Every time someone asks me where I’m from, or where I’m going for Christmas, or, as has been the case lately, where I’m moving to…and I say, Zambia…I get asked, where is that…what’s it like there…do you have zebras in your backyard? To this last one I usually respond, “no, we don’t because our lions would eat them…do you have bears in yours?” To explain where it is, I make strange movements and outlines in the air and point to somewhere in the middle…but what’s it like there? This one I’ve never really known how to answer. Erm, it’s green…it rains sometimes…and every once in a while you come across a traffic light that works? (Although you probably want to look both ways in any case as most people don’t really know what to do when they work…)

Oh, they’ll say…continuing on the topic of traffic…what side of the road do you drive on? Well, it’s a former British colony, so technically…on the left. In practice however, we drive on whichever side of the road has less potholes. And in the rainy, muddy, puddly season, when they’re all full of water, I tend to just follow whatever tracks in the mud suggest someone made it to the other side. You never really know how deep they go. Nor, for that matter, what’s in them…

But speaking of water…its funny how many people assume Zambia is on the coast. “You’re going to Zambia? Awesome! Bet you’ll enjoy the beaches!” Uh-oh. Where to begin. The only “beach” we have is the one that lines the man-made lake Kariba. And despite its being man made…(don’t worry I was confused by this too – when I was like four)…it is full of crocodiles. So I’m not really keen to ‘enjoy’ it, unless someone has offered me the opportunity to do so on top of a solid boat with a solid drink. Perhaps, you’re confusing it with Gambia, I might say. “Oh, yes, yes, that must be it.” Yeah right buddy…nice “save”…but if you haven’t heard of Zambia, you certainly haven’t heard of Gambia. Its so tiny it barely exists! And need I add…their team ain’t never won no African Cup of Nations trophy. Chipolopolo…iyeeeeee!

Chipolopolo is the nickname of the Zambian football team and it means “copper bullets.” I was totally hoping that their recent win would mean everyone had now heard of Zambia…but the problem is, not everyone watched or has even heard of the Africa Cup…so I’ll have to keep answering the questions. Yes, we export copper…yes there are a lot of mines…no, there are no diamonds in them…we also export sugar, maize, roses…ostrich leather….zzzzzzzz…

What’s up with that? Why do people assume that I have a working knowledge of the import/export list? Google it, dude. Most Americans, Brits or French people probably don’t have a clue what their countries’ ports are up to, but I, because I’m from Zambia or Gambia or whatever, should? We could export embalmed baby fingers for all I care. At this rate though, one thing is clear. We export that intangible, but clearly priceless, good - an education in geography.

1. If living in London, don’t ever travel to the US. When you come back, shit’s gonna look really small.

2. Also, if you do go to the US, make sure you call Barclays and let them know you’re going. Otherwise you’ll get a 4am phone call from some Deepak in some Pakistani call centre who needs you to verify the last 47 transactions you’ve made. £65 duty free, £2.37 iTunes, zzzzzzz….

3. One more thing…if you are flying to the US you actually do have to show up to the airport 2 hours early. That’s how long it will take 76 people to ask you if there’s any reason to believe someone could have tampered with your bags between the time you put them in the cab…and er, the time you took them out.

4. There is a downside to living in Chelsea after all. You bump into the cast of Made in Chelsea all the time. Ick. I don’t know what bothers me more, the fact that they’re stupid, the fact that they’re ugly, or the fact that they’re ugly and all they do is tell each other they’re beautiful. Did I mention…? Ick.

5. Do not fall for all that 3-for-2 business. There’s simply no way you’ll get through 24 eggs in one week. Boil, poach, fry, whisk, bake…they may offer a lot of possibilities…it still gets nauseating.

6. So, like, at some point in July, there is a nude cycling race or parade in Hyde Park. Go.

7. The idea of Barclays bikes isn’t quite so rosy in practice. Imagine getting into a steel truck from 1964, without doors or windows or rear view mirrors, and then driving. That’s kind of what its like.

8. “Hell, if they come here tonight, I’ll come back and join them!” Things not to say to a Waitrose cashier on the night of the riots.

9. “Riverside” or “riverfront” is not the same thing as “riverview” apartment. Unless the word view is in there somewhere, all that flat listing means is there’s a vague waft of the dirty Thames coming in from somewhere nearby.

10. One Man, Two Guvnors. Best play of the year. If you haven’t yet – go see it.

11. When you arrange a time with a moving van to come and pick up your boxes, make sure you’re there all day anyway. They could show up four hours early and make you run through Hammersmith from what was a perfectly enjoyable brunch.

12. On the topic of Brunch – hit up the Riding House Café – it seems to be one of the few places that can poach a good egg and avoid the silly garnish that “justifies” charging £15.

13. Also, they do a gin-infused earl grey. Need I say more?

14. Don’t throw your cigarette butts on the street. No, I’m not being a tree-hugger here…I’m helping you avoid a £75 fine.

15. Or, if you do throw one on the street, make sure someone in bright neon isn’t looking you straight in the eye as you do.

16. And then, if you do get fined and the only form of ID you have is a bank card with just a first initial, make up another first name. Arabella won’t cut it.

17. Before going into a mobile service provider to ask a question or make a complaint, have a good, strong, long, drink.

18. If someone asks you whether you like cats, don’t say “only when they’re around my neck.” Especially during a job interview.

