Three chords and a stick-on ponytail

I cannot help it. I  have a guilty well of fascination for any truly brazen fraudster. I would never suggest they didn't deserve their punishment, or that what they were doing was to be encouraged, but as someone who's permanently apologetic and slightly nervous, their audacity astounds me.

Some months ago, I discovered the extraordinary story of Gene Morrison, who set himself up as a forensic scientist and faked a career from it, having completed his qualifications at the University Of Owning Lots Of CSI DVDs. My favourite part of his scientific methodology was his 'lie detector' machine, which was actually just a normal computer. He would decide himself whether he thought an investigatee was lying, then press a button so the word 'false' would flash up on the screen.

Today, on the way home, I read in London Lite the story of a man who was impersonating Francis Rossi from Status Quo. I am quoting the newspaper directly here, as their words need no elaboration (Is this plagiarism? I don't know, but let me attempt to counter it by saying that the London Lite is a marvellous free newspaper. Of all the free evening newspapers in London, it's in the Top 2):

"The trickster promised Dover's town councillors that he would perform free at their festival with his 'friends' Sir Paul McCartney, Charlotte Church and Queen's Brian May. 

The council was duped into letting him judge a carnival float competition and attend a VIP event at Dover Castle.

There were inconsistencies which could have given the game away. Like why the conman did not possess a Francis Rossi-style ponytail, or why he could not play the guitar. According to reports, the man claimed: 'I can't grow my hair long any more. A fake ponytail is stuck on three hours before a gig.' Asked to play the band's hit Rockin' All Over The World, he declined, saying he had arthritis."

I don't know what lesson we can learn here apart from, if you didn't realise it before, you should never, ever trust a man in matching denim jacket and jeans.

Yes sir, I can be the 34th president of the United States

I had my lunch in Grosvenor Square today with two friends and 794 pigeons. The square is essentially the back garden of the US embassy, and after I had finished my Square Pie from Selfridges (lamb and rosemary, 6.5 out of 10), I saw this statue of Dwight Eisenhower:

Mr Eisenhower's jaunty stance is an unconventional pose for a leader of men immortalised in statuedom. 

Let's be honest. It's a bit camp.

I was half-expecting petrified President Eisenhower to lurch into life and entertain passers-by with a chorus of Yes Sir, I Can Boogie. 

Perhaps someone could scale his nobel frame under cover of night and drape a pink feather boa around his neck.

The hardest word

I am blogging from my bedroom, which I'm not allowed to leave until I've thought about what I've done. That is a metaphor. I'm actually in the sitting room. I'm watching Newsnight and I've just had a small bowl of Special K. But I digress.

My mum has told me off for swearing on my blog. She said I am 'doing a Gordon Ramsay'. I know this is not an appreciative reference to my culinary skillz. 

Someone who may or may not be Gary Kemp has told me off for being rude about Gary Kemp. 

To summarise, I have essentially been told by two different people (unless my mum has decided to begin masquerading as the former Spandau songwriter, which would involve quite a lifestyle change on her part) to stop showing off. At my own birthday party (another metaphor, English GCSE scholars), I have been told to go and lie down upstairs with a flannel on my forehead and just calm down.  

I am chastened. Furthermore, I have a cold. This is not a metaphor. But it is, perhaps, karma.

David Crystal, awesomely bearded linguist and writer of at least one of my university textbooks, is discussing apostrophes on Newsnight. He has a very progressive approach to punctuation. I think I love him.  

'Just another play for today...'

In other Mariella Frostrup news, I caught a glimpse of her on the Sky Arts channel late this afternoon. I was excited to discover that the Sky Arts channel is part of my regular Sky subscription, and not some kind of premium package which requires you to present a dozen used ticket stubs from the Royal Opera House and an empty bottle of new-season olive oil in order to have the signal unscrambled. Amazing, I thought. Perhaps, later this evening, I might enjoy a documentary on Carole King, or a Beach Boys concert from the 70s, or a classic episode of The South Bank Show about Philip Larkin. But no. 

