to have to bite the bullet and email The Sunday Times today to see if they've come to a decision about whether they want me to join their ranks or not. So far, my brilliant strategy for this involves me sending them a request for information before going for a very long walk with just an ipod and a switched off Blackberry for company. I'm pretty much resigned to the fact that whatever's going to happen is just going to happen, and there's not a damn thing I can do to change any of it. But still.

:: I'm currently attempting to read Half of a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. It's a beautifully written book, but my goodness it's grim. Therefore, I'm finding it rather difficult to get through. I've been reading it for a fortnight, and I'm still only halfway through (seeing as I get through a novel a week, this is an incredibly slow pace for me). Have any of you read it? If so, what did you think of it? I'm unwilling to give up on it, but am tempted to go and read something else for a bit and come back to it. Would that count as cheating?

So, I imagine you're all on the edge of your seats wondering how I got on at the Sunday Times on Friday. Well, the answer is, not that badly actually. Granted, I managed to head in completely the wrong direction when I walked out of Tower Hill tube station (cheers for that Blackberry Google Maps!) but thanks to an absolute saint of a London cabbie (who shouted GOOD LUCK DARLIN'! at me when he dropped me off at the gates of News International) I managed to get there a whole ten minutes early. Have any of you ever been to NI's Wapping Headquarters? If so, you'll know that it's a dazzling site filled with buildings made out of chrome, glass and water features, open top buses, and a vast array of billboards. Being the daughter of a man who used to pay his couriers extra to drive through the picket lines during the 1986 Wapping disputes, I couldn't help thinking of my poor Uncle Steve the print despatcher who regularly had to put up with having rocks thrown at him when he was trying to get into the complex to deliver the metal plates for Spot the Ball.

But, going back to the present, the editor of The Sunday Times thinks that I am "a very impressive young woman." I have no idea if this means that I'm going to get a second interview with a section editor or not, but I can assure you that I nearly fell off my chair with shock when I was told this. I know it's daft, but whilst I've always known that I could write pretty damn well, I'd never thought of what I produced as being particularly impressive. And that's not false modesty speaking, that's just...modesty. One thing I do know however is that the competition for the roles is pretty damn fierce. 1500 people applied for the role I'm going for, so quite frankly I feel blessed just to have been invited through the bloody door. So we'll see. I'd be lying if I said I wasn't crossing everything I had two of in hope, but at the same time, I would understand fully if they decided I wasn't the person for them. I should find out at the end of this week. If fate's reading this, help a girl out, will ya?

Apart from my interview, I had a really good few days in London. I ate huge charcoal grilled chicken kebabs in Stoke Newington, waved Hello to my recent past in the Greenwich (whilst being gratified that Tai Won Mein was still there even if (alas!) their food didn't taste as good as I remembered), saw friends and the 18 Carat Love Affair at the truly fucking awful Proud Galleries (word to the wise - where I come from, £8 entry does not constitute a "cheap list"), danced in my bare feet to Power Ballads at the Camden Monarch with Fong and James - getting hammered on Red Stripe and hugging each other whilst screaming along to Since You've Been Gone, ate tasty burgers with new friends in Islington and, despite the worst hangover in the world on Saturday, somehow managed to make it back to Liverpool in one piece only to collapse into the loving arms of mcgazz on my return home.

I've started to warm more to London recently. Me and it haven't always had the best of relationships, and whenever I'm there I always have the stink of failed love affairs and shallow friendships in my nostrils as soon as I step out of Euston station. But recently, it feels like we've called a truce and decided that the past is now just all water under a very large bridge. I do miss it sometimes, the look and feel of pale North London mornings, the glamour and dazzle of Waterloo Bridge at night. As more and more time passes, and more and more memories fade, I'm starting to feel that perhaps at some point, I could learn to love the old place again.

Hello September. Goodness me I'm glad you're here. It's not so much that I dislike Summer, but there's something about it which always tend to mess with the delicate chemistry of my brain. It's hot and sticky, and always fraught with one trial or another. To me, Autumn just feels like a blessed return to the usual way of things. A time to put the gas fire on at night, and snuggle down under an extra layer of blankets. Today I've welcomed it to my door by making soup and sweet treats laden with apples, raisins and cinnamon whilst making sure I remembered to bring my favourite scarf with me when I moved to Liverpool.