19. Don’t wait for the last week of an exhibition to go see it. Standing in a line with German tourists when its 2 degrees outside will really put your love of Canaletto to the test.

20. When you grab an envelope in the post office and then wait in line for half an hour, don’t forget to tell the guy you need to pay for the envelope too. Ok whatever, I steal envelopes.

21. Don’t eat at The Real Greek. Ever. The Souvlaki on the Mezze menu “recommended for sharing” is actually only three pieces of chicken on a stick. Ergo, not made for sharing. And incidentally, not made for digesting either.

22. After three years in London, nine different apartments and something like 87 flat viewings I still haven’t learned all the important things to ask when considering a flat. “Does the neighbor have a piano?” and “does she turn into Amy Winehouse at 2 in the morning?” are essential questions. Whine bloody house indeed.

23. There’s one place and one place only in London to buy chicken. Union Market, Fulham Broadway. That stuff is like the iPad2 of chickens. Does everything that the iPad1 does, but better.

24. When someone hands you a business card that says “Big Head Consulting,” walk away first, and then laugh.

25. Ok so this isn’t something I’ve learned yet…but I would like to. Why is the difference between a Brazilian wax and a Hollywood wax £15 pounds? Its like someone charging you £10,000 to knock down an entire house, and then another £5,000 just to remove the door.

26. Also, on the topic of waxing and learning. That whole back-sack-crack thing…I can picture the back and the crack, but how exactly does it work for the sack?

27. Yes, I did just Google that. Sadly, nothing.

28. When the dry cleaner apologises for not having your trousers ready and then promises to deliver them before you leave for the airport at 7am, don’t believe him. Bastard.

29. When investing in a pair of heels, don’t pay as much attention to the price as you do to the height. When all you can do in them is lie on your back with your feet in the air, they won’t do much good. On second thought…

30. When a man surprises you with an out-of-town weekend at a spa, make sure you double check the spa bookings once the ooh and the aah of the surprise are done. Back facials aren’t really on the top of my priority list.

31. It costs over £200 to remove a wisdom tooth. Nope, haven’t done it yet. Plan on just spending that on painkillers and praying for it to fall out.

32. When you go to the A&E wing of the hospital because your stupid NHS place couldn’t book you in and the doctor asks how long you’ve had the problem…don’t say “three days.” It needs to at least sound like an emergency even if it doesn’t look like one.

33. Don’t sign up for discount and special offer mailing lists that will clog your inbox well before 5am everyday. Just make friends with someone who’ll trawl through them all and pass on what’s interesting.

34. When you go to the Genius Bar at the Apple store, play dumb, say you don’t know what’s happening and insist on a new one. It usually works.

35. Big revelation. Waitrose is not the best supermarket after all. Sometimes their shelves are empty and the one box of blueberries you do manage to find tastes like sand. Go for the little delis and old-school grocers who still believe that fruit should taste like fruit, not just look like it.

36. When your get into work a bit disheveled and your boss leadingly asks you how your night was, don’t say “its still going…”

37. Princi, Wardour Street. Heaven.

38. If you’re going to argue about the bill, try doing so before you pay it.

39. Stop buying shit.

40. Seriously, you do not need an apron from Selfridges.

41. When wearing a short dress or skirt, do not take the tube. That gust of wind blowing up the escalator can make it look like you’re wearing neither.

42. Hate to give away this secret…but there is actually one incredible place where you can smoke and sit in a comfortable chair and drink a fabulous drink all at the same time. Its called the Lancaster Hotel.

43. Find a sponsor.

44. Learn the phonetic alphabet. V for Victor, not Vagina.

45. Working in Chelsea may be great and let you avoid the chaos of Oxford Circus…but it could also mean that what you spend on weekday lunches ends up equating to erm, your monthly salary.

46. Taking a change of weather as a reasonable excuse to drink…bad idea.

47. If you’re the one asking the questions during a job interview…you can be pretty sure you’ve already got it, and even more sure its not paid.

48. “But I can take a cab to Heathrow!” – Not a valid excuse to live in SW.

49. Just because a bar happens to be famous for a drink called “The Flaming Lamborghini” doesn’t mean you have to try one.

50. There’s a reason why Starbucks coffee cups say “Caution: Hot” on them. They are f@#$%& HOT!

51. There’s a place called Kaffeine on Great Titchfield Street where they actually know what temperature coffee is supposed to be. Yum!

52. If there are no tables available outside…just wait for one conveniently in the way of all the waiters serving food outside and they’ll quickly arrange for one.

53. Do you have a reservation? The answer is always YES.

54. If you can vacuum your entire apartment without having to unplug the vacuum cleaner…there’s a problem.

55. If you decide to cancel your gym membership, make sure you make that decision three months in advance. It takes more notice to quit the gym than it does to quit an executive job.

56. That whole visa sponsorship rule that says a company needs to prove you’re irreplaceable basically means you need to be sleeping with the boss. And doing it well.

57. When you leave home in the morning with a handbag that seems just light enough to manage, you can be pretty sure you’ll be coming home with what seems like a pile of bricks.

58. “It’s on me!” Three words you should never say.

59. Especially, four times in a row.

60. If you live on a street level apartment with big windows, don’t forget that you live on a street level apartment with big windows when you get out of the shower and have your Flashdance moment.

