It's quite a spread, this Friday.

Appetizer
Choose one: moving to another state, having triplets, or never being able to eat chocolate again.

I would choose option number three. I love living in London, despite the incessant whining about the tube that seems to go on here. For the moment I wouldn't permanently live anywhere else.

Triplets? Are you kidding? That's like, three whole babies. Whole ones. I couldn't cope with one half a one, let alone three whole ones.

Chocolate I could live without. I would miss it, it would be more on a par with missing a friend, a close friend who makes me feel nice and whom I trust and can turn to in a crisis, but who ultimately makes me fat. That is possibly where the analogy falls down.


Soup
Name a news story that truly shocked you.

I remember when Terry Waite was being held hostage in Beiruit, and how horrified I was about it. He was released in 1991, when I was nine years old. I must have gained consciousness of his situation well after he was actually first captured in 1987, because I was five then.

My family aren't religious. Neither my sisters nor I were christened and church-going wasn't a part of my family routine. I do have a clear memory of begging my Dad to take me to a special Terry Waite service they were holding at the church down the road from us. I'm still not sure quite why it affected me so much, or why I was so very desperate to contribute my little girl prayers to that particular situation. I have a very clear memory of standing up in the pew, being dwarfed by grown-ups in a way that is very particular to being a child in a chuch, and praying with all my might that Terry Waite would be saved.

Of course there is plenty in the news everyday that is shocking and horrifying. To start picking and choosing particular events would be to perhaps diminish the significance of ones that are left out. I can still recall so clearly, however, that first time I was shocked to the core about something that was happening to someone else, thousands of miles away. I find it interesting that my child-like impulse in the face of feeling futile and helpless was to turn to a higher power, to ask for help from a God I don't think I even believed in then.

Salad
What was your very first job?

When I was seven I set up a stall in my room, offering to do odd jobs in return for contributions to the World Wildlife Fund. I didn't declare it to the Inland Revenue, though, so I won't go into that any further.

My first real job was when I was sixteen, working behind the bar in the local rugby club. I liked pulling pints and the banter, but I didn't like the fact that there was no adding-up mechanism on the till, so I had to remember what someone ordered and add it all up as I went along. I am perhaps not great at pressured mental arithmetic. "Ok, so you had four pints of Stella, three of John Smith, half a lager top, one and a half ciders, a double vodka and Coke, no, sorry Diet Coke, and a pint of lime and soda. That's...um...sorry... three fifty plus... um... divide that by...um... six... carry the four...oh shit...Fifteen pounds exactly, would you believe it! Thanks! Next?"

I sometimes wonder quite how much money they lost by employing me. I had big boobs, though, and that's surely compensation enough.

Main Course
If you had the chance to read the diary of someone you're really close to, would you? Why or why not?

No I wouldn't. When I first read this question I assumed that my answer would be a resounding "hell yeah!", but upon thinking about it I'm going with no.

People show the elements of themselves that they choose to. I don't mean that I would rather not know my friends and loved ones and pets in a complete and intimate way, but I would like that to be of their volition. There is, of course, the matter of trust as well. I trust the people I love to be honest with me in as full a way as they can be, and that's enough.

Also if they had sex stuff in there it might make me feel a bit sick.

People tell what they need to, and I am a very trustworthy person. I don't think that, I know that.

(So far in this post I have bigged myself up the following manners:
- I am a sensitive caring person and have been since I was young.
- I am a trustworthy friend and wonderful and possibly hip.
- I have big boobs.
I am very arrogant, though, and can't do pressured mental arithmetic, so even I am not perfect. Not QUITE perfect. It's a close call, though.)



Dessert
What's something you're looking forward to?

Oh, loads of stuff. In the short term I am looking forward to finishing this post so I can go and make myself a coffee. Then after that I am looking forward to seeing some people tomorrow who I haven't seen for way too long, at my friend Helen's engagement dinner. Then Sunday, when I am going to have a lovely time doing something fun with my boyfriend.

In terms of that, you know, the boyfriend thing, I am looking forward to seeing where that goes. I am sort of relaxed about it. Hear that? Relaxed! I like him and he likes me. I don't feel the need to see him all the time, in fact I love the fact that we both have such full and busy lives that we are just seeing each other when we can, and speaking on the phone a bit and texting each other. It feels so healthy and fun.

Perhaps because I am looking forward to so many things. In a couple of weeks I have a day off work and I'm going to meet my friend Andy, who is perhaps the most talented musician I have ever met, and we are going to develop the songs I have been writing. There are seven completed songs, and I'm so excited to see where we can take them. I've written them with just the vocal, recorded them onto my IMac and moulded them to how I want them. When I play them I can hear how I want them to sound as completed tracks, but I need a brilliant collaborator to make it happen. After they are developed I want to showcase them at open mic nights and then set about organising proper gigs for myself, in which I am performing my own songs. I am so very excited about that.

I am looking forward to summer, to the weather being nicer. I'm looking forward to going surfing in Biarritz in France with the same group of people I went on the weekend away with a couple of weeks ago. I'm looking forward to fixing the A string on my cello so I can play it again.

I'm looking forward to this spot on my forehead disappearing.

I'm looking forward to lunch today, because I get paid today and so I'm bloody well going to have something nice.

I'm looking forward to next Saturday, when we are throwing a flat-warming party.

I'm looking forward to doing a musical in the summer with some friends.

I am actually full of looking-forwardness. To the very brim.

Right, time for the first batch of looking-forwarding to come to fruition. The coffee.