Many mild annoyances for the day:

1. The drycleaner said my skirt would be ready Thursday lunchtime. Thursday lunchtime comes; he hasn’t been able to find an invisible zip for my green skirt. I resist the temptation to tell him I’m not surprised, and the further temptation to point out that if he’d looked for said invisible zip on Monday, when I actually dropped it in, rather than waiting until this morning, he might have been able to get around to obtaining one between then and now, and therefore doing his cocking job. I refrain, and he lets me know I can pick it up tomorrow.

2. There’s someone standing under the porch just outside our house, smoking. This in itself isn’t an annoyance, but the pungent blue smoke curling somehow through closed windows into my study, is.
3. I bought something off eBay recently, and paid immediately, and the seller hasn’t been in touch to say anything. Not hello, not thanks for the money, not it’s in the post, nothing. I hate that.
4. On the plus side, I got paid today. On the minus side, I got taxed. Sometimes it’s hard to tell the difference.
5. I watched Analyze That. It was poor.
6. I can’t find out when Lost In Translation is going to get a UK release. I want to know.
7. The light in our bathroom has gone kaput. It’s not the bulb. I think it’s the fuse, somehow related to the extractor fan. In any case, it’s very dark.
8. I bought four tickets to Cyprus last month, and somehow, the booking agent managed to charge me twice for one. So I called up to get a refund, and they refunded the ticket and the insurance, which I’d only paid once for. So I called up to tell them I’d quite like my mum to be insured, actually, and they said “oh, she would be anyway; you’ve got the certificate and that’s all that matters”. So it turns out I could have got away without paying for that after all. My conscience is clearer; my wallet more empty.
9. That person smoking is really doing my head in. No, let me get that straight: the smoke is. How does it get in like that?
10. It’s cold enough for me to want to turn on the heating, but I’d have to move furniture and dust the radiators first.
11. My grey trousers are just about an inch too short, and it really irritated me today, because all the way home I kept getting glimpses of my too-pale socks.
12. There was no pesto in the fridge when I got in tonight. I made some tagliatelle and improvised with garlic and parmesan and basil and olive oil and then discovered half a jar of spicy tomato pepper sauce in the fridge door, which P had left from the other night when I was out.
13. I need a chest of drawers, or a storage chest; just a smallish one, because my clothes are taking over the bedroom floor. Again.
14. There is so much which is undecided at the moment. This makes it difficult to know what to do, or what to look forward to.
15. I washed my hair this morning and then put it up in a chignon. Halfway through the day I took it down to redo it, and couldn’t make it go the right way at all because there was a massive kink in it.
16. It’s three months until Christmas. I hate myself for having already made plans up to the end of January, and yet not knowing what I’m doing tomorrow night.
17. When Sainsburys delivered on Monday night, they somehow managed to ensure that every item of fresh food in the order expires on the same day; tomorrow.
18. My radio reception was fizzing in and out during the funny bits of the programme I was listening to on the bus on the way home from work.
19. Did I mention the smoke? It’s still bothering me: more than I thought it would, actually. More than it should.
20. On the way to work this morning, I spotted Keith from the Prodigy wandering along a road near the river. Local boy. About three minutes later, outside Olympic Studios, I spotted a shortish, blading, healthy-looking, stocky bloke in a black t-shirt and very short denim shorts. He was (is) famous - possibly for stadium rock in the eighties, yet I cannot remember his name, and it’s been bugging the arse off me all day.

And relax.

Phew. I feel better for that. This has been a public grumble on behalf of, well, me.