61. Especially if that street level apartment happens to be across from a church.

62. And it’s a Sunday.

63. IKEA furniture may be cool, and cheap, and neatly packaged…but it still doesn’t carry itself.

64. Top up your friggin’ Oyster Card! £2.20 for the bus may be ok once or twice…but by the twentieth time…

65. Notice how every movie filmed in London has at least one rainy scene? There’s a reason for that.

66. You know all those free newspapers you pick up on the tube? Throw them out before you get home. Otherwise you end up living in the Evening Standard’s warehouse.

67. Thursday night is not party night anymore. Your student days are over, kiddo.

68. You don’t actually need SKY to have good TV. Last week I caught Scarface, Goodfella’s, Casino and Carlito’s Way all in a row.

69. Stop watching cult movies that begin at midnight. Once again, your student days are over. Kiddo.

70. Just because tickets to Paris happen to cost £69…you don’t have to take it as some twisted sign that you’re meant to buy them.

71. I’m going to Paris next month! Yey!

72. Sorry, getting side-tracked. If you’re missing France and could use a little fix…there’s an amazing little deli on Fulham Road called Le Pascalou. They speak French, everything is delicious and deliciously expensive.

73. On second thought, don’t spend hundreds on foie gras and truffles, just buy a ticket to Paris.

74. Apparently “fish pedicures” are the latest thing. Ick. I am not paying money for fish to feed on my dead skin! What’s wrong with you people!

75. When a man asks you if you’re any good at cutting hair, don’t say I’ve done it once, or I could give it a try, or anything other than no. One Burt Reynolds in the world was enough.

76. Learn to bake something your friends love. That way whenever you need a favour, you can say, “I’ll make you beer bread……..”

77. Don’t buy £40 candles from Diptyque. Just find someone who travels to New York and order them from Henri Bendel. Bigger, better, cheaper!

78. All that shit they say about oven cleaner is true. It gets rid of everything! Even your sponge!

79. Working in the diamond industry is hardly as glamorous as it seems.

80. When you wake up in an artist’s tent in Hackney at 5am…

81. Scratch that, just avoid Frieze parties.

82. Christmas in London…bad idea.

83. Which reminds me…if moving in winter, check the weather forecast before you settle on your move-in date. Watching one Add Lee driver after another refuse to take your shit is like being the ugly girl at a school dance.

84. If you decide to impress your friends with a giant salt-baked salmon for dinner…make sure you buy one that fits in the oven, genius.

85. Likewise, if you go out and buy a huge duck, plan on buying a huge pot too.

86. And not from Le Creuset. Oops!

87. Next time just take your friends out to dinner – it may well be cheaper.

88. I heart Partridges. Its like the Ralph Lauren of food.

89. La Duree macarons are nothing compared to Pierre Herme. Selfridges food hall baby. That’s where its at.

90. If you decide to leave your stuff overnight in the gym locker even though its not allowed…make sure you don’t forget the key at home. That defies the whole purpose. Dufus.

91. If your flight leaves from Heathrow at 6am….there’s no point showing up before 5. The security gates aren’t even open yet.

92. You know that place Pizza Express? Walk expressly past it.

93. If you were wondering how some of your friends maintain their work hard, party hard lifestyles for months and months on end…drugs.

94. If you have a garden and your neighbour’s a gardener, befriend him.

95. Although, don’t do so by saying, “excuse me, would you like to cut my bush?”

96. If the neighbour’s cat hangs around outside your door, don’t be flattered and think it’s because you make good fish. It might mean you have rats.

97. When you go into an amazing florist, the prices you see…6.75, 8.25…9…are the prices per stem.

98. Stop buying flowers. Just invest in some good fake ones and put them in water, wink.

99. If a client of yours is the owner of a famous French restaurant and asks you if you’ve eaten there…say no! Damnit!

100. And on that note…London may not be famous for its men. But don’t forget that all the good ones from Paris are here. A toute!

Everyday when I leave work, I wait for the bus at a stop where I invariably end up staring into the shop window of a funeral home that advertises ‘horse drawn funerals.’ And while I work at a creative agency and am presented with the task of providing some form of creative solution all day long, nothing is quite so stimulating as that moment when I leave the office, arrive in front of the funeral home, and begin where I left off yesterday…wondering, who in their right mind, dead or alive, would want a horse drawn funeral.

Now, before I get into trouble with some or other reader who might write to me offended tomorrow telling me their great aunt was taken to the cemetery by half a dozen gallant steed, I must clarify that my initial stupefaction at the idea of these horse drawn funerals stems from the neighbourhood in which this funeral home is found. You see, I imagine horse drawn funerals to be rather a regal affair, befitting dukes and princes and yards of purple velvet, and while this neighbourhood surely has at least a bloke or two that goes by the name of Prince or Duke, that’s about as majestic as it gets. Welcome to North End Road.

In the last four days alone I have seen two street fights (live!)—one involving a cricket bat which shattered to pieces upon impact with someone’s head, and the other, by comparison quite meek, only involving some aerodynamic groceries. (2 for 1! Flying tomatoes!) Not to mention that the people who get on the bus with me daily were all portrait subjects of Diane Arbus in a previous life. That, or, there’s a mental institution at one of the stops. From the tattooed women clad in head-to-toe neon velour who blow smoke into their children’s eyes, to the nine-year-old girls in fishnets ‘desperately in need of a fag innit,’ they are all, in their own way, nothing short of mesmerizing. The £2.20 I pay for my ride is a right steal for the show.

