Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason

Sunday 3 August

Weightless (in air), alcohol units 8 (but in-flight so cancelled out by altitude), cigarettes 0 (desperate: no-smoking seat), calories I million (entirely made up of things would never have dreamt of putting in self's mouth were they not on inflight tray), farts from travelling companion 38 (so far), variations in fart aroma 0.

4 p.m. English time. In aeroplane in sky. Having to pretend to be very busy wearing walkman and writing as ghastly man next to self in pale brown synthetic-type suit keeps trying to talk to me in between silent but deadly farting. Tried pretending to have fallen asleep whilst holding nose but after a few minutes ghastly man tapped me on the shoulder and said, "Do you have any hobbies?"

"Yes, napping," I replied but even that didn't put him off and within seconds I was plunged into the murky world of early Etruscan coinage.

Sharon and I are separated as we were so late for plane that there were only separate seats left and Shazzer was in complete grump with me. She seems, however, to have unaccountably got over it, which has clearly nothing to do with fact that she is sitting next to Harrison Fordstyle stranger with jeans and crumpled khaki shirt, laughing like drain (weird expression, surely?) at everything he says. This, in spite of the fact that Shaz hates all men for losing their roles and turning to pashmina-ism and mindless violence. I, meanwhile, am stuck to Mr Synthetic Fabric Fart Machine, and cannot have cigarette for twelve hours. Thank God have got Nicorette.

Non-v.g. start but still v. excited re: Thailand trip. Sharon and I are going to be, travellers rather than tourists i.e. not stay in hermetically sealed tourist enclaves but really experience the religion and culture.

Holiday Aims:

1. Be hippy-style traveller-

2. Lose weight through mild, ideally not life-threatening dysentery.

3. Get subtle biscuit-style suntan -not bright orange in manner of Sheryl Gascoigne, or melanoma- or wrinkle inducing.

4. Have nice time.

5. Find self, also sunglasses. (Hopefully are in suitcase.)

6. Swim and sunbathe (sure only rains in short tropical bursts)

7. See temples (not too many, though, hope).

8. Have spiritual epiphany.

Monday 4 August

8st 7 (weighing no longer possible, so can select weight according to mood: excellent advantage of travel), calories 0, minutes not spent on toilet 12 (feels like).

2 a.m. local time. Bangkok. Shazzer and I are trying to get to sleep in worst place I have ever been in. Think am going to suffocate and stop breathing. When we flew in over Bangkok there was thick grey cloud and it was pissing rain. The Sin Sane (Sin Sae) Guest House has no toilets, just hideous stinking holes in ground in cubicles. Open window and fan make no difference whatsoever since air is nearest possible thing to warm water without actually being it. There is disco underneath (hotel, not toilet) and in pauses can hear everyone in entire street moaning and not able to get to sleep either. Feel like great white flobbering bloated thing. Hair has first turned into feathers then become plastered down on face. Worst of it is, Sharon is wittering on about Harrison Ford-style airline stranger.

". . . So well travelled ... was on Sudan Airways when the pilot and co-pilot decided to shake hands with all the passengers and the cockpit door shut behind them! They had to hack it down with an axe. So witty. He's staying at the Oriental - he said to come over."

"I thought we didn't want anything to do with men," I said grumpily.

"No, no, I just think if we're in a strange place it's useful to talk to someone really well travelled."

6 a.m. Finally got to sleep at 4.30 only to be woken at 5.45 by Sharon bouncing on the bed saying we should go to a temple and watch the sunrise (through 300ft of cloud?). Cannot go on. Gaah! Something v. horrible seems to be going on in stomach. Keep having little eggy burps.

I I a.m. Sharon and I have been up for five hours, four and a half of which have been spent taking it in turns to go to the "toilet'. Sharon says suffering and simple life is part of spiritual epiphany. Physical comfort is not only unnecessary but an impediment to spirituality. We are going to meditate.

Noon. Hurrah! We have checked into the Oriental Hotel! Realize will cost more for one night than week in Corfu but is emergency and what are credit cards for? (Shazzer's is still working and she says I can pay her back. Wonder if is all right to have spiritual epiphany on someone else's credit card?)

