Bridget Jones's diary

Wednesday 1 November

9st3; alcohol units 5 (but fine wine so healthful); cigarettes 15 (but Silk Cut Extra Mild); calories - utterly irrelevant since only correct mindset can make difference. Instants 5 (but victim of "Forget it All for an Instant" advertising campaign - member of "at risk" group owing to no boyfriend)

New TV job v. fulfilling etcetera etcetera, but simultaneously hateful owing to necessity of working hysterically from morning till night. Too drained and listless to go out and find myself inventively eating bizarre and unnatural things as there is no normal food in the house. Should go to Sainsbury's and stock up for an entire week instead of buying items individually from overpriced late-night supermarkets in hand-to-mouth manner. But fear consuming entire lot in neurotic eating binge on first night. Also feel there is more chance of "meeting people" in Cullen's. Right. I am just going to put some make-up on, a short A-line black - or maybe leopardskin - skirt and Sixties-style leather boots, then I'm going to Cullen's for a Lean Cuisine and some peas.

Later Humph. Was just trying to work out whether yoghurts contained yeast - because I am not supposed to have yeast on my current diet (or, more accurately, "Achieve your ideal health and weight without dieting" diet as diets no longer work, apparently, since one's body fat compensates by reproducing its disappearing self) when I suddenly realised I was feeling incredibly Christmassy. I was imagining Christmas trees, firesides, carols, mince pies and that marvellous poem by Wendy Cope which goes "At Christmas little children sing and merry bells jingle/ the cold winter air makes our hands and faces tingle/ And happy families go to church and cheerily they mingle/ And the whole business is unbelievably dreadful if you're single."

Then I realised what it was. The air vents by the entrance that usually pump out baking bread smells were pumping out baking mince pies smells instead. Honestly. It is only November.

Thursday 2 November

9st2 (VG); cigarettes 20 (Jo Brand new role model - does not care); alcohol units 3 (healthy minimum daily intake)

Hope the Tory stalwarts who are blocking the Mackay bill and trying to get everyone back into nuclear families did not watch Top of the Pops tonight. Straight in at No 11 was Madonna singing "All by myself". And then at No 1 two big fat black guys singing about a gangster's paradise. Personally I am very much in favour of the hits promoting solitary self- sufficiency in the face of urban alienation: transforming me in Cinderellaesque manner from sad lonely figure into a walking bloody fashion statement.

However, if the Tories get wind of this, they will ban songs about female self-sufficiency altogether. "I will survive", "All I wanna do is have some fun" etc straight down the toilet; and there will be tax incentives for buying the likes of Harry Nilsson's "Can't live (if living is without you), Al Green's "Let's get married" and Dr Hook's "Who's going to iron my shirts?"

Friday 3 November

How young is too young? I mean ... well, put it this way. There's this youth called Matt in the office, I think he might be 23. Very clever, very smart and trendy in a way that is incomprehensible to me, which makes it strangely alluring. (Although, of course, I have learnt my lesson about affairs at work. Besides, I'm old enough to be his great-aunt).

Anyway, this morning at the meeting Richard Finch was at his most alarming.

"OK. Come on. Come on. Fireworks. What about the kid who had his penis burnt off by bangers in his pockets in the Sixties? Where is he now? Bridget, find me the Fireworks Kid with no Penis. Find me the Sixties Guy Fawkes Bobbit."

I must have looked pretty ashen because after the meeting Matt came up and put his arm round my shoulders in a rather stiff, self-conscious attempt at office camaraderie, and said, "Look - can I just say ..." (They all preface everything they say in this office with "Can I just say?..." It is the happening meeting-speak, it would seem.)

"Can I just say," said Matt, "that Richard is basically speeding till lunchtime so you should just say yes to everything, decide what story you're into and set it up, then tell him about it at 3 when he's come down."

"Hey, thanks," I murmured, leaning back on the wall, and giving him a slow smile I had been practising.

"Why don't you put up a cinema slot?" he said. "Disney have got a couple of controversial ones coming up."

"Oh yeah?" I said. (much better and more fashionable than "what?")

"Yeah. There's one in the pipeline on Will Carling and Diana."

"Oh yeah?"

"Yeah. It's called Pocaprincess."

I thought he might be making some complicated ironic dig at me because I was a hated new person in the office. But he grinned and said: "It's very, like, post-modern hip to pretend to be non-PC" - which I sensed, from his expression, to be an incredibly ironic post-modern hip remark in itself. Then he said: "You wanna have dinner?" Oh dear. Of course I do. But unless Matt can see my post-modern hips as a sort of incredibly hip ironic post-modern fashion statement - I don't think we're going to get very far post-dinner.