Tonight on Sky Arts, it is Gary Kemp night. 

I've got nothing against Gary Kemp. I never minded Spandau Ballet. They were no Duran Duran, OBVIOUSLY. But I enjoy Gold whenever I hear it played on a commercial radio station in the workplace, and I remember quite the stir about his performance in The Krays. 

However, as cultural polymaths qualified to curate an evening's high-brow televisual smorgasbord go, he's no Dr Jonathan Miller. He's no Stephen Fry. He's no David Bowie. I'm not even sure he's David Hasselhoff. No offence, Gaz, but come on...

In which I attempt to show some respect but then immediately undermine myself with the usual twee trivia

Two important events on the world calendar which seem to regularly intersect on this day each year are the Remembrance Sunday commemorations at the Cenotaph, and my dear friend Miss R's birthday lunch. Today, as last year, I found myself walking out of Charing Cross Station against the mighty tide of former servicemen, their families, and random respect-payers, all of them engaged in a) taking photos b) effecting some kind of impressive near-march, even when at ease and c) looking extraordinarily proud and dignified. This year, as last year, it was all I could do not to arrive at lunch with my cheeks sluiced with tears and mascara. 

I was momentarily distracted, though, from my feelings of privileged youth, sadness and inadequacy by the glorious sight of a handsome young man arm-in-arm with a very frail elderly serviceman. I know not what their relationship was – grandson and grandfather, younger military man assigned to mind an older one for the day, neighbours perhaps – but, with numbing predictability, it did make me fall in love with Serviceman Jr a bit. 

Let me flailingly attempt to convince you that this should in no way detract from my respect and admiration for Those Who Served. I'm just being honest – which is one of the worst ever excuses used by people who habitually say utterly repellant things.

But still, it did make me think how ridiculously impressionable I am when it comes to such acts of perceived kindness and dotherightthing-ness. I could never imagine buying a calendar with photographs of brawny, built beefcakes, but I would be first in the queue for one that featured skinny/paunchy/balding/hirsute/geeky/freaky/average men involved in acts of charity and compassion. Naturally, I would be inviting today's hero (yes, yes, one of many, of course) to be Mr November, but I'm hastily brainstorming in anticipation of the others. I'm thinking:

• Man doggedly rattling charity collection tin outside supermarket in driving rain.
• Man carrying suitcase down very long tube escalator for elderly lady, struggling to disguise the fact that even he is finding it really fucking heavy.
• Bus driver waiting for infirm geriatric to find a seat and sit down safely in it before flooring the accelerator.
•  The man who jumped onto the railway tracks at East Dulwich station one morning to rescue my Birkenstock after it had fallen there during a train-boarding bundle from which I emerged very much the loser.
• Man grinning broodily at stranger's baby on public transport.
  
• Man giving up seat on bus/train/other for someone not necessarily over 80/nine months pregnant.
  
• Man with cat in vet's waiting room, clearly about to cry at any moment. Actually, this might be a bit weird.

I am thinking a reality show. I am thinking a feature film. Mugs! Tea towels! Christ! I am sitting on a goldmine. But you understand I would obviously be donating all proceeds to charity.

Anyway, after lunch, I can only presume that a residual surge of hormones was responsible for me splashing out a ludicrous amount of money on what I can only describe as a Non-Essential Coat. I had put some money aside for a proper non-H&M, non-Primark, actually warm winter coat. By this I mean I had put the money aside in my head. By this I mean I hadn't put any actual, real money aside at all and had carried on frittering it away as usual on trifles. Real and metaphorical. So there was no money for a Proper Winter Coat, let alone money for a flimsy but incredibly chic mac that was also a little bit like a parka, but was unlikely to stand up to a light shower, let alone snow. But that's what I bought.

In my defence, however, a) I had liked it for ages – like, at least three weeks – and b) it is in no way modish or destined to be totally unwearable next season. Therefore, to invoke Shopping Lies We Tell Ourselves No. 426, it is An Investment. Another boon is that when I am wearing it, I feel as though I am channelling Mariella Frostrup at the Hay-On-Wye festival. All I need is a pair of Cath Kidston wellies, and my own Radio 4 show cannot be far away.