Yesterday, mcgazz and I decided to bid farewell to Summer by walking to Crosby Beach and paying a visit to the Iron Men. Despite living next to one of the biggest ports in Europe, I always forget just how close to the sea I am in Bootle. My cheap Primark boots sunk into soft sand whilst Paul explained to me why Swans and Wasps are evil, and we watched loose grains of dust dance across the ground like mini tornadoes whilst seaweed tangled up against the bottom of my jeans, and the smell of salt clung to our hair. Being the middle of the afternoon, the sea looked very far away, like something out of a picture postcard. The beach seemed to want to consume the Iron Men whole - many of them had become submerged in flotsam and jetsam, with barnacles for nipples and bronze for their hides. Someone had thought to dress one of them up in a Prada t-shirt and catalogue belt, and the rust that ran down his face made it look as though we was crying over his plight and the fact he'd ended up as some cheap lottery funded visitor attraction, stuck forever looking out to sea whilst small children pointed and laughed at the size of his penis.

Later on, after pints in a pub that was attempting to play all the Number One hits of the 1980s in sequence, we run home in the rain to the welcoming arms of curry and BBC2. I've taken a real shine to Levi Roots's Caribbean Food Made Easy. You can't fail to smile with Roots, his lust for life and for food is infectious. To me, this is cooking the way it should be. Warm, unpretentious and full of heart, done with love rather than quick fix store bought ingredients. Plus, his Beef Pepper Pot stew looked immense - definitely the kind of thing I shall be attempting to throw together in my kitchen at some point soon.

And this morning it was back to Manchester. Obviously, the weather Gods heard my call, and decided to hold the rain off until I was safely ensconced underneath a sturdy roof. It makes a change. I was starting to think they had it in for me.

Well. Here's something I thought I'd never say - I've never been happier to be back in Liverpool. Alas, my stay here is only a fleeting one, and I'm starting to think that maybe it's time to start saving my pennies so I can purchase a cloning device. If only for the fact that my itinerary for the next week looks something like this:

SUNDAY TO TUESDAY MORNING: Liverpool. Here, I intend to make a rather large Lamb Curry, drink a relatively large amount of booze, tea and other related beverages in the company of my beloved, and (perhaps most importantly of all) start watching the second series of Dexter.
Alas, my time here is not solely devoted to R&R. I've also got to write a feature on Autism for the Big Issue in the North, a book review for The F Word, a blog post for the Greater Manchester Chamber of Commerce and update my big fat professional online writer-lady-profile because a rather exciting potential public sector client appears to have taken a shine to me. Thinking about it, why am I here instead of wrestling with Wordpress?

TUESDAY MORNING TO WEDNESDAY AFTERNOON: Manchester. Look after family business. Feed cats. Experiment with recipes involving sherry considering my parents have a bottle of it on top of their fridge which has been there since Christmas and is just begging to be made into numerous tasty sauces which I can write about for Domestic Sluttery.

WEDNESDAY AFTERNOON TO THURSDAY MORNING: Get hair cut. Go back to Liverpool. Iron interview outfit. Commence panic stations.

THURSDAY MORNING: Embark on epic six-and-a-half hour coach journey to London. Attempt to discover whether it is actually possible to sleep on a National Express bus. Listen to lots of music. Read The Poisonwood Bible. Panic some more.

FRIDAY MORNING: Find The Sunday Times offices. Attempt not to make a total tit out of myself. I have a feeling I may even be forced to smoke a few cigarettes out of sheer unadulterated fear.

Afterwards, I intend to head to Greenwich for the afternoon. I think it might be rude not to pay my old student haunt a visit seeing as I'm going to be in the area. And, if I do screw up, at least I can drown my sorrows in Raspberry Beer at The Greenwich Union. I've been dreaming about the place recently, seeing my former self going past the old clock tower on Royal Hill and walking up to top, stopping at the same old spot where I can watch South East London fizz and bubble underneath me. I once stood at the top of Greenwich Point during the middle of a thunderstorm so I could rage my displeasure at my life in what felt (at that point) like the lap of the Gods. It would kind of churlish to do that at the moment, but I have been missing the place a fair bit recently.

