Last year I rounded up my favourite 100 tweets of 2010, this year I think I narrowed down hundreds of my favourites to something like 136. 

These are the tweets that made me 'LOL' or, even worse, 'think'. Generally, they just made me 'LOL'. Yeah, a lot of the tweets are from the same people...but that's because those people are my Twitter favourites. Don't hate on them just because they're the funniest, they can't help it.

Apologies in advance for the inevitable rude words and if you find my sense of humour childish/offensive/shit etc. 

These are roughly in chronological order.

May 2012 be equally amusing....

xxx

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About a month or so ago I was sent a 'save the date' invite on behalf of Geordie Greig, the editor of The Evening Standard. I was very excited to see that Geordie had 'requested the pleasure of my company' and even more excited when I saw what it was for - the celebration of London's One Thousand Most Influential People 2011. I didn't think I would be in the 1000 myself, for obvious reasons (why would I be?), so assumed I was being asked along in the hope that I'd tweet the arse out of it on the night and generally blog about the event etc etc. I WAS GONNA GET TO MEET SLEBS AND POLITICOS AND TING.

I was excited.

But then the pictures desk got in touch to arrange for a photographer to take my photo...and it quickly became clear that I was - somehow - included in this year's list myself. I know.

I have been exceptionally fortunate this year and received a fair bit of recognition for what I've done with WIWT. I can often be fairly miserable (running a start-up is much harder work than my nonsenical tweets imply) and I can, like many business owners, forget to step back every once in a while and actually be satisfied with what I've achieved - even if just for a moment. I have done ok. I am about a billion lightyears away from where I want to be but I have done ok.

People either love or hate lists. Personally, I bloody LOVE them. I want everything to be a list. My brain works in categories and I am constantly boring people with "this is probably the 7th best gin and tonic I've ever tasted...tonight" etc etc. If I've met you, you are in a list. You may be in my top ten people to be stuck in a lift with, top five boys whose hair I want to touch, top twenty mums I want to feed me cake...You are definitely in a list. 

Last night, the listed 'influencers' were all in a room. (Well not all of them, but enough to be constantly worrying that your boob had fallen out in front of Boris Johnson or that Henry Holland would notice the ladder in your tights). It was very surreal to be honest. I was smelling David Gandy for gawd's sake. 

Mr Gandy, for your viewing pleasure

What was more surreal is that a handful of photos of the 1000 were being projected onto a monstrously huge screen above the crowd. And my photo was in the rotation. I was there, sandwiched between BAFTA winning Gary Oldman (or Sirius Black, to my younger readers) and gold medal superstar heptathlete Jessica Ennis. IT DOESN'T MAKE ANY SENSE. There's David Cameron and Tinie Tempah. And then there's me. There's David Walliams and Lord Coe. And then there's me. 

The list isn't ranked 1-1000, it's split into categories. I wasn't even sure what category I'd be in but it turned out I was in 'digital'....and amongst some bloody awesome friends too. London has a lot to be proud of with the likes of Oli Barrett and Michael Acton Smith also partying hard last night.

And to be featured alongside Spotify's Daniel Ek?! SPOTIFY IS MY FAVOURITE THING SINCE DUSTIN HOFFMAN.

I will be perfectly honest and say that the whole thing thrilled me so much that I spent most of the early hours of this morning on the couch pointing out that "OMG MY PICTURE WAS BIGGER THAN PRINCE HARRY'S" and so on. I am basically still a child though, so it's ok. I have been told I can show off for 24 hours and then be quiet. Hence posting this quickly now before supposedly shutting up about it. Simon Cowell and James Murdoch didn't make the list this year...yet somehow I wormed my way in.

But I have had my red carpet fill for a while now. I can go back to eating Pringles at my desk and perving over shoes. 

I am very, very, very pleased though. Less pleased that I met David Gandy with no make-up on, but still very pleased. Thrilled tbh, I think it's the coolest thing ever. I hope it's like having a Blue Peter badge and I can now go to Madame Tussauds for free.

You can see the full list here.

I'll stop going on about it now...promise xxx

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Soon enough I will be based full time in Old Street. This means I will be tweeting a lot less about my cat and being caught in my dressing gown at 3pm by Mr FedEx...and a lot more about how I hate South West Trains.

Already my timeline is being peppered with lots of...

See the full gallery on Posterous

It makes me sad.

So I am looking for somewhere to sleep during the week so that I spend less money on trains and I don't vomit my heart out. Ideally, I am hoping to rock up at DREAM PLACE X very late on a Sunday eve (10pm-ish) and stay Sunday night thru to Thursday night. I'd go away again on Friday morning leaving you to do whatever it is you like to do on weekends in the privacy of your own home. (I'm implying that's something dodgy - but hopefully it isn't). If the Sunday night thing doesn't work, I'd just stay Monday night to Thursday night.