Stratford, Sweden, sweet dreams

I have returned from a few days away in Stratford Upon Avon, with Mrs Jones and David Tennant. Unlikely companions, but welcome, both. I can report that David Tennant has shiny hair, ladies' fingers and enough nervous energy to power most of the developed world. He is also pretty good at playing Hamlet. Patrick Stewart, who we saw leaving the theatre by the back door, may be a colossus of the stage, and one of the nation's most attractive 68-year-olds, but sadly, even he is powerless to resist the kind of leather blouson jacket so curiously beloved of his peer group.

Now I have returned to the capital, as reluctantly as ever. 

Sometimes, like defrosting the freezer compartment or visiting the dentist, there is simply nothing to be done but to go to IKEA. Today was such a day. My windows needed blinds, my pictures needed frames, my heavy heart needed lifting – I felt little optimism about any of the above.

Who are all the people wandering around IKEA in the daytime? They cannot all be like me – driven to part-time work by bereavement and illness, yet now rejoicing in its flexibility, if not its financial rewards. If any of them are unemployed, they should really think about getting jobs in IKEA, then maybe their once-fellow customers would be able to find someone to fucking well help them once in a while, instead of being condemned to wander around like severed souls in purgatory, driven mad by the incessant drumming of rain on the store roof and the repeated grating of one's achilles by the inferior trolley control of whoever walks behind.

IKEA did little this afternoon to alter its reputation as perpetual purveyor of disappointment. In short, and you will not be surprised by this, my windows still need blinds and my pictures still want for frames. My heart remains unchanged, except…

I could not bear a grey, empty-handed trudge back across the tarmac to the tram stop. So I bought a Christmas tree – a declassé plastic number, chemically engineered to engender neither showers of pine needles nor tears of joy and excitement. Its best feature was that it came in a long, oblong cardboard box with a handle down one of its long sides. It made me feel that I might be carrying something wildly more intriguing inside than an ugly IKEA Christmas tree. To begin with, it was a musical instrument (this reminded me of a dream I'd had the night before in which I was dining at The Ivy with my mum and Chris Martin), and I was on my way into town to play at the Royal Albert Hall, or the Royal Opera House, or in fact any of the city's exciting Royal venues. People would almost certainly be throwing flowers onto the stage, and I would receive visitors in my dressing room wearing a silk kimono and a turban. 

By the time I was back at East Croydon Station, I was carrying a lethal weapon, of which I was the sole trained operator, and with which I would single-handedly eradicate a cartel of Really Evil Badness. 

As we passed through Norwood Junction on the train, I was carrying a box containing a tiny Chinese gymnast who I was smuggling away from her inhumanly strict coaches.

I reside in a fantasy world of my own creating, clearly. An hour or so earlier, I had been scolded by the cashier in the IKEA cafe for dreamily dilly-dallying while he was waiting for my pin number, and the bickering couples in the queue behind were waiting to eat their meatballs. 'You're in IKEA now, you know,' he said, with the mildest suggestion of a threat and a faint echo of The Wizard Of Oz (the way you're directed around IKEA by an arrowed path always reminds me of the yellow brick road). 

In the unlikely event that any of my fellow passengers on the journey home had been speculating as to what was inside the cardboard box that actually contained a cheap plastic Christmas tree, the picture of a cheap plastic Christmas tree on the side may have given it away. 

But still, I'm saying that today of all days was a time to rejoice in the power of dreams. 

You dancin' with me? Who the hell else are you dancin' with?

Tom, Tom, Tom. Your stubble is super. We admire your work with the cape. We love how much you love your new wife. We adore your homoerotic rivalry with Austin Healey. Generally, we thrill to your every dancing step.

But most of all, we are impressed by how long you can hold the face people make when they're doing a bad impression of Robert De Niro.