Undoubtedly it's totally changed since I lived there back in 2004, but at the very least, can someone please confirm that Tai Won Mein is still there? Back when I was a student, you could get a massive plate of Sweet and Sour Chicken noodles and a pot of Green Tea for the loose change at the bottom of your bag. Who knows? After one bite of their crispy noodles, perhaps the prospect of potentially moving back to London might not scare me so much after all.

They say that you should never meet people whose work you love. And if you're one of those awful Journalist types, you should certainly never interview them. I learnt this the hard way back in 2007 when I met Gwendoline Riley (aka Manchester's very own Camus in Hot Pants) when I was very very drunk. Regular readers will remember that she got incredibly snippy at my proclamations of love for her first novel Cold Water before proceeding to put her hand down the pants of the lead singer of Maximo Park, a series of events which has meant I've never been able to read a word of her literature with a straight face since.

Saying that though, my faith in Northern creative types was kind of resumed when I was introduced to Guy Garvey by my editor at the Manchester Evening News (although, once again, I was in a bar at 2am and was very very drunk. Can you see a pattern forming here?) Too much whiskey in my bloodstream made all the words I shouldn't say float to the top of my heart, and I ended up inadvertantly blurting out that Elbow's first album never left my cd player in 2004, when I was going through the worst heartbreak of my life. Thankfully, it appeared as though Guy Garvey was as pissed as I was at the time, and swept me up into a bear hug whilst saying "You weren't the only one who nearly died from heartbreak in 2004. We must be heartbreak twins!"

So, it was some trepidation that I approached my interview with my favourite Sheffield troubadour, Richard Hawley earlier on today. It's pretty much impossible to put into words just how much I love that man's music. He makes all the muscles and strings of my heart resonate with that deep baritone of his, a voice which always puts me in mind of grim winter Northern mornings, and the thin watery sunlight which peers through the clouds surrounding the CIS Tower. His album Coles Corner reminds me of moving back to Manchester in 2006 and the first love affair I had there - a flash in the pan kind of love, based around illicit kisses, the promise of bacon sandwiches, and text messages sent whilst I wallowed in bathtubs on warm August nights chain smoking Marlboro Menthols and singing along to the radio. A part of me wanted to thank him for making music so beautiful that it brought tears to my eyes with the first swooping sweeping swell of strings, and I find myself holding my tongue in case I sound like the worst kind of lovestruck teenager.

To tell you the truth, it probably couldn't have come at a worse time. Over the past few days, I've been feeling like a fraud, slowly coming to the realisation that I might have to swallow my pride and return to menial work if I want to keep the bailiffs from my door. It's not a nice sensation knowing that you've failed. I wanted to make working from home work, but it's hard to retain your sanity when from 9am to 5pm you're begging the internet for work with only an Argos bookcase for company. And, me being me, I compare myself with others and want to rip my fingers off when I see them make it look so easy whilst I watch opportunity after opportunity fall through my outstretched hands, and end up crying myself to sleep at night over idiotic things, like burnt rice, or a catalogue dress not fitting over my breasts.

So, I approach the interview with a man who sang me to sleep when my heart was breaking with some trepidation. And he puts me at ease with discussions about the Snake Pass, Yorkshire Tea and fags, the sights and sounds of Manchester, love, loss, music and everything inbetween. And at the end, he says we should meet up for a pint when he's next in town, and I say "Aye, we definitely hook up. Just look for the gobby Mancunian woman with the massive tits." And whilst I cringe inwardly at my own crassness, he just laughs a deep Yorkshire laugh and goes "I will do. You sound like my kind of woman love." And I laugh and laugh and laugh. Because suddenly, life doesn't feel so bad after all.

CONVERSATIONS I HAVE WITH MY PARENTS, PART MANY OF MANY:

:: So Christina, how was your day? Did anything exciting happen?
:: "Not really. Same old same old really. A small child knocked on my door this afternoon to ask me if I was a policeman, Paul came home with the world's largest Tunnocks Tea Cake, and his sister appears to have sent him a Rape Alarm for his birthday."

