Some things are quintessentially English - afternoon tea, the crack of willow and leather colliding, red telephone boxes that you can fit 14 people in if you’re very inventive, summer days out in the pouring rain during which we all have a jolly good time. You get the idea.

One of the things I remember so well from my childhood is the Speaking Clock and the very posh woman on the other end telling you in pristine RP that it was six-oh-two-and-twenty-seconds. It was comforting, it was reassuring and, most importantly, it was British!

Imagine my horror at the latest ‘clock’. J.M. Barrie’s Tinkerbell is going to be telling the time. Yes, I know he’s a feted English author, but we’re not talking English fiction here. Oh, no. We’re talking Disney-sponsored Tinks high on cheerleader perkiness. Trust me, clicking on that last link is not for the faint-hearted!

There are no words ---

I’ll admit it, I’m a huge geek for all things Apple Mac. I have my hands up and I’m totally unashamed about it. My copy of Leopard that arrived this morning has just reinforced my love of my shiny Macbook Pro.

First of all there are cool new features. As someone who loses things regularly (I blame my appalling filing system) the ‘Time Machine’ feature for backing up is going to be a Godsend. Between that and my dot Mac account, I should keep a decent grip on all the important stuff.

I’m still getting to grips with a lot of the new features, but visually, it’s lovely. I like the fan effect from the documents in the dock and the ‘Spaces’ option is rather cool too. I like the fact that I can abandon all my work in one space and switch to a different space entirely for my fiction - and this different space needn’t even have IM going to distract me. It’s organising me without me needing to do anything! I’m in love with the Cover Flow system already. How ever did I manage without it?

I’ve quite enjoyed the ‘Front Row’ software too. I’ve only played with the music part of it this far, but it’s very slick and visually gorgeous.

Many happy hours entertainment ahead. Thanks Apple. This one’s a winner

I’ve always had a bit of a thing for things pink - as a small girl I always wanted to grow up and buy a pink Beetle car (and I’ll do it one of these days), so when I came across this auction on ebay I couldn’t believe my luck. What else can say “I’m a girl and I can kick your butt” better than a pink pair of Doc Martens?

So I’ve spent the week ogling these “only worn once” boots, thinking that they’re a size too big, but would be great with a thick pair of socks. I reckoned they’d probably go for about forty quid.

Was I mistaken - a whopping £56.00 plus £8 postage!

I didn’t buy them for that, but some poor mad soul did. Instead, I’m awaiting my brand new pair of pink DMs from an online retailer for slightly less cash.

Ebay. Commerce gone mad.

People who list 80’s shoes on Ebay as ‘vintage’ should be shot.

As a child of the 70s, what does that make me? Antique?

A friend of mine in Edinburgh delightedly shoved me in the direction of Book Mooch this weekend, and I’ve got to say I’m absolutely thrilled by it. You should all join up, at once!

You list all of the books that you’d be prepared to part with (and that’s tough. Parting with books is a real tug on the heart strings!), and for every 10 books you list, you get a point. Every time someone requests a book you have and you post it off to them, you get more points. Then (and this is the fun bit), you can mooch books off other people for free by using your points! So now I’m shipping two off to the US on Tuesday and I’ve got a couple of books I’ve been thinking about reading for a while heading my way from Denmark and somewhere in the UK.

Best of all, if I don’t like them, I can just relist them and mooch some more. It’s like a huge lending library, but with parcels through the post to look forward to! An excellent idea!