And so, day after day, when they have sufficiently intrigued and then annoyed me, I cannot help picturing them, one by one, in a horse drawn coffin…trotting down that road…with the horses tripping over the pumpkins from the vegetable stand that was just knocked over by yet another fight. I like to imagine that if fairytales were ever set anywhere other than the hills of Austria or forests of West Germany, they’d be set here.

When a tired old man, complete with cane and Reebok open-toed slippers lumbers onto the bus, I sometimes imagine he’s just finished writing his will…divvying up the estate of his West Ken council flat between three greedy sons and two even greedier mistresses, at the end of which, he had one long pensive gaze and added, ‘right, don’t drink too much and please, make sure I’m whisked off on hoof.” In the event he didn’t specify it in his will…I envision his teary-eyed wife, looking up from his bluing corpse at the mortician and asking, “how much for them ponies then mate?”

Maybe it isn’t a wife or family member in charge, but just a friend, still trippin’ on whatever his mate OD’d on yesterday, who stands up with his eyes all glistening and exclaims, “YES! HORSES! LET THERE BE HORSES!” And then I can’t help but wonder, do they answer the funeral home phone saying, “Good morning, horse or herse?” Or…what if its just a typo? What if the dude who was sticking the ad in the window letter by letter, ran out of E’s and thought, ‘eh, bugger it, I’ll throw in an O instead, no one will notice…”

And so, with these and other musings, my bus journey flies by and I’m home in no time. Or so it did, until today…when, for the first time ever, I saw the funeral home from across the street, and actually noticed what it was called. Brain and Gamble. Brain. And. Gamble. (Technically I think its R. Brain and J. Gamble Funeral Home, but let’s not pay too much attention to the initials). And from today on, I have a new creative turf on which to sew the seeds of my imagination. How and where on earth did Mr. Brain and Mr. Gamble meet, and in what moment exactly did they decide to open up a funeral home together? Was the horse idea more Brain or Gamble? If someone calls the home saying, “Hi, I’d like to enquire about your horse drawn funerals,” does Brain say, “hold on for Gamble?”

That’s the beauty of North End Road. With a bit of brain, and a bit of gamble, shit gets right regal. Innit.

I’ve been thinking for a long time about keeping a gratitude journal. But thinking is about as far as I got. Why do that (sorry, Oprah) when its so much easier to take note of things you’re not grateful for. Like for example…

1. The “people you may know” section on Facebook. Yes, I do know them. Wish I didn’t.

2. Don’t even get me started on Farmville.

3. Primelocation.com – please someone, somewhere, anyone…unsubscribe me.

4. Coffee shops that make the coffee too hot. I ordered it to go, which could imply I’m in a rush…ipso facto, I’d like to drink it before the end of the day, if its not too much trouble for you, dear.

5. That voice in Sainsbury’s. One day I’m going to take that unidentified item in the bagging area and shove it up your unidentified ass!

6. When you can’t find something.

7. When you can’t find something you put “somewhere where you’d be able to find it.”

8. Children – anywhere other than where children are supposed to be.

9. Actually, not children, mothers, who take their kids places where kids shouldn’t be…like the gym. Jack, nooo, jack, JACK! Stay away from that lady’s vaginaaaa!

10. Soho on a Saturday night. You know, those nitwits who banned smoking everywhere really should have thought about banning drinking.

11. Restaurant hostesses who say “just one minute” even when there are seven tables free.

12. Bad food.

13. Bad food that is expensive.

14. Waiters who say “sorry we’re very busy today,” as if to justify why your eggs took 47 minutes to poach.

15. When one half of the Google Map on your iPhone turns grey. Obviamente, the half that you need.

16. Bad commercials. Smile all you want bitch but that shit still ain’t getting rid of my limescale.

17. Infomercials for “painless hair removal.” Hair removal has always been and Will. Always. Be. Painful. Aint no 49.99 gonna change that.

18. People who spend half an hour waiting for the bus and then get on it and only then begin looking for their Oyster card.

19. When its raining and Addison Lee can only (maybe) send you a cab within 45 minutes. Whoever created the business model for them forgot to take into account the little detail that they’re based in London.

20. Those people suffering from the disillusion that “spooning” could somehow lead to “falling asleep.” Your side, my side. Got it?

21. Neighbours who play the piano. Correction, neighbours who try to play the piano. Let Alicia Keys be Alicia Keys, and you be…well, silent keys.

22. The HMRC call centre that tells you to have you National Insurance number ready and then makes you hold for 45 minutes…46…47…

23. That moment when someone at HMRC finally picks up the phone and you are…peeing.

24. Not being able to find your National Insurance card the next day because you left it…on the bathroom sink.

25. People who throw receipts, bubblegum and other crap from their pockets in your ashtray. ASH. TRAY. Just saying.

26. Barclayswealth.com. Where is the love.

27. People who say expresso instead of espresso. !#&^@@#$$%^!

28. People who still don’t know the difference between your and you’re. One refers to something you have and the other refers to something you are. Why is that so complicated?