I will be very quiet - I work very late and do a lot of 'entertaining' (client shiz - I'm not a juggler) on week nights so I will pretty much just be using your home as somewhere to sleep/shower. You won't need to worry about me ever bringing friends round or cooking five course meals in your kitchen (I'm happy to not even step foot in your kitchen) and I will be living out of a small suitcase...not taking over the place. I already have a lovely home down here - I don't need two :)

These are my 'requirements'...

• Central location. If I still have a lengthy travel time across London then it kinda defeats the object of living in town during the week.
• A real bed. I am very happy to sleep in a single bed, I bloody love single beds (tragically unattached), but I can't sleep on a raggedy sofa bed. I have a spazzy neck/back and I'm generally useless in the sleep department. (Wow - aren't I good at selling myself as a lodger!)
• No pets that have fur. I'll be tempted to make them into a coat. (Kidding, I have allergies. See above for further useless body attributes. Fish/snakes/lizards are fine. OMG I hope you have a snake).
• You live somewhere relatively quiet. I wanna be able to sleep, so if your place is known for its crazy Tuesday night parties or the nightclub right beneath it then it probably won't work out. 

Ideally...

• I know you or you are a friend of a friend. You definitely haven't done time for murder.
• You don't mind me using your wi-fi. It would be nice to be able to check my emails over wi-fi rather than 3G.
• You can put me up until some time in December. I will be having a new face made out of metal so will be living with my parents post-surgery for at least six weeks. Assuming we've got on a-ok and I don't die, it would be great to come back in Jan/Feb again.

I am happy to be in a teeny tiny room, I really am! And I don't mind if you are a man or a woman or a couple or a huge massive family. If you have children (do families live in Central London?!) then you can always use me as a babysitter every now and then if that helps make the whole 'offer' seem more attractive. I enjoy hanging out with children and watch a surprising amount of kids TV for a business owning adult. 

Hopefully you know who I am if you're reading this or have been sent this by a friend who has introduced me, but I run a web start-up (fashion related) and the Daily Mail once called me 'saucy'. (You don't need to know that last part, I just like saying it. It's gonna be on my headstone). 

So if you have a spare room, would like some extra cash each month and think we can work something out then please get in touch, it would be hugely appreciated. Email poppy@wiwt.com with a rental price and where you're based and we'll take it from there :)

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I love a good list, but I'm a bit obsessive when it comes to ranking my favourite things. There is nothing relaxing about making a list. I put so much pressure on myself to not get it wrong, that it literally consumes me for hours/days/weeks/months and then when I do 'publish' my list (usually in my handwritten book of lists) I always sign the time and date I wrote it and include a clause that I am allowed to change my mind.

Clearing out my desk today, I found a ranked list I made in 2008 of my favourite Beatles albums. I had *a lot* to do today, yet all I could think about was "WHY DID I CHOOSE PLEASE PLEASE ME AS MY FAVOURITE ONE?!". What was wrong with my head in 2008? Why wasn't The White Album my favourite? What were my ears playing at? And so I have been distracted all day by what my current favourite order is.

This is what I have concluded...

1. The Beatles (The White Album)
2. Abbey Road
3. Beatles For Sale
4. Please Please Me
5. With The Beatles
6. Help!
7. A Hard Day's Night
8. Rubber Soul
9. Revolver
10. Magical Mystery Tour
11. Let It Be
12. Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band
13. Yellow Submarine

Obviously The Beatles' discography is a bit complicated due to the way early records were distributed internationally, but the above is going by their 13 studio albums as released in the UK. The ranking of my top five has completely shuffled about since 2008, so maybe I'll revisit this list in 2013 and see how I feel then.

Basically this is a post of little value to anyone, I just needed to write it so that I could stop thinking about it.

If you're a Beatles fan then I'd love to hear how you'd rank them, though I appreciate you may not want to waste your time dwelling on such trivial issues. It soooo isn't a trivial issue.

Related funniness:

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I spend a lot of time on Twitter and follow some spectacularly funny people. Working from home on your own can be exceptionally tedious and Twitter can certainly help in the fight against cabin fever. When I signed up to this working from home malarky, I thought I could watch Jezza in my knickers all day whilst eating crisps. It's not like that, sadly. I was missold. I WANT MY MONEY BACK. (Or at least the opportunity to interact with humans face to face again. Humans are cool. Sometimes. I miss them).

I am pretty good at 'gold starring' the tweets I find funny/informative so that when people are being shit at Twitter, I can read through my favourite list and see a perfectly curated list of funniness. And whilst I totes understand that I am not in charge of saying what's funny and what isn't, I have taken the liberty to do so to create this post of the best tweets of 2010.

Obvs there are loads of tweets every day that get retweeted by hundreds of people/morons, giving whoever wrote it a semi for the rest of the afternoon as they bask in their shortlived glory. But these are the best tweets (in my humble opinion) from the people I *actually* follow. 

Needless to say, their authors all deserve being followed. Some people appear a lot, but that's because they win at Twitter. 

