Michael Gove has told the Tory Party Conference that he was merely following the advice to Dance Like There’s Nobody Watching, but unfortunately there was, and they had cameras.
I have every sympathy, because it happened to me once, during a night which it appears from the photographic evidence that I enjoyed very much, although obviously my recollection is limited. It started off as a night at work, and all it took was one reckless decision, and it turned into Grease Megamix Karaoke and a terrible hangover.
I am very glad it is long in my past, poor Michael Gove.
I am following the Conference without interest, but with some envy, because they are staying in my beloved Midland Hotel. Life is a bit rainily bleak here at the moment, so I am trying to ignore the whispering yearning suggesting to me that I could be there as well.
Probably not attending the Tory Party Conference, which is dull even when all you see is the most exciting highlights in the newspaper, but perhaps curled up on a chair in their beautiful lounge, drinking champagne and eating their sweet pastries.
The hotel puts these out for the wonderfully pampered British Airways crews, but they are so used to luxury that they rarely bother, and so the hotel just leaves them lying about in the lounge. If you happen to be there at the right time they are quite happy for you to help yourself, which is lovely, and contributes to my January waistline-related anxiety.
Anyway, I am not in the Midland listening to Rishi Sunak promising that he only has our best interests at heart and that he is going to stop naughty Boris from spending any more money on us. We will thank him later, really.
Instead I am on the taxi rank, watching the rain hurling down, and eating chocolate cake liberally drenched in brandy, which is making a tiny part of me wonder if January might be too late, and I ought now to consider restarting my investment in the PamperMeLoveliness PersonalWellbeing Health spa and gym.
I think perhaps that need to do something, because I feel as if I am being very idle at the moment. I have had one of those dreadful days which involved spending a great deal of it in front of the computer, and now I feel both flabby and dull.
I do not at all like days like this, but somehow in the torrential rain this morning I could not find the enthusiasm to do anything else very much. I had some emails to send, and some taxi insurance to sort out, and the next episode to write in my current ongoing squabble with OneCom, who are our mobile telephone providers.
Do not use them for your mobile phones. They are rotters, and rubbish into the bargain, although do have the advantage of speaking fluent English. I am pleased to note that at least they are ignoring my complaints because they don’t care, rather than because they don’t understand what on earth I am going on about.
I can’t be bothered to tell you the tedious details, because they are so unspeakably boring that the Tory Party Conference looks gripping in comparison. Suffice to say that it has given me a headache, and a dreary grumpy feeling.
I am still feeling grumpy even now, hours later, because I feel as though my day has been wasted, which of course it has. When I imagined the thrilling adventures of adult life, sitting on the telephone talking about my No Claims Bonus did not feature. The insurance has occupied a great deal of my day, and at the end of it all I have probably saved a hundred quid. This sounds like a very lot, but when set against the massive total it isn’t really.
The only bright spot was that whilst sitting on endless Hold trying to ignore cheery music, I managed to read quite a substantial amount of the extract given to us for discussion during the first university lecture, next week. This has been sent to us online, and we are not supposed to try and find out from which book it has been taken. This is tiresome, because I would very much like to know what happens next.
Perhaps I will find out next week.
Mark was not telephoning insurance companies. He was installing rural broadband in the rain.
When he telephoned at lunchtime he agreed that life had become a bit doleful, and reminded me of some nice things that we have been saving for this very sort of minute.
When it was our birthdays, long, long ago in the bright days of summer, my parents gave me a voucher for a massage, and the children gave us a voucher for an afternoon tea at the Old England Hotel, which is one of the nicest hotels in the village, and indeed, home to the BeautifulMe HolisticTranquillity Health Spa.
We have been saving these, partly until all the tourists have buzzed off, and partly until we are broke and in need of something lovely.
We have decided that this bleak moment is the very time to use them.
We are going to go this very week and dispel the autumn gloom with excess and hedonism.
It is a great encouragement, and my world is suddenly looking much brighter.
Happy birthday to us.