Cooking makes me happy. When times are hard, you'll always find me in the kitchen, banging pans around, slicing garlic, and meditatively browning meat whilst listening to Radio 4. The smell of spices frying, and mustard seeds popping as they're being dry fried helps to untie all of the gordian knots which make up my daily life. Sometimes I wonder what would happen to me if I stopped worrying about work, or money, or my father's health, or whether Paul is going to get fed up with me being an emotional and fiscal drain on his resources and tell me to pack my bags and hit the road again. I'd think that such a shock to my system would cause me to drop down dead, most probably elbow deep in bread dough.

If seems daft, if not downright churlish to complain about my life at the moment. I've often accused others of suffering from nasty cases of paradise syndrome, a dreadful complaint of the mind, which causes one to moan for hours on end about how terrible their life is, when usually people are all too busy banging down their doors to offer them gifts and accolades. I've always told Paul that if he ever sees me falling into that trap, then he has my express permission to whack me around the head until I get some sense knocked into me. I could use some more work, and some more money, but name me a freelancer who isn't worried about where their next commission is coming from at the moment, and I'll show you a liar. I perhaps spend too much time on my own, with my own thoughts which have a tendency to curdle and creep up on me when I least expect it, but then again, sometimes I think I'd rather spend my day in silence then attempt to engage the ASDA home delivery van in conversation where I'm wearing nothing but a Primark t-shirt and some knickers.

When my email account has fallen silent, and I'm chewing on my nails with fear and frustration, I start hunting around for recipes, and pulling frozen joints of meat out of the freezer. Last night, whilst Paul built a desk and a coffee table, I slaved for two hours over a hot stove to cook a curry from a recipe which was served up to Nelson Mandela when he was in prison. I substituted mustard seeds for cloves, steamed some basmati rice with some cardamon pods in my new rice cooker, sipped £4 Chardonnay and laughed with my mother on the phone. I felt domesticated and light of heart, like nothing would get me down ever again. And then I woke up, and sat down at my laptop, and sent some pitches, and discovered that one client doesn't have any budget left for freelancers, and the other is on holiday for the next three weeks. So I pace the living room, I call my contacts, I pray desperately for some luck and inspiration. And then I clap my hands together and brightly say to no one in particular, so, what shall we have for dinner tonight?

I'm moving to Bootle tomorrow. To live full time with mcgazz. Crikey. If someone had told me a year ago that I would be moving to Liverpool (or that I'd be shacking up with some bloke I met via Livejournal of all things) I would have made the sign of the cross at them. But then again, things change. They move on. As do people I suppose.

I'd be lying if I said I wasn't nervous about it all. After all, I've never lived with a boy who wasn't my father or my brother before. But I'm sure it will all work out and we'll live happily ever after. At least, I hope we do anyway. I fucking hate moving, and Lord knows I can't be arsed selling my flabby arse on the nearest street corner in order to put a deposit down on somewhere.

There a million and one other things about this whole situation I want to put down into words, but frankly, it's 9pm and I still have half of my life scattered around my ankles. In the interim, I must say how pleasing it is to see my boyfriend preparing for my arrival in the style that I deserve.

MAN WITH A VAN? Booked.
NEW HOUSEMATE TO TAKE OVER THE ATTIC? Found. Or at least, will be found. My landlady appears to be very confused as to whether I'm still living in Chorlton or not, despite the fact that I wrote her a very polite letter informing her of when I would be vacating the property. Which she received three weeks ago, and promptly lost. Readers, if this thing I've got with mcgazz ever goes tits up, remind me why house sharing is the pits won't you?
TAX MAN INFORMED OF MOVE? Done.

Yes readers, Operation OH MY GOD, I'M MOVING IN WITH A BOY is officially on. At the moment, my emotions keep going from over the top excitement to pant wetting fear, but then again this is me talking here, and therefore all of this is to be expected. Of course, if I were being sensible then I would be packing all of my belongings into cardboard Morrisons boxes instead of going to Supersonic this weekend, and would have arranged for the deadlines of all of my commissions not to fall on a day where my body will only just be recovering from the non-stop-bat-shit insanity fest which has been the month of July. But you know, those are sensible actions, and Lord knows I have never been known to be sensible.

