Big storm round here yesterday. Katie. That’s what ‘she’ was called. They gave it a girl’s name because it was really fucking vicious and nasty and bitchy. Caused havoc. Stopped planes landing at Heathrow, brought the M25 to a close, blew over… stuff, stopped me playing tennis and blew the table over in the garden. Havoc. But when did they start naming the storms? We know Katarina, we’ve had Alex, Jane, all sorts. In the old days they were all called Gail.

But that storm’s over now. We’ll await Lara, Lexie, Louise or Lumpen. Its a beautiful morning in London and probably all over peaceful, loving, safe Europe. Whereas in Donald Trump’s America they’re in panic. Lock-down. High alert.

The irony (if ONLY Americans got it) is just so exquisite and as no-one got hurt badly we can really laugh. Trump tells Americans not to come to Europe. Its dangerous. Terrorists. The very next day some fucking loony bozo starts shooting in the Capitol building in Washington.

And a few little ‘facts’ for Donald. More people have died in America from random shootings than have died in Europe from terrorism. Its true. Heard it on the radio yesterday. Can’t remember all those numbers and I don’t care. You’re bothered, go look it up. And as a Repbublican (the party funded by the gun lobby) we know all the rest of his opinion on guns that he hasn’t screamed from the hustings already. How can you shoot all the Mexicans and Muslims if you don’t arm up??

Have you ever done ‘spin’? Its an exercise activity in which you sit on a pretend bike and… errr… spin. You pedal. To music. Loud, pounding music. Which is supposed to keep your pedalling in time. I did a class last night. With Mel, a frequent spinner. I was the only lycra-free person in the room. Perhaps that’s why I found it so horrible. But as I only have one tattoo and it reads: DEATH BEFORE LYCRA!!!! I would be a hypocrite to have worn a pair of testicle-squeezing shorts that I don’t possess.

“OK!!!!” roared Hilly, our leader, our guru, our coach, our lord and mistress, who, for the purposes of her class only speaks in capitals with lots of exclamation marks. “GET READY FOR THE RACE!!!!” but I’m already pedalling my kishkes out; I need to go faster? “TURN IT UPPPPP!!!!!” (that’s the resistance, she means, to make pedalling harder) “WE’RE RACING UP A HILL; IN 3… 2… 1… PEDAL LIKE SHIIIIIIIIITTTTTTTTT!!!!!!!” And everyone dutifully stands on their pedals and goes fucking mental. The sweat pours, literally pours and I feel exhilarated, I feel free, I feel… I feel sick and want to die. At least that’s quick. Unlike spin which lasts 45 agonising minutes. But feels much, much longer.

At the end I realised I hadn’t died. Even though I’d been wishing for it for 44 minutes. And everyone’s great and happy and ‘woooow!!’. Its one of those activities that you do for how you feel afterwards. I like activities that I enjoy ‘during’. Retrospective pleasure motivated by guilt can only get you so far, how ever many calories you burn. I’ll stick to bridge.

Happy Tuesday

A xxxx