Deborah Ross

It’s my niece Daisy’s 16th birthday and after not quite having the courage to accept my initial gift offer, one I still think quite brilliant — that we go out and get her tattooed, possibly with ‘I hate dad’ on the knuckles of one hand and ‘I hate mum’ on the other, or even ‘I really hate mum’ just to really piss mum off — she suggests that I take her out to dinner and then put her into print. She would like to be in print, she says, although I’m not sure why. Perhaps it’s so she can show all her friends during one of those rare instances when they are not texting, circling Topshop or eyeing up boys in Starbucks. Okay, I say, fine. If you want to be in print I shall put you in print.

One evening I saw Gordon Ramsay on Friday Night With Jonathan Ross plugging his latest cookery book, Gordon Ramsay Makes It Easy, which is readily available from most bookshops, unlike Ramsay Makes It Hard which, I’m guessing, is available only from those adult shops with beaded curtains. Anyway, every time Mr Ross mentioned the book Mr Ramsay added: ‘And it comes with a free DVD!’ which totally got my juices going. What an inspired idea, I thought. A recipe book with Free DVD! so that you could play it on your laptop while you cook. It’ll be like having Gordon — a brilliant chef, whatever else you may think of him — in the kitchen with you. Why hasn’t anyone thought of this before?

I am taking my mother’s cousin Norma and her husband Harry out to lunch and I want them to have a good time, not just because I love Norma to bits but also because... nope, that’s it actually. She used to babysit us when we were little and would make us eat our supper backwards, saying if we didn’t finish our ice-cream there would be no main course, absolutely not, no way, and even though our bedtime was meant to be 8 p.m. we’d all still be up at midnight when she would shout: ‘All of you... time for... CAKE! And I mean IT!’ So I loved Norma then and I love her now. As for Harry, he seems very pleasant (only joking, Hazza!). Anyway, it’s not that easy taking Norma out for lunch.

I go abroad for a week and what do I find when I get home? That Ikea has been stormed by large chunks of Edmonton! I was absolutely livid, not least because I’m one of the people who, some time ago now, not only campaigned against the storming of Ikea, but also went on the march and attended several candlelit vigils which were really, really boring and chilly, but such was the strength of my belief. I simply do not agree with storming Ikea, even though I totally accept it has its problems. The nightmare queues. The basement bit where you are seduced into spending £789 on silly candles — as if you would ever consider going on another boring and chilly vigil again. The sheer choice, and all those veneers. Oh — so many veneers and so little time.

Off to the Gun, the Docklands gastropub. It’s a brisk walk from Surrey Quays station. Well, I say brisk but of course it is impossible to get anywhere briskly these days, what with the swarms of swarming immigrants swarming all over the streets and everything. They are everywhere. Everywhere! Indeed, just this morning I shook three out of my hair and if I’ve caught them, then you can almost guarantee the rest of the family have them too. So it’ll be off to Boots for that special stinky shampoo and then all that combing, combing, combing. Such a faff. I blame our son. Attending an inner-city multicultural school as he does, he’s always bringing them home.

Alas, half-term is over, my son is back at school, and I have the house back to myself during the day. Oh, how I miss him, or would do if I wasn’t so thrilled to get rid of the pesky old so-and-so. Oh dear, school today, I said on the first morning while pushing him out of the door, double-locking it from the inside and drawing the bolt. I did think about quickly moving while somehow forgetting to leave a forwarding address but then realised it would mean packing and that would be too boring for words. Still, it’s not as if I can forget him entirely during the day, as there appears to be a deadly smell emanating from his room. How best to describe it?