Of course, I'm sure you'll all be thrilled to hear that with only a week to go until I am an inhabitant of Merseyside, I am currently undertaking some HARD CORE SCOUSE TRAINING. This involves immersing myself in all of the Liverpool based sitcoms my father wouldn't allow us to see when I was a kid, because they were full of moaning, dole-ite bastards. Yes, I know. I KNOW. There's a lovely irony in that isn't there? So far, I'm ploughing through old episodes of Bread, Brookside and (the jewel in Granada Television's crown in 1992) Watching. I'm particularly liking Brookside, I have to say - a programme I only ever watched to watch two girls have a cheeky snog back in 1994. How did I not know that Ricky Tomlinson was in it in the early 1980s? Seriously. I think I must have had a deprived childhood.

I have a new favourite piece of graffiti.



God bless you Bolton.

Hello readers. If you're thinking that it's a little quiet around here, then I apologise. For what it's worth, I am insanely busy at the moment, a situation which is not being helped by the fact that for the next few weeks I am effectively on tour. So, if you need to find me, I'm either going to be in Manchester, Liverpool or London. Which is going to make finding someone to take over my attic in Chorlton a right barrel of laughs, I can tell you.

Anyway, in lieu of a proper entry (which I assure you, will be on its way soon), here are some handy reference points hidden amidst blatant attempts to big up my work:

Where was I when I found out that Michael Jackson had died? Well readers, I was on Twitter wearing nothing but my pants. Sexy, huh? It's a fantastic little vignette to tell the Grandchildren I undoubtedly will never have. Oh, and then I stayed up until 1am having an argument with mcgazz over whether MJ's youngest child was called "Blanket" or "Bucket".

Something which I wrote ALL BY MYSELF is on the Guardian Music blog today! I sm-to put it mildly-very happy about this, particularly as I've been having a fair few doubts over the past few weeks about my ability to write serious pieces of music journalism rather than just throwaway pieces of fluff. As it goes, despite it being quite short, I think it's one of the best things I've ever written-and no, I'm not just saying it because it appears to be generating a fair bit of debate. (Although naturally, that's quite nice as well).

It's the Domestic Sluttery shopping evening tomorrow night! You're all coming, right? Of course you are. How could you even contemplate missing the sight of me in a black cocktail dress dripping in cheap Primark-bought cocktail jewellery? Being a true Domestic goddess, I am training for tomorrow night as I type. Well, if by "training" you mean "sitting around with stubbly legs drinking beer and listening to Kraftwerk" of course.

In a "things you don't really expect to hear" shocker, I've just heard the very sad news that legendary music journalist Steven Wells died on Tuesday.

Swells was one of those journalists who divided people. Either you fully appreciated and liked his raw black sense of humour, and his love of ripping the piss out of anyone who openly wore their hearts and flowers on their sleeve, or you loathed him and everything he stood for. Me? Well, I was always in the former camp. But then again, I always have been a misanthropic curmudgeon. He was one of those writers who I looked up to, and indeed made me want to get into music journalism so I too could get good money for ramming my opinions on the music I loved down people's throats.

It's sad. Somehow I don't think we're ever going to see his like again. At least not in my lifetime. R.I.P Steven Wells. I sincerely hope that they play Daphne and Celeste at your funeral.

Yes, Yes Yes. I know what you're thinking. WOMAN! WHAT ON EARTH ARE YOU DOING POSTING A TERRIFYING GIF OF ALASTAIR DARLING AND GORDON BROWN DOING THE REEVES AND MORTIMER SHOOTING STARS SKANK! Well, it's all a cunning ploy to attract your attention, see, as I have a vitally important announcement to make.

Some of you might know that I write about baking and cooking and various other fripperies for a Home and Lifestyle blog called Domestic Sluttery. (As an aside, if you haven't read it yet, I really do recommend that you do as it does have some absolutely gorgeous stuff on there that I would quite willingly spend all of my money on given half the chance).