I've made a handy Twitter List of all the people featured here for you to follow if you'd like. The list is here. Think of it as a Christmas present. (I still want a proper present though, cheers).

It was hard to shortlist an entire year's worth of funny, but I narrowed it down to my Top 100. It's a bit bloody long, isn't it? Sorry about that. Maybe you can bookmark this and dip in and out at your leisure? Please wear swimming trunks.

They are not quite in chronological order, as sorting them by date made me nearly kill myself. Oh and I should point out to anyone easily offended that there are quite a few rude words. I compiled the list though, what did you fucking expect?

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Over the weekend, I rummaged about in the loft looking for all things Christmassy and set to decorating the house (pics here, innit). In the process of doing so, I stumbled across many other wondrous belongings of mine – mostly art that has been in storage since saying goodbye to my London flat earlier this year. I have some fab prints, including two signed copies of the Mark Titchner print you see above. Mark sent them to me himself, which makes them sit in an even warmer corner of my heart.

Generally, I’m not a fan of anything ‘motivational’. I don’t know what that says about me, I just hate it when people peddle out annoyingly twee life-affirming quotes as their pre-prepared answer to any given problem. It shouldn’t annoy me, but it does. You will never see my fridge covered in cutesy magnets with quaint and soppy sayings. Good lord, if I never read another sentimental message on a fridge magnet again then I’d die happy. I am motivated by the thought of a world where we get motivation from things other than motivational fridge magnets.

I digress.

The point is, I love Mark Titchner. I don’t find his work annoying, and it’s a very fine line to tread between ‘inspirational’ and ‘eye stabbingly irritating’. Mark gets it right, I love his work and I love the thought behind it.

I first saw this print on the tube in 2008, Londoners will probably recognise it, and it seemed to resonate with me. 2008 was a bit mental and I did make some big decisions to have a better life. It would be a bit gushy fangirl of me to imply that I made these decisions solely because of this poster, but the message did seem to be haunting me.  It was *everywhere* on the underground, and I do like to think on the tube. It’s nice and anonymous down there. Claustrophobically busy but nobody gives two hoots about you, I like that.

Anyway, I thought it was a nice message to share on a Monday.

It’s not necessarily easy, but it is true. If you don't like your life you can change it.

Video nicked, respectfully, from Tate Britain.

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I love decorating the Christmas tree and this is the second year that I've had the sole responsibility of doing it. I'm not very Christmas spirity when I put the decorations up, it's more of a "TRY TO INTERFERE AND I WILL STAB YOU IN YOUR SLEEP" kind of affair. Monica Gellar on speed. When I have children I'll obviously encourage them to join in, but I don't have children. I have every right to be be a Christmas control freak. Yey!

This is the first Christmas in a long time that my family won't be in America, but you can definitely see the American influence to our 'holiday spirit'. Most of our decorations come from the US and this year we seem to be going with a bit of a rodeo theme. Most of these ones are being debuted on the tree for the first time this year and come from Kurt S. Adler and Seasons of Cannon Falls. I love them! And they remind me that I need to get on with finding a cowboy of my own.

Elsewhere in the house are other pretty Christmassy things, again mostly from the US. Some of the decorations are from closer to home though, like the Russian dolls from...errr...Prague.  

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I think it's an awesome portrait, hence why you now see it as my avatar in most places you look, but the photo actually has a much deeper meaning to me. Whilst it was effectively born out of larking about, Chris managed to create a picture that symbolises (to me at least) a battle I've been quietly fighting with my face for years.

I say 'quietly', but this is not the case within the confines of my closest family and friends. In fact for them, they've gone through years of me complaining, worrying, despairing and moaning. I am eternally grateful for their support and cannot believe they haven't chucked me on a bonfire.

I would like to think that most people reading this don't know the extent of what I've been going through, as I don't want to be known as somebody who excessively whinges. People don't read my blog or follow me on Twitter to get an update on how much pain I'm in that day, such updates would be boring to anyone, not least of all me.

When I was a teenager I started to have problems with headaches and neck pain. As anyone who has ever had chronic headaches will know, they are notoriously difficult to find a cause for. Headaches can be caused by all sorts of things, from chocolate to brain tumours, so you're actually pretty lucky if a doctor can ever pinpoint a reason for why you're afflicted by them.

It wasn't until around three years ago that an opthamologist suggested my pain was being caused by my jaw. She suspected deeply impacted wisdom teeth, to which I just left her office being grumbly and moany, knowing that most people around that age went through a bit of wisdom tooth related trauma. 

As my pain got worse and worse and started affecting my ability to live a 'normal life', I had x-rays to confirm whether my wisdom teeth were in fact the problem. My London dentist was shocked by what she saw on the x-ray and referred me to the Homerton Hospital, with the view to them being removed.