29. Flat sparkling water.

30. The large Coke at cinemas. I said I wanted to drink it not bathe in it.

31. Ke$ha. The name, the songs, that dollar sign…

Nothing makes me quite so furious as standing in a visa queue. Sometimes the fury is merely bubbling, simmering, inspired by a question like why the idiot who designed the waiting area only thought of putting two chairs in when half the universe converges there to wait every morning; sometimes its fuelled by weightier concerns like the tome of documents I’m carrying to prove that I’m only going for a week of shopping and dancing; but most of the time it’s a combination of these leading into a full blown attack on politics, culture, and lunacy. So usually, by the time I get to the counter where I’m asked if I am or have ever been involved in any terrorist thoughts, dreams or activities, I want to say, “I don’t know if this counts, but I have been considering setting fire to myself and everyone else here for the last 45 minutes.”

Problem is, that while setting myself on fire would philanthropically rid the world of those seven morons who have just cut the queue, it would never burn the idea itself, which is the only thing from which we really need to be spared. And by “we” I mean, well, Serbs, and everyone else who isn’t white.

I’ll never forget walking into the EU visa application center in London and thinking, damn, there are black people north of the river! Sssssssup y’all!

Before tourist visas to the EU were abolished for Serbian citizens a year or two ago, there was a well-known joke that getting one required everything short of a urine sample. I laughed the first, second and seventeenth time I heard it, but when I eventually had to apply for a long-stay visa for the UK, turned out it wasn’t a joke after all. For, if you are going to spend more than six months in the UK, you need to have a medical examination which involves a lung x-ray, a blood sample, and a little pot of your urine. If that’s not a case of “taking the piss” I don’t know what is.

The Americans, believe it or not, ask for a lot less paperwork. So it seems anyway, but the truth is they probably have a coded transcription of your urine composition somewhere in their system, so whatever question they ask you is a mere formality or perfunctory affair. Like, he’s asking me if I’m going to my brother’s wedding, but he’s hooked up to some CCTV camera where he can see my brother and his fiancée shopping for curtains. “So you’re not going to NYU for grad school?” they asked me once. I had spent a year deciding and the morning after I’d declined the invitation, they already knew.

The problem is that getting the visa is only the beginning of the struggle, going on the actual trip faces you with at least a dozen more officials who’ll ask you the same questions and don’t have that omniscient computer in front of them. Hell, most of them don’t even have a map. “Hang on a second, you’re a Serbian citizen who resides in Zambia, studied in New York and works in London, and you’re going to Cuba via Miami, Santo Domingo and Costa Rica, for work, medical reasons and pleasure?” I can’t really blame them. At this moment even I’m ready to turn to myself and say, “excuse me ma’am, are you in possession or under the influence of any illegal substance?”

Not to mention, I’ve changed address in London alone, and in the last year alone, seven times, so even I don’t bloody know where I live anymore. As far as I’m concerned, “Your permanent address, ma’am?” is definitely a trick question. Countless numbers, letters, postcodes, street-names appear in my head and by the time I’ve managed to put them all in the correct order even I’m not convinced I’m not a potential immigrant. “Well, you see, I have some dresses here, and some suitcases there, and er, did I mention my uncle lives in Sweden?”

Still all of this is nothing compared to the decade or so that I carried around a passport for a country that no longer existed. And to make matters worse, a country whose native alphabet is Cyrillic, meaning, in short, indecipherable. “Yu-go-slav-i-a,” I said time and again to customs officials as though I were some Mary Poppins of geography. “And where does it say that?” They’d ask. Right there, I’d point. “And why can’t I find this country in my computer?” “Well, because it doesn’t exist anymore.” “And why not?” Well, to cut a long story short, because we killed each other for decades, so now its Serbia and Montenegro, or now its Serbia. “Try SER or SRB or SRM,” I’ve said countless times. I’ve practically checked myself into half the flights I’ve been on.

All of this to say, I’ve been asked a lot of ridiculous questions. And in one way or another, after all these years, I’ve learnt the shortcuts to answering them. “I may come from a country infamous for decades of brutal conflict, and I may live in one infamous for infectious disease, but I’m neither ill nor fundamentalist, and I’d just like to go to the beach for a week in the wonderful company of my tweezers.” That was, until today. When after 75 minutes of waiting in the sun, and going from counter to counter, I submitted my papers for my US tourist visa, and the man held the photo up against my face to compare, and said, “but madam, you don’t have ears in this picture.”

I thought for a moment about what to say in response, but then just pretended I didn’t hear.

Image Credit: Ed Fisher, New Yorker.

In high school drama class we used to do this improv exercise kind of like the ones you see on Who’s Line Is It Anyway? Two people were given a scene and an arbitrary foreign language to act it out in, while two others were supposed to provide what they imagined to be the adequate subtitles. Done well, those watching would be led to believe that both the people acting, and those interpreting, understood the language and what was going on. Of course it all involved a fair bit of wild gesturing and a healthy imagination.

I am reminded of this because lately I’ve been seeing a traditional Chinese healer (who I’m convinced is Jackie Chan’s cousin) who doesn’t speak a word of English. No wait, I lie, he speaks two words of English—“pain,” which he not only knows how to say but to inflict, all too well, and following that, “relax,” which, in the throws of all that pain has no significance whatsoever. He has a so-called interpreter who knows many more English words than he does, although curiously, none of them happen to be verbs, so it still requires a fair bit of imagination to complete her sentences.