Both agreed hotel marvellous and changed immediately into powder-blue bathrobes and played with bubble bath etc. Also Shazzer says it is not necessary to completely rough it all the time in order to be a traveller since it is the contrast between worlds and lifestyles that makes one have a spiritual epiphany. Could not agree more. Greatly appreciate, for example, simultaneous presence of toilet and bidet in view of current stomach scenario.

8 p.m. Shazzer was asleep (or dead from dysentery), so decided to go out for walk on terrace of hotel. Was just beautiful. Stood in inky darkness with soft warm breezes lifting plastered-down feathers off face, looking over bend in Chao Phraya river - and all twinkly lights and lurking oriental-style boats. Flying is marvellous thing - only 24 hours ago was sitting on bed at home surrounded by wet washing - now all is unbelievably exotic and romantic. Was just about to light cigarette when suddenly posh gold lighter appeared under nose. Glanced at the face in the matchlight and made odd noise. Was the airline Harrison Ford! Waiter brought gin and tonics that seemed quite strong. Harrison Ford, or 'Jed', explained was v. important to take quinine it tropics. Could quite see why Shaz was going on about him. He asked what our plans were. Told him we had decided to go to hippy island of Koh Samui to stay in hut and have spiritual epiphany. He said be might come too. I said Sharon would like that (as obviously he was hers though did not say that to Harrison Ford), and maybe I should go wake her up. By this time was feeling rather woozy what with all the quinine then panicked as be brushed one finger gently down the side of my check and leaned towards me.

"Bridget," hissed a voice, "call yourself a bloody friend."

Oh no, oh no. Was Shazzer.

Thursday 7 August

8st 6 or maybe 2?, cigarettes 10, appearances by the sun 0.

Koh Samui Island, Thailand. (Hmm: rhymes in manner of rap song or similar.)

Have arrived at v. idyllic - apart from teeming rain - hippy beach: lovely crescent of sand and little huts on stilts and restaurants all along it. The huts are made of bamboo with balconies overlooking the sea. Things are still rather frosty between me and Shaz and she has developed an irrational aversion to 'Boys Who Have Huts Near One' with the result that even though we have not yet been here eighteen hours we have had to move huts three times in rain. The first time it was fair enough as after three minutes the boys came over and tried to sell us something that was either heroin, opium, or fudge.

Then we moved to a new hut-hotel where the boys in the next hut looked v. clean-cut in manner of biochemists or similar. Unfortunately, however, the biochemists came over and told us someone had hanged himself in our hut three days ago at which Shazzer insisted we leave. By this time it was pitch black. The biochemists had offered to help with our bags but Shaz would have none of it and we had to tramp along the beach with rucksacks for ages. The upshot of it was, having travelled about 20,000 miles to wake up by the sea, we ended up in a hut overlooking the back of a restaurant and a ditch. So now we have to go up and down the beach looking for another hut that is on the sea but does not have the wrong sort of boys near it, or post-hanging karma. Bloody Shazzer.

11.30 p.m. Argor, es wor blurry brill in ganja restaurant, Shazz blurry fantastic. Bessfrien.

Friday 8 August

8st 0 (marvellous by-product of stomach explosion), alcohol units 0, cigarettes 0 (v.g.), magic mushrooms 12 (mmmmm wooooo weeeeee).

11.30 a.m. When woke up, admittedly quite late, found myself alone. Could not find Shaz anywhere in the hut, so came out on the balcony and looked around. Worryingly, the frightening Swedish girls next door seemed to have been replaced by a Boy Who Has Hut Near One but clearly this could not be my fault as travellers constantly coming and going. Put on prescription sunglasses as lenses not in yet and on closer inspection, Boy Who Newly Had Hut Near One turned out to be airline Harrison Ford-lookalike-Orieiital-Hotel-snogger. As I watched he turned round and smiled at someone coming out of his hut. It was Shazzer, revealing whole 'be careful while travelling, avoid Boys Who Have Huts Near One' philosophy to contain gigantic 'unless they're really attractive' caveat.