This started a long and painful (excuse the pun) relationship with The Homerton. Within my first visit my consultant knew that my wisdom teeth weren't in fact the problem (they're so highly embedded in my upper jaw that they'll never come down, my lower jaw doesn't have any at all), and suspected I actually had a wider problem with my jaw joint itself. He sent me off to get my skull x-rayed. If you ever get the opportunity to play inside one of these x-ray machines then do it, they have been the highlight of this whole sorry saga.

These x-rays confirmed his suspicion, my temporomandibular joints were badly damaged. They were crumbly and poorly and the source of all my woes. I have to admit that at that point I was elated. I was in a huge amount of pain, but in the shades of the black, grey and white of the image I could see the 'proof' of why I was in so much pain. And once you have an identified problem, you can set about finding a solution.

A treatment plan was put together and I had renewed hope that my life would resemble what it had done before, I would be able to get out of bed without pain medication and - hopefully - be able to bring back to life my old favourite party trick of being able to fit my entire fist in my mouth. I'd be able to star on this blog, and all my dreams would come true.

Unfortunately, things got progressively worse. I ended up having to take three months off work and live with my parents like a baby. I often couldn't eat or talk, I wouldn't sleep for days at a time being kept awake by the agony of it all. And my only relief came from dangerously high levels of codeine, which left me in a zombie like state. I would be dead on the sofa, wishing I was just that.

The codeine ended up affecting my health dangerously in other ways, it is an opiate after all, and my body would shake and my heart would race. I wasn't quite Phil Mitchell 'the crack years', but it wasn't much fun. I can make a joke out of it in hindsight, but it was terrifying. I knew I wasn't going to be able to succeed in business or have children or anything like that, when I couldn't even get out of bed.

I'm not going to be able to even begin to articulate how much pain conditions of the jaw can cause. But if you've ever been repeatedly punched in the face, it's a bit like that. But every single day. You wouldn't want to know the internal dialogue I have had with myself standing at the edge of train platforms, but it has been heartbreaking. 

It's not just the jaw that ends up being affected, it affects the ears in a way that leaves you feel like you're always fighting a fluey infection. You have constant earache and it affects your hearing, and the knock on affects of angry ears are dizzy spells and loss of balance. It's not much fun clinging to the sofa with the room spinning, not when you haven't been on the gin anyway.

The referred pain becomes a huge problem too, the musculature of the shoulders, neck and jaw are very complex. My jaw started to severely affect my neck, leaving my nerves compressed and my arms very weak. I couldn't carry shopping (the horror!) and my fingers were becoming numb. It was very frightening and compounded the fear I already had that I was going to end up a useless lump, unable to fulfil any of the ambitions I understandably had as a determined and smart young woman. 

Being in pain is never nice, but at least if you've got a bad knee or ankle or shoulder then you can rest it. You can't 'rest' your face, not unless you don't want to eat or talk. When The Homerton decided it was too dangerous for me to continue taking codeine and effectively blacklisted me from ever taking it again, I was prescribed Seroxat to try and help me 'cope' instead. Take it from me that Seroxat is a nasty, nasty drug. I am incensed that I was prescribed it without having any of the risks being mentioned. I came off of that as quickly, and safely, as I could.

When it became clear late last year that there was a very real chance of me throwing myself under a bus, my family very kindly paid for me to go private. We were basically after the opinion of someone who specialised in my condition and who was rated as one of the top people in Europe. Conveniently he worked in the same hospital as my Mother, but I would never have been able to guarantee seeing him there on the NHS, as I'd have always been seen by one of his team as opposed to him himself. So we organised to see him at a private hospital instead, the hope being we'd pay a consultation fee once. We just wanted an expert opinion, then we could go back to the NHS armed with more information.

I left my first consultation with him furious. Not because he wasn't amazing, but because I realised I had never been treated properly by the Homerton. They had never done any proper investigative work. They had never given me more than 8 minutes of their time at a consultation. They had never offered a solution other than a life-time of pills and the constructive advice of 'you'll just have to leave work'.

I had already undergone splint therapy at the Homerton, but it had exacerbated my problem and damaged my joints further. I can't tell you how much resentment I have for this, they didn't take the time to understand what was wrong and therefore gave me an entirely inappropriate treatment plan. In fairness to them, they are working under the impossible constraints of a hugely overwhelmed NHS. So it's not their fault as medical professionals, they do the best they can with the limited resources they have. But I still feel bitterly that they owe me a year of my life at the very least. But there's not much that can be said or done about that now. My new consultant started me on a different course of splint therapy and taught me all sorts of new exercises. There were things I was banned from doing, and things that became compulsory. For three weeks I wore an alarm that beeped every ten minutes to remind me to relax the muscles of my face. Yeah, that was a fun three weeks for those around me. I also started physio therapy.

My pain came under control, I still took painkillers quite a lot but it was a marked improvement to where I was before. I was no longer crying myself to sleep or researching one way flights to Switzerland, which was nice.