Anyway, we're going to be hosting our very own shopping event on the 2nd July at Something which is situated at 58 Lambs Conduit Street in Bloomsbury, LONDON. This is exciting for a whole number of reasons:

I get to dress up as a proper 1950s pin-up girl with a lovely vintage hairdo and a nice floral patterned frock which (hopefully) doesn't make me look like an overstuffed sofa.

We'll be giving away free cupcakes, cocktails and goodie bags.

We'll be holding a raffle for one lovely lucky person to win a £100 voucher for Something.

I'LL BE IN LONDON, BABY! I've been dying to come down and visit people recently, and this provides me with a perfect excuse! It also means I might get to see the Orthodox Jewish ice cream van which James tells me has been driving around Stamford Hill recently.

Anyway. If you'd like to find out a bit more info about this rather spiffing event, then you can do so here. We've also got a Facebook page for the event which can be found here.

So yes. Do come. It would be lovely to see you all, and hey-who can resist free cake?

This weekend involved a lot of firsts. Luckily for me, they were relatively good firsts, and (in what is a rare feat for me), I managed to go out and get utterly shitfaced without falling asleep in a toilet or losing any of my possessions. I really hope this isn't a one off.

ON FRIDAY NIGHT, DESPITE THE EVENING STARTING OFF LIKE THE PLOT OF A CARRY ON FILM (in which our narrator got caught in a storm, her shirt went see-through and she overheard two students on a bus shouting at each other to STOP BEING A RACIST YOU SPAZZ!) I HAD AN ABSOLUTE CRACKER OF A NIGHT OUT:

Mainly because I met up with the internetz infamous annakey triplescience mintlaugh and ninjacodemonkey for some serious fun timez. It was a brilliant night out, and great to put some faces to names. I somehow managed to end the evening in ROCKWORLD (another first for me-somehow I managed to go 26-and-a-half years of my life without ever darkening its doors, but somehow, on Friday night, the allure of bouncing around to prog was too strong), dancing to Hocus Pocus by Focus. I also ate a McDonald's because it seemed like a good idea at the time-a decision I came to seriously regret on the train to Liverpool the following morning. On the plus side, I was given a lift back to my parent's house by a very nice nightbus driver, who managed to park his 42 outside their house. What a dude!

I THEN HAD TO NAVIGATE LIVERPOOL WITH POSSIBLY THE WORST HANGOVER I'VE HAD SINCE THE LAST TIME I WAS REALLY-REALLY HUNGOVER:

This wasn't the easiest of feats for a number of reasons. Namely because it was pissing it down with rain, I was ill, my new shoes were rubbing my feet something rotten, and the Lord Mayor had conveniently decided to hold a parade right in the center of town, the inconsiderate bastard. I had to walk around the town centre in a blind daze attempting to find the right bus to Bootle, and could nearly have kissed it when it eventually arrived.

BUT! I DID GET TO WATCH DIE HARD FOR THE FIRST TIME EVER:

How on earth did I manage to go for so long without seeing it? Ok, so its plot is flimsy at best, and most of the film does just comprise of Bruce Willis (WITH HAIR!) running around barefoot in a dirty vest whilst blowing things up and talking to a man with a minor Twinkie obsession, but somehow it still manages to be bloody brilliant. It might even whisper it! be as good (if not better) than Con Air! (Although Con Air does have less people associated with Harry-fucking-Potter in it, which is a GOOD THING).

OH YES, AND IN LESS ACTION-MOVIE-RELATED-BUT-SLIGHTLY-MORE-LIFE-CHANGING-NEWS:

I'm moving to Liverpool! To live with mcgazz! A real life boy who is in no way related to me, and which I have consensual relations with! Goodness me, this is a first. Yes, I'm going to be packing up my life in various cardboard boxes, waving goodbye to my attic and to Chorlton, and am moving in with my fella. I'd be lying if I said that I wasn't very excited about this. I'm also slightly nervous, but that's another matter altogether. We're being very grown up about it, and are picking out desks and chairs and towels and rice cookers together. I'm still planning to flit to Manchester every so often, and it's not like I'm never going to be around, but at the same time, the thought of starting a new chapter in my life with someone so bloody brilliant makes me want to dance around the nearest large space I have to hand.

So yes. Scouseland here I come. Crikey, that's something I never thought I'd hear myself saying. Another first, eh?