1 p.m. Jed is taking us both to the cafe for a magic mushroom omelette! Initially we were doubtful as strictly against classified substances but Jed explained magic mushrooms are not drugs but natural and will provide a gateway to our spiritual epiphany. V. excited.

2 p.m. I am beautiful in a striking, exotic way, beautiful and part of all colours and life with its laws. When lie on the sand and look at the sky through my army hat pinpricks of light shine through and it is the most beautiful, beautiful, precious thing in imagery. Shazzer is beautiful. I will take my hat into the sea so the beauty of the sea will combine with the precious pinpricks of light like jewels.

5 p.m. In gania restaurant on own. Shazzer is not speaking to me. After the magic mushroom omelette, nothing happened initially but on the way back to our hut everything suddenly began to seem most amusing and I unfortunately began to giggle uncontrollably. Shaz, however, did not seem to be joining in the joke. On arrival at our latest hut I decided to put my hammock up outside, using thin string, which broke, so that I landed on the sand. This seemed at the time so very amusing I immediately wanted to do it again and, Shazzer is claiming, reperformed amusing hammock-crash repeatedly for fortyfive minutes finding the amusingness undiminished by repetition. Jed had been in the hut with Shaz but gone off for a swim so I decided to go in to find her. She was lying on the bed moaning, "I'm ugly, ugly, ugly, ugly." Alarmed by Shazzer's contrasting-with-own-mood selfloathing, hurried towards her to cheer her up. On the way, however, caught sight of self in the mirror and had never seen a more beautiful or entrancing creature in entire life.

Shaz alleges that for the next forty minutes kept attempting to rouse her spirits but I became repeatedly distracted by sight of self in the mirror, striking poses and beseeching Shaz to admire me. Shaz, meanwhile, was suffering total trauma believing her entire face and body to be grievously deformed. I went off to get her some food and returned giggling with a banana and Bloody Mary, telling her the waitress in the restaurant had a lampshade on her head, then returned besottedly to my station at the mirror. Following this, Shaz claims, I lay on the beach for two and a half hours staring up at army hat and waving fingers softly in the air while she contemplated suicide.

All can remember was being in midst of happiest time of life, sure that had understood deep, permanent laws of life and that all that was necessary was to get into deep Flow state - as fully described in Emotional Intelligence - thereby to go along with Laws in Zen-like fashion, then suddenly it was as if a switch had been turned off. Returned to hut and instead of radiant Buddha/Yasmin Le Bon-type female incarnation in mirror it was just me, bright red and sweating in the face, one side of hair plastered down my head and the other side sticking out in peaks and horns, and Shaz on the bed looking at me with the expression of an axe-murderer. V. sad and ashamed of behaviour but it was not me, it was the mushrooms.

Maybe if I go back to the hut and talk about spiritual epiphanies she will not be so grumpy.

Friday 15 August

8st I (in slightly rounder mood today), alcohol units 5, cigarettes 25, spiritual epiphanies 0, disasters 1.

9 a.m. We have had a fantastic holiday though not a spiritual epiphany. Felt a bit left out because Shaz was often with Jed, but the sun made really quite a few appearances so swam and sunbathed when they were shagging, and at night the three of us had dinner. Shaz is a bit heartbroken because Jed left last night to go on to some other islands. We are going to have cheer-up breakfast (though not magic mushrooms) and then can be just the two of us again and have fun. Hurrah!

11.30 a.m. Oh my bloody God and fuck. Sharon and I have just got back to our hut to find our padlock was open and our rucksacks have gone missing. Definitely left it locked but they must have broken in. Fortunately we had our passports and not all the stuff was actually in the bags but our air tickets and traveller's cheques appear to be no longer there. Shazzer's card is not working after Bangkok with all shopping etc. We only have $38 between us and the flight to London from Bangkok is on Tuesday and we are hundreds of miles away on an island. Sharon is crying and I keep trying to cheer her up to little effect.