I continued to see my consultant regularly and I was confident that my health was improved enough for me to be able to commit to starting my own business. It was an exciting time to say the least.

Unfortunately, in recent months my pain has returned. My jaw has shifted dramatically and I now have a pretty severe open bite.

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These pictures, taken this morning, are of my jaw completely closed. As you can see, I have no contact between my teeth. The gap continues to widen. There are only two teeth in my entire mouth that make contact when my jaw is fully closed, my upper and lower back molar on the left.

This is affecting my speech and my ability to eat. It's not very nice aesthetically either, but that really is the least of my worries when I have the ever present intense pain to deal with. My muscles are trying to get used this new jaw positioning (which they can't, because the jaw is misaligned) and they're not happy at all. Some days my jaw is so tight that I can't even fit a chocolate button in my mouth, which is understandably an absolute travesty. Chocolate buttons were one of the main reasons I could give myself to get out of bed.

Luckily, I work from home so I don't have to put on a brave face for anyone. I don't have to say very much out loud as I do most of my communicating electronically. If I do go to a party or see friends then after a few hours of talking I am exhausted. That doesn't mean I don't want to go out, I still love seeing my friends and meeting new people, it just tires me now. Anyone that grew up with me will know what a gossipy chatterbox I was, I remember being told that the only way I would ever be quiet would be if my jaw was wired shut...so maybe I'm finally being punished for years of driving my teachers mad with 'talking at the back'.

I have been at the dentist most weeks for the last few months, trying to come up with a solution to bring my bite back to normal. I was told I would need extensive orthodontics and was devastated. It sounds vain to be 'devastated' about having braces, but come on! I'm a 23 year old single woman and I post pictures of myself every day on WIWT for goodness sake, what would you expect?! It took a long time for me to get used to the idea of having braces, but I knew I had to have them. 

My maxfax consultant wrote to me after being informed by my dentist that I would be starting the first phase of orthodontic treatment, he wanted to take a look at my jaw for himself before anything started.

On Friday, I saw him. I was nervous but excited, I don't know why I was excited. I think I thought that maybe he'd say I wouldn't need braces, but that I could do some stretches or have a new splint or kiss a toad or something and it would fix itself.

He told me I needed the braces. He also told me he was going to have to brake my jaw, remove bone from my face, fix me back together with plates and screws and then wire my jaw shut.

I didn't react well to this news, nobody would. I'm in so much pain already that the idea of now going through such nasty surgery just makes me cry uncontrollably every time I think about it. 

I am scared that it will hurt, I am scared about what my 'new face' will look like and most of all I am scared that even after six months of swelling and a further year of braces that I will still be in pain and it will all be for nothing. 

I have to trust my surgeon, but it doesn't stop the fact that I am terrified.

Of course the real kicker is that this surgery is not covered by the newly reformed NHS. Without wanting to go all postcode lottery on you, I live in a PCT that has no money, and worse than that, I live in the most debt ridden area within the PCT. My doctor, dentist, orthodontist and maxfax consultant will present a case to the powers that be that I should receive NHS funding, but I have been told not to expect to get it. NICE aren't so nice after all. 

The cost? Around £20,000.

I don't have £20,000. I don't have any money to be honest. I have already used my savings to 'live off' when I've been unable to work because of my jaw, and a lot of money has been spent on physio and medical bills already. It's as though I live in America, but without the better food and cheaper clothes.

As most of you know, I am trying to start a business so I am trying to put the little money I do have into this. I now have to find £20,000 to invest in this surgery, instead of finding £20,000 to invest in my business. It's not like I need to become a hooker or anything to meet the costs, I'll find the money. I'm just understandably upset that where I was once excited to be approaching my friends and family for the first round of investment in my business, I am now having to ask them to invest in my new robot face.

I'm not thrilled, as you can imagine. And I am scared about how it will all work out. I feel as though everything I have dreamed about is slipping away from me, just because my skeleton doesn't happen to fit together nicely. 

I am angry that there are people gorging their way to diabetes, drinking themselves to liver disease and smoking their way to cancer and yet I can't get the treatment for a condition I was born with. That is a wider political matter though, and I won't ever be discussing it here.

Of course, I am fully aware that things could be a lot worse. I'm not going to die or have a shortened lifespan, not unless I do something really stupid anyway. I am grateful that I don't have a disfigured face, and whilst I used to be angry that people would respond with 'but you don't look ill', I am of course pleased that I don't. Other than swelling, my open bite has been the first visual clue anyone would have that anything is wrong. It will be pretty clear post-surgery that something is wrong, but it's a means to an end. 

It's worth pointing out that, despite all of this, I think I've had a pretty successful year. I've worked very hard and there'll be people who are surprised to hear that anything has been amiss at all, which is lovely. I have done some amazing things that I'd have been proud of had I been fighting fit, let alone whilst going through this. I'm still working my arse off and I still know I'll be very successful one day, I just have to get past this little roadblock first. I have never let anyone down and I never would, and I'm pleased to say that I have some really exciting projects coming up with some amazing people which I can't wait to get my teeth into, *ahem*.