“Chi not good,” she said last time, “Chi too much cold inside.” And then they both stood there pointing to the space between my breasts, shaking their heads in disappointment and liberally waving around needles of various sizes. “I now smoking chi, chi smoke good.” See we can get along! I thought. Yes! My soul could use a cigarette right now! Turns out I misinterpreted. She whipped out a cigar and waved it around my breasts. “Heat, smoke, chi, good.” Before I’d had a chance to figure out what this meant, she lit the cigar and hovered the smoke over my chi for a good ten minutes.

According to Wikipedia, (yep, I had to), this is a verifiable strain of Traditional Chinese Medicine called moxibustion. Still haven’t figured out quite what its meant to inspire, but it entails burning a cigar-like cylinder of rolled-up mugwort and literally, smoking the “not good” area. Well, Wikipedia says its mugwort, but I’m convinced they ran out of the stock they must have brought in from China and are now just using organic and locally-grown marijuana. This I suspect because after ten minutes of smoke therapy, she asked, “Chi good? Chi better?” and I looked at her with somewhat Chinese eyes and said, “Chi friggin’ great dude.” I thought of something else to say, but then it slipped my mind.

“Too much angry,” she said the next day. Uh, yeah, let’s talk about anger for a minute. Anger. Noun. ME. I’m angry that y’all are torturing me, I’m even angrier that I’m paying you to, but most of all, I’m angry that I complained about having any pain in the first place. “Pain?” he asks. Well, your business card reads “kungfu massage,” you’re sticking your elbow into my rib, and I’m scrunched up like a sun-dried fetus wishing it was back in the womb. What do you think you son-of-a…on second thought, its probably better we don’t speak the same language.

I went in there originally with some pain in my lower back probably caused by the long hours I generally spend in front of my computer, the long flight I was on last week, and erm, the long “goodbyes” I participated in before I left. But following three days of so-called treatment I have pain everywhere short of my left nostril. Tell a lie, I have pain there too. Whoever decided that some ghost of my spleen was written into my cheekbone must have been high on mugwort.

And whatever scrolls of Eastern medicine have been brought to the West were seriously lost in translation. Let me tell you something about good old Queen’s English, Spike—the word kungfu and the word massage cannot. ever. be. friends.

Ever.

As I was leaving, his body language suggested something about booking an appointment for next week…to which I responded with a vague nod meaning, no. He then gave me one of them cigar things, which, had I known how, I would have told him to shove up his…but instead I pulled off a smile that said kung fu very much.

They say that life is what happens while you’re busy making other plans, but in Zambia, I’m convinced life is what happens while you’re busy waiting for a web page to load. No, not waiting, praying. Somebody emailed me a photo yesterday and as I clicked on the download button I watched in astonishment as the estimated time to download grew…3 hours…5 hours…7…8…eight hours! In eight hours I could bloody fly back to London and just see the person in the flesh. Hell, in eight hours I could probably mould them out of clay.

(I went to a physiotherapist the other day complaining of a pain in my lower back to which he said I was probably sitting too much. No shit.)

To be fair, eight hours to download a high-res photo is still a significant improvement on how things were when I was growing up here. Back then, by the time you downloaded Madonna’s new album she already had a new one out (and yet she still looked younger!). Ah, dial-up days…forget about downloading, you had to first cross the bridge that was connecting. I still sometimes have nightmares where that awful sound comes back to me…beep…beep…beep….tweet….kkkkksshhhh…..tttttrrrrr…..wwwweeee. If the leading internet provider today calls itself Iconnect, then the one ten years ago should certainly have called itself Disconnect. That way they could have answered the phone saying, “Good morning, Disconnect…” and we could have just said “ya think?!”

Bitching aside, I’m actually starting to believe that things were better that way. You see, back then, I knew not to have any expectations. I knew I’d go mad if I sat there waiting, and turn suicidal if it didn’t work, so I kept myself busy…pretending, that the internet, like that cute boy at school, was not central to my existence. I would come home, turn on the computer, go have a shower, come back, click connect, go to the kitchen, make a cup of coffee…hell, make a royal feast…come back, type in hotmail.com, paint my nails, do my homework, polish the friggin’ silverware…and voila! My inbox would appear. If and when it didn’t, which was often, I could at least content myself with the list of things I had managed to accomplish. People believe I was actually a stellar student, but the truth is, I only read the books because it turned out to be quicker than Googling their summaries.

The problem was, that when I moved to New York, where there was neither connecting nor waiting involved—er, talk about culture shock—it took a rather long time to realise that I wasn’t getting anything else done. I could wile away hours and hours in front of my computer just clicking away and marvelling at how readily and swiftly information made itself available to me. Whenever the professor asked if we had done the reading, I’d think, ummm, no, but I do know a guy named Cliff who did…?

I’m kidding, I did read, most of the time. But only because the rest of the kids were too busy playing on Facebook to play with me. They’d spend the time they were supposed be studying, stalking, the hours they were supposed to be sleeping, studying, and by the time social hour rolled around, they’d be too tired so they’d just send each other martinis on Facebook. Why else did it win universities over so quickly? It was like, dude we can be friends, and I don’t even have to like, move? Uhhh….LIKE!