Whole scenario reminiscent of Thelma and Louise when Thelma sleeps with Brad Pitt who steals all their money and Geena Davis is saying it's all right and Susan Sarandon is crying and saying, 'It is not all right. Thelma, it is definitely not all right.'

Even to fly to Bangkok in time for the plane will cost us $ 100 each, and then who knows if they would believe us at Bangkok airport about lost tickets or whether we could ... Oh God. Must keep head and spirits up. Just suggested to Shazzer that we go back to the ganja restaurant and have a couple of Bloody Marys and sleep on it and she went mental.

The trouble is part of me is frantic and part of me thinks it is brilliant to have a crisis and adventure and it is such a change from worrying about the circumference of my thighs. Think I will just sneak out and get the Bloody Marys. Might as well cheer ourselves up. Can't do anything about it till Monday anyway as everything closed: short of going to a bar and raising money by doing exotic dances with Ping-Pong balls coming out of us but somehow do not think we would stand up to the competition.

1 p.m. Hurrah! Shazzza I going tor live in KohSamui like hippies off bananas sell shells onsbeach. Ils y spiritual epiphany. Blurry brilli. Nothing but selves to re on. Spirtal.

5 p.m. Hmm. Shaz is still asleep, which I am glad about as she seems to be taking things rather hard. This, I feel, is an opportunity to test our self-reliance. I know. Am going to go to the big hotel and enquire at reception as to what facilities are available to deal with a crisis. For example I could ring the traveller's cheque company. But then we'll never get the refund in time. No, no. Keep positive.

7 p.m. You see. As long as you keep your spirits up something always comes along to get you out of a hole. Who should I bump into in the hotel foyer but Jed! He said his trip to the other islands had been rained off, he was going back to Bangkok later tonight and was just about to come to see us to say hi before he goes. (Think Shaz might be a bit upset he didn't come to find her straight away, but still. Maybe he thought we'd already gone or ... Look, I am not going to start obsessing on behalf of Sharon.)

Anyway, Jed was really sympathetic, though did say we should never have left anything valuable in the hut, even if it was padlocked. He gave me a bit of a lecture (bloody sexy, sort of father/priest figure) then said we'd be pushing it to get to Bangkok in time for Tuesday's flight, as all the flights from here today and tomorrow were full, but he would try to get us tickets for the overnight train tomorrow, which should make the connection. Also offered to give us some money for taxis and to pay the hotel here. He thought if we rang the travel agent in London first thing Monday they would definitely re-issue the tickets to pick up at the airport.

"We'll pay you back," I said gratefully.

"Hey, don't worry," he said. "It's not very much."

"No, we will," I insisted.

"Well, when you can afford it," he laughed.

He is a generous, wealthy dreamgod, though obviously money not important. Except when missing in crisis.

Monday 18 August

On train from Surat Thani Koh Samui to Bangkok. Is quite nice on the train, watching all the paddy fields and people with triangular hats go by. Every time it stops, people come up to the windows offering us chicken satй, which is delicious. Cannot stop thinking about Jed. He was so kind and there for us in way that reminded self of Mark Darcy when not gone off with Rebecca, He even gave us one of his bags to put our stuff in that wasn't nicked and all his little shampoos and soaps from his various hotels. Shaz is happy because they've swapped numbers and addresses and are going to see each other as soon as she gets back. In fact, to be perfectly honest about it, Shazzer is smug to the point of insufferability. Is good though, as she had horrible time with Simon. Always suspected she did not hate all men, just crap ones. Oh God, Hope we get the plane in time.

Tuesday 19 August

I I a.m. Bangkok airport. A terrible nightmare seems to be happening. Blood all seems to be racing through my bead and I can hardly see. Shaz went on ahead of me to hold up the plane while I brought the luggage. Had to walk past an official with a dog on a leash, which was straining at my bag and barking. The airline Officials all started jabbering, and then an army woman took me and the bag away to a separate room. They emptied the holdall, then took a knife and slashed open the lining, and inside was a polythene bag full of white powder. And then ... Oh God. Oh God. Someone help me.

Wednesday 20 August

6st, alcohol units 0, cigarettes 0, calories 0, likelihood of ever eating Thai takeaway again 0.