But anyway, that's where I am. And that's the story behind the photo.

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I received an email last week that made me smile. It made me smile a lot. This is an accurate picture of me when I read it -->  :D

The email was from Hayley Korn, an English teacher from North Bridge House Senior School in Primrose Hill. I'd never met Hayley, or 'Ms Korn' if we're going to be teachery, but she followed me on Twitter and read my various blogs so knew who I was. She was emailing to ask if I'd come and speak to her GCSE students about modern language. 

I was so flattered to be asked. Being asked to speak to children is probably the best confirmation there is that you're not a total disaster. "Yey! I've managed to blag my way into going back to school for the day!" I thought. After the initial delight of even being considered as a speaker for students subsided, I was quickly overwhelmed with exciting thoughts along the lines of "OH MY GOD. I MIGHT GET TO HAVE A SCHOOL DINNER". And I was right to be excited, they have very yummy school dinners at NBH.

I often encounter people who think I studied English at university, which always surprises me as I still can't spell 'necessary' and I make up nonsensical grammatical rules as I go. I only received a B in GCSE English. Granted, a B is hardly tragic, but it was the worst grade I received. (*Cough* show off *cough*). In my defence, I was taught for part of the year by a Maths teacher (good ol' Mr Brown) so that might go part of the way to explaining my relatively poor performance, but I gave up English as soon as I headed for sixth form. I didn't give it up all together obviously, I didn't start speaking French, but I didn't study it as soon as it stopped being compulsory.

I was asked to come in and speak because of the writing I do across various platforms. I have, essentially, built a career out of talking crap on the internet. Mother and Father are very proud.

The students had been focusing on all aspects of modern language and how platforms like Twitter are changing the way we communicate. It's an interesting subject and one that I am very passionate about. They've been debating the use of slang and whether the use of 'proper' English really matters as long as the reader understands what you're trying to get across. It's an interesting argument, do we need to spell correctly and use full sentences if an abbreviated version will still make sense to the reader? Does it really matter if I write like this or lyk dis? 

So after accepting the invite and descending into mild panic that the kids would think I was a complete loser and throw protractors at me, I prepared a PowerPoint and trundled up to London to see them on Monday.

I've never been inside a London school, I always find it bizarre that children even live in London. Where are they? I never see them. But London school children do exist, I have met them and have photographic evidence (see below). 

North Bridge House is a *lovely* school. The Headmistress should be very proud. It's on the edge of Regent's Park and now I want to have children just so that I can send them there.

The first thing I noticed when I entered the school was that they're auditioning for Joseph and the Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat. I was sooooooooooooooo jealous. I want to be in Joseph! I want to be 14 and be in school plays! School plays are the best thing ever, almost as good as the fact that when you're that old you get to eat chips for dinner *every* day in front of Byker Grove. (Children probably don't eat chips every day any more, Byker Grove probably doesn't exist any more, they probably don't even sweep chimneys any more either.)

I was met by Hayley (sorry, Ms Korn) who is absolutely lovely (and, for the record, stunningly beautiful) and then we went up to the classroom to meet Mr Raven (best dressed teacher *evah*) and get on with it all. The whole of Year 10 were there, but unlike my school which had around 180 kids in a year group, this year group had just 40 or so kids. Awwww. Bless.

There was a red carpet laid out for me (really!) and the students weren't actually scary at all. They were all very polite and seemed like a genuinely cool bunch of adults in the making. In fact one of the girls had the coolest nails I had ever seen, I can't remember her name but I hope she starts a fashion blog herself one day. Schools seem to be cooler than they were when I was their age, they get to wear nail varnish without being put in detention. Amazing advances. Schools also have crazily clever interactive whiteboards now, which is also cool but not as cool as nail varnish.

So I presented my presentation, as you do, and nobody fell asleep so that was nice. I wasn't sure to be honest if any of them would be on Facebook or Twitter. But I soon learnt that there wasn't anyone in the class who didn't use FB and there were even a few Twitter users. Although it was interesting, to me at least, that the few who had joined Twitter didn't seem to like it or see its appeal. FB was definitely where it was at for them as a communication tool.

We talked about what it is I *actually* do on a daily basis, where social networking fits with my career, my general views on modern language, how I adapt my writing style for different audiences, how I make my thoughts fit into 140 characters on Twitter, the slang I use and my views on it, what the use of slang implies to the reader and so on and so forth.

Then came the really scary part, the students were split into groups and given different examples of my writing. There were six groups examining either my CV, a post on living alone vs living with others from my Tumblr blog, my FaceTime post from this blog, posts from WIWT, my article from the Financial Times or my Twitter stream. They had to read the piece(s) and then answer questions and present them back to the class. Have you ever had 14 and 15 year olds critically analyse your writing? It's scary. Kids will tell you if they think it's no good, and I did get a bit of a telling off from one group for the use of emoticons in my CV. They had a point.