Sad isn’t it? Life is so much better here where its quicker to make and drink martinis than to send them virtually…where convenience isn’t yet stealthy enough to rob us of pleasure…where you give up on d…o…t…c…o…m just before the “t”…and turn to what to do.

Have you ever wondered about how the root of the word analytical is anal? I have. It all started at my last job, when one of my tasks was to record the traffic statistics of the company’s website using a tool called Google Analytics. One day, I came into the office to find a conveniently prepared to-do list from the day before, on which one of the bullet points read: ANAL. Thank God I hadn’t abbreviated the word “Google” too, or it might have said: GO ANAL. My company didn’t really subscribe to what they call “Casual Fridays,” but lord knows if we had…that would have been one for the books.

Right. Now that’s out of the way, back to analytics. It’s a fascinating tool really. It allows you to see how many people come to your website, how long they stay there, what they read, and most interestingly, where they come from. Of course you’ll have to allow me the pun here to say that many of them come through the back door. As in, some people know your website’s URL and land intentionally and purposefully on your homepage, or front door if you will—what we analysts call “direct traffic”—while others may have been looking for something else, and accidentally or unknowingly slipped in. Oh the entendres this affords!

Now I don’t know too much about how this all works exactly, but basically websites are written in code, and search engines trawl through the codes to help you find what you are looking for. Each website has headers, tags, keywords and descriptions that are carefully selected and tailored to what people might search for to bring them there. Of course, back in the day, this system was cracked (oops there it goes again!) and abused by people who just inserted popular keywords into their code to sneakily direct more traffic to their site. To put this in laymen’s terms for you, if you were to write “free live porn” on all of your windows, you can be pretty sure you’d have a helluva lot of people showing up to afternoon tea.

Since then however, Google has gotten a bit smarter, or should we say gotten more anal. The system is a lot more complex now and its not enough to put “Megan Fox no clothes at all” on all your pages—for if this is not in fact what you have…Google will figure it out and blacklist you forever. And when that happens, no one will come for tea…and whatever it is you were trying to sell wont. No matter how big your tits are. (Yes, “Megan Fox no clothes at all” is actually a popularly searched term.)

Anyhow, now that I’ve eased you in with the background…I can erm, get to the point. Or spot, as you will. Since I stopped working at that company and have had a bit more time on my hands, I decided to apply Google Analytics to my very own website—yes, the one you are reading right now.  Perhaps this would be the right time to say The Girl With the Pearl Necklace has gone anal. And boy oh boy what a ride.

I can now see exactly how many people read my blog, which posts are the most popular, how you all get to them, and where you are from. Which is to say, Mom—stop checking it everyday! You’re screwing up my analytics! Or rather, stop knocking on the door—you’re interrupting! First of all…its quite an ego boost that 100 people a day sometimes read my blog (even if Mom is ten of them). Its helpful to know which posts are liked. And its nice to know people actually do click on links posted on my Facebook wall. But of friends and family I have always known…it’s the strangers…the back door people…who are really fascinating.

The best tool of all on Google Analytics is the one that enables you to see what people searched for in Google that brought them to your site. Believe it or not, people actually do search for “whores and horses,” which is handy for me considering I once chose to title a post about writing (and riding, wink) with those very words. Or they search for “basta use in Italian,” which takes them to my Basta Pasta post—and lord knows that will teach them the lesson. Others search for the lyrics to the rain in spain and end up reading how I feel about umbrellas. And then there are those who actually search for useful information like how to find a “maid in Zambia,” and although my post with that title won’t give them a list of phone numbers it sure will give them a fair initiation. And my all time favourite…somebody actually googled “how to use a Cuban toilet with no seat!” Hey, had I figured out a way to access the internet in Cuba I probably would have done so too. On a side note, Mr. L—you’re the only person I know in Mozambique—thanks for reading!

And to the rest of you…all of this is to say, its nice to know I’m being read. Writers have always haunted themselves by the eternal question “is anybody listening?” and thanks to Google Analytics we can now know if they are—to anal degree. It’s a well-known defamatory trick from New York City to wipe out the “C” and “S” from the Canal Street sign so that it reads ANAL TREET. And I never thought I’d say this, but going anal sure is a treat.

Thank god for dreams. No really, if it weren’t for dreams, I’m sure I would go through extended periods of time thinking myself incapable of creating anything, lacking in imagination, hardly inspired to write a single sentence let alone a whole story. But then a dream comes along and boy oh boy can I think shit up.

I once choreographed an entire show in a dream. Wait, “choreographed” underestimates it – I produced an entire musical…costumes, songs, dances and all. In my sleep! I’ve showjumped to international standards—whilst being chased by a goat, no less; I’ve single-handedly sailed yachts out of the goriest of tempests, and I’ve played football, professionally—I know, huh? I’ve even had the sporadic lesbian experience. Who with? Bellucci, of course. We had matching handbags.

And yes, Cassel was watching.

I’ve found myself in many a civil war, running away—handbag and all—from little red-eyed children with machetes, I’ve stolen cars with safety pins and out-swum killer whales and just about every variety of shark. (Come to think of it, I probably don’t make for a very accommodating bedfellow—and no joke, I often wake up bloody exhausted!). Needless to say, I watched JAWS at too young an age and it has stuck with me, forever. Damn you, Spielberg. You and your composer.

