The Hate Mail's Ideal Home Show

I feel dirty enough as it is accepting the Associated dollar but free tickets to the Ideal Home Show? That's just plain filth.

Still, TOH and I braved the Sunday District line and headed to Earl's Court.

Our reward was to witness a double-decker pikey-fest. It full of Northern salesmen trying to flog furniture and garden equipment that simply wouldn't sell in a shop, all the while sounding like Jerry 'The Saint' Sinclair. It was rather like Jim Bowen giving away Bullie's special prize - a caravan for the confused looking darts players who don't even own a car.

One guy tried to sell us a £4,000 electrical bed, which vibrated like a high-performance motorbike, while another got bored with us immediately and said 'if you want to buy this bed, come and find me' and flounced off with an impressive twirl.

As it happens, we are in the market for a new bed. It's me back, you see.

Upstairs (two floors of fun!) was an Essex girl's dream day out. Spray on tan, madam? Nope. Acrylic fingernails? Erm, fuck off. Free gift, madam, if you sign up for a credit card - you don't have to activate it. Gah!

We spent a few amusing minutes watching a French bloke demonstrating a £400 blender, mainly because he kept giving away free food tasters.

A hideous place.

Although I do now covet a waterbed.

Eye, eye

TOH won us a romantic dinner on that floating greenhouse on the Thames, the Bateux restaurant, followed by a spin on the London Eye, all for shifting a few extra boxes of paperclips.

So we had a nice day out.

The boat trip was brief - I guess I am used to cruising the river at narrowboat speeds, ie about walking pace. The Eye was so-so. It was a misty day.

We followed our tourist activities with a visit to the Three Emperors exhibition at the Royal Academy. If you like medieval Chinese stuff, this is the show for you. Plenty of dragon robes, processional paintings and royal seals.


Westminster from the Eye


St Paul's looks more interesting in negative ...


The Hungerford Bridge, forever a special place for me - I fantasised about my first big trip on the old bridge


A misty view over Battersea

Do it yourself

I saw a whole new side to TOH at the weekend. The one he kept well hidden. Yes, inside his designer exterior is a man who CAN weild a power tool and put up shelves.

With the help of the father-in-law, we have totally rebuilt the inside of two of our cupboards, with just one IKEA element. The rest was proper two-by-four-type sawing, drilling and screwing from B&Q.

We were very proud of our efforts. It was an important job seeing how modern living does not provide you with a loft, or garage, or garden shed to store the bulky things like suitcases, rucksacks and tents.

Try out your comedy

Steve and I went to the Comedy Cafe in Rivington Street last night. He decided to drive as it was cold and rainy and miserable.

In order to encourage people to patronise the pubs, restaurants etc in the area Hackney Council has adopted the policy of making parking meters cost 20p for three minutes until 11pm at night.

So we got back in the car and crossed the border into Tower Hamlets, which allows free parking after 5.30pm.

It was tryout night at the cafe. The first three acts were appalling. Give them a round of applause for getting up on stage in front of an audience - an audience is laughing at you, not with you.

As the evening progressed, the acts got better.

Some of my favourite lines:

'Michael Jackson is the perfect Scooby Doo baddie. He hides behind a rubbery face that isn't his, he lives in a disused fairground and he would have got away with it if it weren't for those pesky kids.'

'I was so wasted when I got back to my hotel. I put on the TV and watched one of those old Charlie Chaplin movies. Later I realised it was a documentary about Hitler. What the hell was I laughing at?'

'I love when you get off the Tube at Old Street. The driver says please alight here for Moorfields Eye Hospital. Mind the gap, mind the gap. Now you would have thought if there is one station that shouldn't have a gap between the train and the platform, it would be the one where most passengers are blind, trying to find the largest eye hospital in the country'.

Shark's Teeth

Happy Birthday TOH. The boy is finally a man, turning 30 today.

We spent the weekend marking this milestone with eating, drinking and hunting for shark's teeth.

Saturday, a group of his oldest friends met down by the docks in a surprisingly comfortable hotel bar. A bit neon pink, it is, but perfect for lots of people to sit around and shout at each other.

We were drinking in there last week after watching the Khan fight at ExCel. It was full of coked up twats then though, who all thought they were a bit tasty. One came over to me and Katie and tried to chat us up, despite the fact our husband/boyfriend were standing about two metres away. That didn't deter him, and we had to be polite for about half hour until he got the message.

Anyway, to break up the birthday drinking we went to Super Star for yummy Chinese food. Despite being a bit unimpressed with my plans to embarass TOH the staff did us proud by covering their menus with photos of him looking very geeky as a child, and bringing out a cake which I baked in the afternoon (domestic goddess!).

Sunday, we nursed a massive hangover for quite some time. Eventually, when the danger had passed, we ventured out into the big, bright wide world and headed for Lesnes Wood in Erith.

We used the Woolwich Ferry to cross the Thames, which was quite exciting; I've not been on that since I was a kid, and drove up to the wood. There, in a sandy bed on the highest point, we hunted for fossils by poking the ground with sticks. And we managed to find two sharks' teeth, which fell out of their jaws about 54million years ago!

But the fun couldn't last. This morning, after some breakfast present opening, it was back to work. Today is TOH's actual birthday, which will be spent selling paperclips in bulk.