Am I ill or has gravity been altered?

Feeling a bit weird with a sort of cold/flu thing. Gravity seems to have been altered. Maybe gravity has been altered, I wouldn't know as i don't read the paper very often. It's like being on the moon only not as interesting.

In World of YLAF, several developments. Finally got around to asking the lovely Ingo of Club Wotever exactly who and what she would be bringing to York. Turns out she is bringing the talented Josephine (pictured) and the DJ'ing Jane so between the three of them it will be like the true London Wotever experience but without the underground trains and amusing mayor you get in London.

'Wot is Wotever?' I hear the more ignorant among you cry. It is a gender-bending gelatinous jolly of a club, in which the butches, the femmes, the boygirls and ladyboys all flirt and drink beer together like in the olden days. Why, i will even link to Club Wotever's website for you because god knows, without my help you will never be able to tell which of Ingo's 72 nice sites is the one that you're meant to look at this year - no disrespect.

So they will join us on the afternoon of Sat 28 Oct at the bookfest and teach us all about the limitations of the two-sex system and then that night at CLUB DIVA, Josephine will perform LIVE and Ingo and Jane will play records in what they promise will be an amateurish way.

Smashing. What else? Last night I went to a recording of Woman's Hour 60th anniversary special edition to be broadcast on ... erm... maybe 7 October? Wasn't concentrating when they announced that bit, too excited at being at the Drill Hall among 250 women in matching jackets and skirts plus expensive plain scarves arranged vertically over one shoulder. Usually the Drill Hall has lezzie plays on and lezzie audiences but not last night. Still, we had our own representative in the shape of the wonderful gorgeous Jackie Kay who read like an angel, as ever. Wait till she comes to YLAF, just wait!

They also had Patricia Routledge and thingy off Fawlty Towers reading some emails out to each other while wearing brocade which went down surprisingly well, plus Maureen Lipman plus Heather Small out of M People who is as amazing as you might think... and it went on for ages and ages and although we weren't bored at all, it was the most peculiar mix of entertainment since the night that Sarah Waters appeared with the Indigo Girls. But that's another story.

They wouldn't let us take photos last night. So instead, here's a photo of Friend Claire fighting me off at Friends Mich and Nicola's Civil Doo-Dah, because she wants to keep my girl, Jane H (not to be confused with my colleagues Jane T, Jane C etc etc). Fair play to her.

2006 wedding count (gay and straight): 4.
Total all-time civil doo-dah count: 4.
Beat that.
(Please do post a comment if you can 'beat that' as it is getting a little lonely here in blogland.)

H x

www.ylaf.org.uk

Anecdotes R Us

I am glued to my computer for so long each day that I have developed RSI and have had to go to an osteopath. The osteopath is actually a student. She doesn't seem entirely sure of her territory, which is a bit nerve-wracking when you're standing in your underwear in a windowless room waiting to be 'manipulated'. Also she seems to have trouble saying long words like 'manipulated'. Also I have had to find the girliest underwear in my collection because anything else apparently blocks her view of my spine.

The thing is, though, she's really nice and I don't like to offend her by asking to speak to her supervisor. My only frame of reference is ER. I keep comparing her to a third-year student in ER and reminding myself that she won't be used to having her own patients but she will have had a long and arduous training, etc. Then she tries to persuade me that my body mass index is at the obese end of normal and suddenly I decide she hasn't got a clue what she's talking about.

At the same time I am pondering whether that means I need to go on a dramatic weight loss diet like this couple I saw recently at a party. I hadn't seen them for a few months and they had each lost several stone. Literally. They were on some diet that we nicknamed the Don't Eat Food Diet but it had worked for them. So much so that they had won medals at the Out Games. Not for weight loss, for sport.

At the Closing Ceremony a friend of theirs was all excited because she wanted to see Martina Navratilova speak. Better yet, she wanted to get her autograph. So before the ceremony this girl somehow persuades a security guard to let her go through to the stars' caravans. There she asks a stranger whether Martina is around. The woman says she'll go and look. She comes back a few minutes later: 'I'm sorry but Ms Navratilova isn't available right now.'

So the girl returns, disappointed, to our friends and they all take their seats for the ceremony. Soon one of the stars comes onstage to perform. 'Oh,' gasps the girl. 'That's the woman who went to look for Martina for me.' It was kd lang.

The picture is not relevant to any of these anecdotes. It is the sculpture that is on Trafalgar Square's fourth plinth. Me and my sis were there last weekend gaping in awe. We did take pix of each other but to be honest this one is better.

Now I am going to try to finish the timetable for the book festival. For YLAF. Remember that? Less than two months to go. Lovely.

- Helen x

www.ylaf.org.uk