Then came a Q&A session. At my school, this would be the part where not a single one of us would raise our hands. The 'guest' or whoever would begin to visibly sweat and then the awkward silence would finally be broken by one kid putting up their hand...but then they'd only be asking if they could be excused to go to the toilet. I was dreading Q&A. But luckily there were lots of questions, really insightful questions too. They asked the things that most adults ask me when they meet me..."What was the real inspiration behind WIWT?" (answer = spite), "Do you ever have days where you don't want to post?" (answer = yes), "Do you ever worry about your privacy and personal safety?" (answer = yes), "Do your parents have media jobs?" (answer = no, but they are awesome) and so on. 

All in all it was a great day and something I hope to do a lot more of. I love teachers, they're like superheroes to me. I still like to think that maybe I'll be a teacher when I'm a bit older and wiser. And I do hope the NBH kids realise that they are very lucky to have Ms Korn and Mr Raven teaching them English as it really doesn't matter what you end up doing when you're older, if you can communicate well then you can do anything. Really.

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The student in this first pic hasn't killed anyone or anything, you're just not allowed to show their faces. 2010 is so weird.

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I first heard about NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) two years ago when a friend took part in it. I heard about it because he bitched about it constantly, it seems to be one of those things you immediately regret agreeing to take part in. That's fine though, I agree to do things and then hate myself for doing so on an almost hourly basis. I'm used to the self-loathing.

The NaNoWriMo challenge lasts for the month of November and you basically have to write a novel, 50,000 words to be precise, in 30 days.

It's like a marathon, but you don't get any fitter. In fact, you'll probably gain a few pounds whilst attacking the custard creams in the early hours of the morning desperately trying to figure out where the hell you're going with chapter six.

I've never taken part in NaNoWriMo and I definitely don't have time to do it this year, which obviously means I've signed up anyway. I don't really get to write fiction any more and I do miss it, so I'm looking forward to the creative challenge. I'm not expecting to review my 'novel' on the 1st of December and be happy with what I've written, but I know I'll enjoy the process of writing it.

I've never really tried to write fiction in the form of a novel, whenever I've had half decent ideas I've always developed them as screenplays. I'm excited to try my hand at a different style of writing and it will be a change to rely on my descriptive powers rather than cinematography to tell a story. I wanted to cheat and take one of my old screenplay concepts to use as the starting point for my NaNoWriMo plot, but the whole point of NaNoWriMo is to develop an idea from scratch and to go from concept to 50,000 words in 30 days. 

So what to write about?

I stayed at my grandparents new house last weekend and it was the first time I'd seen it since they moved in. They have a gate that leads to nowhere in their back garden and I knew as soon as I saw it that I wanted to write *something* about where that gate could lead to. I hadn't even thought of taking part in NaNoWriMo last weekend but I took a picture of it anyway to capture the moment.

I suppose my story will be along the lines of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, The Labyrinth, The Secret Garden, Alice in Wonderland, Coraline, Pan's Labyrinth and the like. Whether it's a wardrobe, rabbit hole or tiny door - all these stories focus on a gateway to another world. Essentially, my main character (a boy, name to be determined) will discover a palace beyond the gate and a dark and twisted array of characters. The palace will be loosely based on my trip last weekend to Ickworth House, as in reality this is what lies beyond my grandparents' gate. 

Without wanting to sound like a pretentious arse, I know that I'm at 'my creative best' when writing very dark horror material. But I don't want to do that for NaNoWriMo, it's not something I like to indulge as it messes with my head a bit. I don't really want people to read the horror plots that I play with in my mind, on the few times that I have been honest with people about my ideas in that genre I've always been made to feel like I should be sectioned, which isn't great (though perhaps fair).

My untitled novel will be aimed at children, slightly scary but majestic too. One thing I do know is that there'll be lots of butterflies in jars and a giant talking gerbil who wears a waistcoast.

I'll probably write updates on here ever so often when I should actually be working on the novel itself, but hopefully I'll get to 50,000 words by the 30th of November.

Why don't you sign up too? Then we can regret our decision together :)

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I am currently being thoroughly spoilt whilst staying with my Grandparents at their new pad on the outskirts of Ickworth House in Horringer (near Bury St Edmunds). You can see the grounds from their house, I'm looking at them now, but today we went inside the house for a nose around.

It's not one of the more impressive National Trust properties I've been to, but I was intrigued by the stories relating to its wildchild owners - jewellery thief and Mayfair playboy Victor Hervey and then his son John Hervey especially.

As you may know, John Hervey blew £35,000,000 (yes that does say thirty five million pounds) on drugs, prostitutes, partying and the like. It was John who sold the property to The National Trust (as he was going to be evicted) and The National Trust has since refused to sell it back to the Hervey family. When he died of AIDS aged 44 his estate had dwindled to under £5000. Pretty tragic to be honest, though I was impressed by the fact that he once flew his helicopter without radar whilst snorting coke off the map he was using to navigate.

