Milk Trays and Mark Darcy

There is a bloody gorgeous god! Praise be to a higher power, Cadbury chocolates and Helen Fielding: The Independent in London has started running Bridget Jones’ Diary again, the original column that spawned the books, movies and saved countless singletons such as myself from self-induced pathetic misery, channeling it, instead, into Bridget and her eternal quest for the one and only thing that we modern women cannot do on our own: true love.

Ironically, I was at a used book store last week, and bought the original Bridget Jones’ Diary, which I loaned out years ago and, of course, never got back. (I also loaned out the second, The Edge of Reason, to a certain Mr. Jones of the Nile … ahem …) I’ve spent the last week sporadically reading it, laughing out loud as I lay in my bedroom, which has now become my sanctuary of sorts thanks to the addition of a lovely futon couch recently repossessed from the clutches of someone who would have used it to snog someone other than myself. (Thus, making it imperative comfy bed/couch be returned, unsoiled by vile horrid bitchy cow, to its rightful owner.)

The column appears every Thursday in both the print and online versions, according to an article in the NY Times, which, unfortunately, is the only bit of info you’re going to get for free on this little publishing pre-Christmas miracle. That is, except for me, who, in desperation, dragged out the Visa card and paid £1 for the pleasure of laughing, feeling like I’d reconnected with a long lost friend.

And, it seems that friend is still suffering the same unfortunate trials and tribulations. She and Mark Darcy have split (am firmly of the mind that, had Pride & Prejudice had a sequel, Mr. Darcy would also prove himself to be truly unbearable and a long, drawn out and painful breakup would invariably ensue, followed by various romps in the hay, or, I guess considering the time, walks in the park, with Elizabeth crumpling into a teary mess the moment she got in her room, drowning her sorrows in copious amounts of tea and creating needlework pieces the size of barns).

Daniel is still a horny whoring cad, and by the end of it Bridget, Jude and Shazzer are all on their way to the 24-hour pharmacy to buy a pregnancy test:

Wednesday 17th August
Eggs left: 0 probably. Years left till can no longer have children: 0. Percentage by which likelihood of having children decreases daily: 500. Minutes spent thinking about Meera Syal: 4,000

8.55am. Am peri-menopausal. Whole thing is so horrific that cannot entertain reality of same or tell anyone. My periods have suddenly stopped without me having any children. Have just spent two hours sitting bolt upright at laptop, frenziedly attempting to get through all 132,0000 exclamation mark-strewn sites thrown up by Googling "menopause" - even very word gives me shiver of fear. Searching through Hotflush.co.uk, Pituitaryworld.com etc. for reassurance that am far too young for this to be happening.

Hate being a woman. We are biologically oppressed race, going along normally like men thinking would be nice to have children one day, but not yet, then suddenly: "Blup, sorry, you can't any more hahahaha."

Of course, when I really stop to think about it, I have to ask myself, “Self, how is it, a decade on, you’re still identifying with pudgy, drunken, chain-smoking helplessly insecure and neurotic Bridget freakin’ Jones?!!?”

The answers, I fear, are too frightening to contemplate…

At least without a few alcohol units to dull the pain…