When its not sharks its snakes, and when its not snakes its ex-boyfriends. I even sat them all once at the same dinner table with eine kleine nachtmusik provided by none other than Ray Charles in the flesh, and a menu of…get this, fish and chips. That believe it or not, is the real horror here.

Funny how we use the word “dreams” in waking life as a synonym for goals, ambitions, for all the things we really badly want…and yet, I more often than not dream of things that I not only don’t want, but have absolutely no conscious or positive feelings towards…things that I couldn’t think up even on the wildest of acid trips.

If I had it my way, the sharks would be chasing the ex-boyfriends whilst I sat on Ray Charles’s piano watching snakes get skinned for my new handbag. But no, I’ve never dreamt of a new handbag, or hearing I’ve won the Pulitzer prize whilst bathing in champagne, or running into Heston Blumenthal at a 4am fishmarket. It’s never Beluga and scallops—its friggin’ battered cod.

So what is this supposed to mean? If our subconscious is meant to reveal to us something of our deepest fears or desires, then how am I supposed to interpret my brain’s substitution of Blumenthal for Beckham or the fact that every Saint-Tropez vacay goes jawsily wrong?

Perhaps, on the bright side, I should list all the skills and experiences I’ve had in my dreams on my CV and then I’d really get the dream job. Dude, like not only do I have a friendly telephone manner, I can rob a bank whilst making an omelette, underwater, and enjoying Bellucci’s head between my legs. Multitask that.

February, apparently, is a good month for saving. Such is the word on the street anyway. I think the idea lies in the fact that it is the shortest month of the year, so the salary that usually covers you for 30 or 31 days should have some leftovers when it only covers 28. But that idea, like most others—yes, Communism dear, that’s you—is perfect in theory or mathematics, and erm, not quite so in practice. Which is to say, that if I think the idea lies in the fact that it is the shortest month and so on, I also think, the idea lies. Plainly and simply lies.

And the sooner you discover it, the sooner it begins to lie. If you discover it in mid-January for example, you’re screwed. For the moment you realise that next month is the month for saving is the very same moment in which you begin to spend those savings. Yet unearned, yet unsaved, savings. Mid-January is that time of year when you start scratching your head wondering why it feels like its been so long since you last got paid, that time when you start digging through your Christmas presents hoping to find one that came with a receipt, or scrolling through your Blackberry contacts thinking…hmmm…which one of you suckers owes me money. Better yet, which one of you earns a bloody bonus. “Dinner next week? Would love to catch up! Kiss-kiss-kiss-kiss-kiss-kiss-kiss!”

Yep, mid-January is that awful time of year when you wake up from the festive fantasy ungrateful for your accumulated hangover and the sudden lack of champagne and grateful only for the fact that its no longer the time for giving, as you have nothing, nothing, left to give. What’s worse is that there’s somehow always a directly inverse correlation between the money you don’t have and the money you need. Any other old month of the year…when you find your piggy-bank slimming…(why do they call it a piggy bank again?)…you can sigh yourself into taking the bus home, having a piece of toast, you know, convincing yourself prosecco can replace champagne…

But in January that just doesn’t work. In January you need money. You’ve danced the soles of your shoes off and need new ones, you burnt your favorite scarf (the very night before you decided to quit smoking) and need a new one, and you’re remaining with only one champagne flute intact following all those festive gatherings…so, hello John Lewis. And as if that weren’t enough…you’ve also got the bill of your new year’s resolutions to foot…for joining a gym means paying a membership, being more cultured means buying season tickets to the opera…and learning more languages means supporting the economy that is Rosetta Stone. Oh, and be not deceived, Nicorette is friggin’ expensive. The tax on cigarettes is babystuff compared to that shit. And ladies, I won’t even get into the sales.

So…where does that leave you. Well, resolutions, reductions and riots are not really my cup of tea so believe or not I (mostly) succeed in staying away from that all. Instead I spring for a box of 3.99 Detox tea and head home to ye old online banking site just in case somebody accidentally added another zero to the sum. That’s it, January is that month of the year when another zero would really come in handy.

But as I sat at home a couple of weeks ago…checking into my online banking for the umpteenth time…typing in that url that my laptop knows all too well…I realized where the problem was. Tell me, which genius copywriter decided to name it Barclays Wealth? Wealth! Wealth is the last bloody thing that site welcomes me to, and wealth is the last bloody word I want to be typing when that moment rolls around in which I realize I should probably have a little look on there.

If only that were the end of it. When the page finally loads, the first words that you see are, “Growing your wealth is an important part of what we do.” And before you can even begin wrapping your head around that concept (read: lie), the flash moves along and three more come your way. “Let us help you prepare for a changing future…We can help you get what you want from your life…” and…the final poetic repetition “We can help you.” Beneath all this poetry there are four buttons: Acquire Wealth, Protect Wealth, Use & Enjoy Wealth, Pass on Wealth. I’ll admit I’m not too taken by the last one, but the first three sound pretty promising. Where do I sign up?

And then the flash comes to a rest upon one final question. “Wealth. What’s it to you?” What’s it to me? Well, its like I’m standing on top of the world’s tallest building and wealth, well, wealth is that teeny-tiny something else far below. Nothing but a distant dream or a faint memory of being a child who was good at monopoly. Or was I? Maybe the problem is not Barclays or their copywriter or even cold old February…but rather simply that I now…as I did then…spend far too much time in Mayfair.

What’s it to you.