Flaming Nora

Just finished reading The Best of Everything by Rona Jaffe. It's a 1958 novel which has been reissued with a retro black and white cover bearing the tag-line, The Original Sex and the City . It's a smashing little book and the reissue is on sale in Watersones for over a tenner or you can do what I did and pick up an original via eBay for 99p. The novel was turned into a movie and then a soap opera in the US and is definitely worth a read, even 50 years on.

For the third time this year I have a stinking cold and for the second time this year, it's forced me off work sick. Fortunately, it's nothing worse, but still, it's really snot fair. However, the one good thing about being confined to the sofa with the TV remote in one hand and a Lemsip in the other is the joy you can find on Sky TV . Ah, be still my beating heart.

Now that I've lived in London for over eight years, I feel I can blog with some authority on the city, don't you think? So if you're planning a trip to the capital, here's my top 10 favourite things to do in that London. 1. The London Eye . I've been on it four times, even though I'm scared of heights. 2. Sir John Soane's Museum . A hidden gem in Holborn and it's free. 3. Borough Market. Get there early before the tourists. 4. Ride the Thames in a London Duck . 5. Sit on Kirsty MacColl's bench in Soho Square. 6. Royal Festival Hall. My favourite building in London, followed by a walk along the Southbank. 7. London Transport Museum will release your inner tube-driver. 8. Imperial War Museum has some fantastic tanks. Yes, really. 9. Churchill Museum and Cabinet war rooms . A sobering experience. 10. Saint Clement Danes Church. Turn up at 12 noon and the bells really do chime Oranges and Lemons . And now for some tips. Do yourself a favour and avo...

To the Hayward Gallery this weekend, one of my favourites in London, to see the Walking in My Mind exhibition. My favourite piece was this one by Chiharu Shiota which was a room criss-crossed with black wool and in the centre, these haunting outfits. Although chaotic it was amazingly peaceful. Highly recommended.

I've been writing Coronation Street weekly updates since 1995 and this week's Coronation Street update has just gone live here . This week the update comes with a come-hither look through meat-pie eyes.

Earlier this month, this blog celebrated its third birthday. Here it is celebrating its 2nd and its 1st . Today is my birthday, I am slightly older than my blog. And later this week my lovely man and I will be celebrating a very special anniversary. A wash and brush-up, and best bib and tucker is called for as a night at our favourite restaurant beckons.

After a night at the the-ay-ter, when I write a blog post about the show, I normally nick a picture from a website and stick it on my blog. Not so with Priscilla Queen of the Desert. What you see above is my very own picture, taken in the interval of the show at the Palace Theatre this week. The show? Oh you know... it was just about the most fantastic musical I've ever seen and goes up there in the top 5 shows I've ever seen in London. It was absolutely brilliant - funny, heartwearming with gob-smackingly outrageous outfits. And if you're not singing and clapping along with the drag queens by the end then you'd better check your pulse as you surely must be dead.