9p.m. My flat. Feel very strange and empty. Is all very well thinking everything is going to be different when you come back but then it is all the same. Suppose I have to make it different. But what am I going to do with my life? I know. Will eat some cheese.

Don't say 'what,' say 'pardon,' darling, and do as your mother tells you.

I was writing an earnest novel about cruises in the Caribbean and I just started writing 'Bridget Jones' to get some money, to finance this earnest work, and then I chucked it out.

As women glide from their twenties to thirties, Shazzer argues, the balance of power subtly shifts. Even the most outrageous minxes lose their nerve, wrestling with the first twinges of existential angst: fears of dying alone and being found three weeks later half-eaten by an Alsatian.

The whole point of diaries is that other people find them and read what you've put. I did once take to writing my inner thoughts on the computer at the end of other things I was writing and ended up faxing four pages of hideous stuff to my accountant so I don't do that now.

I certainly think I'll end up writing about America in some form. I've taken plenty of notes. I like America very much.

In terms of myself, my next big plan is to loose 7llb (as I've been planning to do since I was seventeen) Also to go to the gym three times a week, not merely to buy a sandwich. And also de-clutter the garage.