Is that a bolt cutter?

I wreaked havoc in the Virgin Active at Moorgate on Sunday.

I use a padlock for my locker and wear the key on my shoelace. Well, that's the theory. After many close calls (almost lost the key down the drain in the shower once) it finally happened. At the start of a 7K run on the treadmill.

My shoe lace came undone (in spite of a double knot) and the key went flying into the inner workings of the machine. I stopped, and on the off chance that it had slid under the treadmill, I prostrated myself several times, all around it, to peer underneath (it mostly looked like dust, but was hard to tell without my glasses...)

I didn't find the key. Undeterred, I remounted my treadmill, finished the 7K, and for good measure performed another round of prostrations.

No key.

The duty manager was a jolly South African. He found the whole incident rather funny. He too did a round of prostrations (to the concern of the member who was now using the treadmill).

No key.

So he went to get the bolt cutters.

Today I have an audition for some advertising posters for a big telecom company. The breakdown reads "mother, can be quirky but not too much (there's that word again), should have reasonable length hair as we will be using a wind machine..."

Eat my Caviar Baby!!!

I think that eating nothing but chocolate and gorging on wraps and pitta bread and all things carby and beige is particularly reasonable and well within the rules. As is drinking myself to death. Sleeping with 5 men at a time (it helps if they are used to playing a team contact sport - well apparently.) And not paying my taxes. I think that the rules clearly state that what is yours in mine and what is mine is mine as well. And the tax office can suck my proverbial big fat one. I'm gonna claim for every fart and belch and claim double during bank holidays.

I also think that it is perfectly reasonable to be living at the tax-payer's expense. As is swinging from a claimed-for crystal chandelier like something out of Eyes Wide Shut, or rolling around in (fresh) horse manure - naked.

And poor people who can't afford these things should stop whingeing and can earn some dough by coming around to clean my swimming pool, or my moat. Their choice.

The serial revelations courtesy of The Telegraph would be hilarious if they weren't so horrifically predictable and bang on stereotype. The subtle irony of the revelations is inspired: who would have thought that expense claims could be bi-partisan and reflect social background so accurately? Based on The Telegraph's report, Labour MP's are big on middleclass pre-occupations: buying and selling property. Tory MP's on the other hand - presumably because they already live in the family mansion - are more likely to claim for crystal chandeliers, moat cleaning, tennis courts, swimming pools and horse manure (the latter presumably to fling at would-be trespassing ramblers).

Of course, if you're the Queen, you're happy to eat out of tupperware containers. But that's breeding for you. Not something money can buy. (Not to be confused with Honours... just look at the House of Lords.)