Guardian Girl

Top of tonight’s shopping list is a giant bottle of conditioner. My hair has remained in a matted beehive for three days now, slightly morphing in shape dependent on the position I slept in (Cliffhanger last night, for those of you who bought the magazine this week – I stayed over with a friend and the Heimlich would not be appropriate).

Today’s outfit has mostly been provided by Harriet and involves a long denim dress gaffer taped up underneath to make it thigh-length.

The beehive has been bobby-pinned within the bounds of Monday morning social acceptance and the Mary-Quant-visits-a-burns-unit make-up was rejected entirely this morning. I pretended to myself that the reason was my being in a rush to catch the train to work, but the truth was I’m too scared to come into the office looking that odd. Maybe if I’d been here a year I might be more adventurous, or if everyone knew what I was really up to, but at the moment I’m trying to retain a sense of reliability when defending my deletion of a semi-colon. I don’t want my colleagues staring at my eyes trying to work out whether I’m having an allergic reaction or am just an Adam and the Ants fan. It’s not fair on other people.

Jump to it

Frump to it

Fried herring

Fried salmon

Conclusions:

• Even in a creative office, there are limits to how ‘interesting’ you can look – work is work. This fashion shoot was quite funny to try out at the weekend but it’s definitely one for the leisure time.
• No fresh herring in the supermarket, so I allowed myself some nice but boring salmon instead and boiled a couple of kippers to try for good measure. I always imagined I wouldn’t like a flat, Simpson-yellow oily sea creature that smelt of concentrated fish, but in fact I thought it was delicious. That’s butter for you. Unfortunately I returned Harriet’s borrowed clothes to her reeking of kipper – bad manners.