The Flying Dutchman Rides Again

Have just come back from the most amazing lunch at locanda locatelli - mmmmmm! I wondered after all the incredible food we ate in Italy, if Italian food in England was ever going to be as good, but this really did top it all (and so it should with 2 Michelin stars!)

Perhaps this meal could be topped though, by the delights on offer at "International Evening" at school tomorrow, where all the loving parents are going with their offspring for an evening of international cuisine (everyone has to take a dish typical of their country - I made Yorkshire Parkin, after all, it's practically a different nation isn't it?) As one of the other mum's said "there'll be wine there, please come" I felt I could hardly refuse! Daddy was very sulky at the prospect, but I appear to have convinced him (again I think the lure of the wine could have had something to do with it, not to to mention my killer parkin of course!)

As part of International Week, tied in (as Princess O proudly told me) with Black History Month, the kids all had to go to school yesterday in their national dress (which could include football kit for the two children of purely English descent). Thankfully some old neighbours of ours who were from St Petersburg had given us a mini Russian folk outfit, so I forced Princess O into it and made her promise to say it was Lithuanian (not too much of a stretch) as her Grandma is from there. Of course when I overheard her telling someone at school, she spoke like Judas Iscariot declaiming Jesus, and whispered that it was from Russia. Oh if only we hadn't told her it was wrong to ever lie!

So, there's good news and bad news on the book front - out of the blue, I had an email from The Flying Dutchman a few weeks ago, asking if I wanted to meet up again to discuss book/film project (or at least the notional project!) Despite clearing my diary for the rest of my life, we have yet to actually meet up though. Grr, why is this whole thing so bloody hard?

Also, very interestingly, Harper Collins have decided to set up their own website for unpublished authors to post their manuscripts and allow readers to comment, with the view that the most popular will be turned into books. I intend to email them and tell them I've done it myself already! Hope they'll be suitably impressed.

It's a fair cop

A small and rather hilarious post script to being burgled and having our car stolen happened last Saturday night. I was driving back from a friend's wedding down in Hastings, on my own (or at least with Princess O asleep in the passenger seat) about midnight, getting very lost in the City after coming through the Blackwall Tunnel and taking several very annoying detours. Anyway, as I finally got myself onto the right road and thought that home was nearly in sight, I heard a load of police sirens coming towards me, which I (in my innocence) thought were on their way to some major crime scene.

Alas the crime scene they were on their way to, was me! Or so it transpired when one of the cars blocked me off and a strapping policeman took the car key from the ignition and told me I was under suspicion of driving a stolen vehicle! He told me that in the City they have automatic numberplate readers, and that my number plate had "kept flashing up" on their screen (that was all my wrong turns, trying to work out where I was going!) After about 20 minutes on the pavement, surrounded by policemen, giving them my little story about how the car had been stolen, but how it was now reunited with its rightful owner (ie me), I was allowed on my way.

They were all extremely kind to me, once it became apparent that I was in fact not the hardened car criminal they were after, but what pleased me most about the whole situation was that when I read the copy of my "stop and search" warrant, the physical description the policeman had given of me was 5'6'' (a good inch taller than I really am) and "slim" build - hurrah! In his eyes practically a supermodel (and let me tell you, he wasn't too shabby in the height and looks department either!)

I did also think afterwards that it was probably a good thing for them and their stastics to be able to include a white, middle class female in the number they have apprehended, to balance out the existing, very unfortunate bias towards young, (black) men. So at least some good came of the wrongful arrest, even if it wasn't actually catching the bastards who broke into our flat!

Which leads me onto my final thought on this little saga - we got the car back nearly two months ago, and Westminster police had kept it on their register of stolen vehicles (a minor administrative error to start with). In that time though, we have driven up to Yorkshire, to the airport, out to Oxford, plus all over London, and no other policeforce has noticed our "stolen car" or thought to stop it, until that is, I entered the City of London, where money pays for a much more sophisticated police force. It's a shame that the rest of the country doesn't exist under such great policing. If it did, perhaps we'd all be a little safer and better off.

And as if I needed an excuse for a glimpse of George Michael in a pleasingly tight policeman's get-up, here's "Outside", to remind us all that a man in uniform is always sexy.