These are some pics from my phone...

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I remember being a fan of the Finanical Times as far back as when I was 8 years old. I wasn't reading it back then mind, the salmon paper just made really good papier mache. All the kids in art club were encouraged to nick their Father's newspapers and bring them in to create all sorts of wonderfully pink tinged pieces. My Father only read Private Eye, so I think we literally just bought the FT to pulp it. But I grew up and became strangely interested in business and the state of the markets. I remember reading the FT on the train when I was 15 and commuting into the City to do work experience at Wachovia. I don't think I knew what any of the numbers meant, but I remember desperately wanting to understand it all.

For some reason I had decided early on that I wanted to work on a foreign exchange desk at a big bank. I'd spend my summer holidays on the beach reading any old text book that I could get my hands on to help me understand more about the markets. Most were practically useless as they were so out of date, but they confirmed an interest in the subject matter at least. When I studied economics at sixth form I realised my interest was leaning away from working in the City and towards being a financial writer. I wanted to write about business but I wanted to do so in the chatty and informal tone of voice that I was already developing. When I was 16 my main goal (other than owning a pair of Louboutins, obviously) was to write for the FT.  

Anyone reading this who is around my age or have children studying for exams will no doubt remember the CGP revision guides. Firstly, how bloody amazing were they? And secondly, that was the exact kind of thing I wanted to be doing...writing about arguably complicated topics in a fun and simple way. Though I would never claim to be able to write a one liner as good as the ones you find in a CGP book. My personal statement on my UCAS form was all about how I wanted to write about business and make it accessible and interesting to a Joe Public audience. I think I went on about this a bit too much in my Cambridge interview as the panel didn't seem to understand why I wasn't applying to study English. I never wanted to study English, I didn't even take it past GCSE level where it was compulsory, I wanted to study Economics.

So I was very lucky to end up at SSEES, the School of Slavanoic and East European Studies, a bizarre but wonderful department at UCL. I studied Economics, Business and Eastern European Studies. As anyone who studied this with me will confirm, it was seriously hard work. Some of the modules were easy enough, but others required so many hours upon hours of reading that you'd often find yourself falling asleep in the library with no clue whatsoever as to what you were supposed to be even vaguely trying to understand. Suggested reading might not even be in English, which just added to the fun and games of it all. I've never wanted to be Polish so much in my life as in my final year of university.

But I muddled through and did well in the end. I loved writing my final year dissertation, I chose to examine the nature of entrepreneurship under transition conditions, exploring regional and gender differences. It was probably one of the most interesting (to me at least) things I've ever worked on to date. You can read it here, it's written very simply as that was what I was trying to achieve - condensing scores of complicated and foreign texts into something that was easily accessible. I was working full time in the summer holidays throughout university and I just went straight back to my day job as soon as I did my last exam, I think it was Russian Political Economy, without even so much as a day off to get smashed. Though I've partied hard enough since university to not resent the fact there wasn't much debauchery whilst I was there. Maybe I've got it all the wrong way round? Probably.

I suppose I did end up being a bit of a business writer to some extent, I wrote about the property market a lot as part of my job at both Zoomf and Globrix, but I had never been able to tick off 'write an article for the FT' from my life goal to do list. Until today :)

I was flattered beyond words when Peter Whitehead asked me to write an article for him, gobsmacked in fact. Peter followed me on Twitter so knew me at my sweary, X Factor obsessed best. I was pleasantly surprised (read: shocked) that he'd want me to expand my thoughts beyond 140 characters. But he did, so I did. You can read the article on the front page of Executive Appointments in today's print edition or you can read it online here. You need to be registered with the FT to read their articles online, but it's free and quick to do so.

I'm ridiculously pleased to be able to check this off my life goal list, I don't think I expected this one would ever happen. It's given me high hopes for sleeping with Dustin Hoffman now too.

My 95 year old great grandmother has read it and apparently approves of it, so I suppose that's the main thing :) 

x

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I try (emphasis on the word 'try') to avoid being too ranty, but I am almost frothing at the mouth with anger after seeing the FaceTime promo vid on the Apple website. 

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Just under a month ago I posted on here and on WIWT that I was looking for feedback on some ideas I had. You may have read it. (If ya did and offered help - thanks!). The post got just under 4000 views and I received well over 100 emails and phone calls, let alone tweets and FB messages, from bloody awesome people who were all happy to lend an ear.

I have to say, it was pretty damn humbling and fantastically flattering.

I don't know what I was expecting to achieve by posting what I did but I certainly never expected to be quite so inundated with messages of 'good luck' and 'how can I help?' - especially from so many people who I admire the work of and who I know are extremely busy with their own projects. I was inundated with responses and I'm eternally grateful for everyone's encouragement and kindness.

Thank you <3

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