11 a.m. Police custody, Bangkok. Calm. Calm. Calm. Calm.

11.01 a.m. Calm.

11.02 a.m. Am wearing leg irons. Am wearing LEG IRONS. Am in stinking Third-World cell with eight Thai prostitutes and a potty in the corner. Feel like am going to faint in heat. This cannot be happening.

11.05 a.m. Oh God. It's all falling into place what has happened. Cannot believe anyone could be so callous, to sleep with someone then nick all their things and dupe their friend into being a pigeon. Is unbelievable. Anyway, I expect the British Ambassador will be here soon to explain everything and get me out.

Noon. Becoming slightly anxious about whereabouts of British Ambassador.

I p.m. Sure the British Ambassador will be along after his lunch break.

2 p.m. Maybe the British Ambassador has been held up, perhaps by a more pressing case of real drug trafficking as opposed to an innocent dupe.

3 p.m. Oh my bloody God and fuck. I hope they have bloody well told the British Ambassador. Surely Shazzer will have raised the alert. Maybe they have got Shazzer as well. But where is she?

3.30 p.m. Look, have got to, got to keep myself together. All I have got now is myself. Fucking Jed. Must not hold on to resentment ... Oh God, I'm so hungry.

4 p.m. Guard just came by with some disgusting rice and some personal effects was allowed to keep - one pair of knickers, a photo of Mark Darcy and another of Jude showing Shazzer how to have an orgasm and a screwed up bit of paper from jeans pocket. Tried to ask guard about British Ambassador but he just nodded and said something I couldn't understand.

4.30 p.m. You see. Even when things seem bad, still enlightening things happen. Screwed up paper was Dad's poem from book club that Mark gave me. Is literature. Am going to read it and think of finer things.

"If "by Rudyard Kipiing

If you can keep your head when all about you Are losing theirs and ...

Oh my God. Oh my GOD. Do they still have beheading in Thailand?

Thursday 21 August

5st (v.g. but imaginary), alcohol units 14 (but also imaginary), cigarettes 0, calories 12 (rice), no. of times wish had gone to CleethorPes instead 55.

5 a.m. Hideous night huddled on flea-infested old sack stuffed with socks masquerading as mattress. Funny how quickly you get used to being dirty and uncomfortable. Is the smell that is the worst. Managed to sleep for a couple of hours, which was great except for moment when woke up and remembered what happened. Still no sign of British Ambassador. Sure it is just a mistake and will all be OK. Must keep spirits up.

10 a.m. A guard just appeared at the door with a Sloaneylooking chap in a pink shirt.

"Are you the British Ambassador?" I yelled, practically flinging myself on him.

"Ah. No. Assistant to the Consul. Charlie PalmerThompson. Jolly good to meet you." He shook my hand in a manner that would have been reassuringly British had he not involuntarily wiped it on his trousers afterwards.

He asked me what happened and took down the details in a Mulberry leather-bound notebook, saying things like 'Yar, yar. Oh Christ, how frightful,' as if I were telling him a polo anecdote. Started to panic as (a) did not seem quite to grasp the gravity of the situation, (b) did not seem - not to be snobbish or anything - exactly brain of Britain and (c) did not seem nearly as certain as I would have liked that this was all a mistake and I was about to be released any second.

"But why?" I said, having told him the whole story again. Explained how Jed must have broken into the hut himself and planned the whole thing.

"Well, you see the bore is" - Charlie leaned forward confidentially - "everyone who comes in here has some sort of story, usually pretty much along the lines of yours. So unless this bloody Jed character makes a full confession it's a bit of a sticky wicket."

"Am I going to get the death penaIty?"

"Good God, no. Bloody hell. Shouldn't think so. Worst you'd be looking at is about ten years."

"TEN YEARS? But I haven't done anything."

"Yar, yar, it's a bastard, I know," he said, nodding earnestly.

"But I didn't know it was there!"

"Sure, sure," he said, looking as if he'd got himself into a slightly awkward situation at a drinks party.

"Will you do everything you can?" "Absolutely," he said, getting up. "Yar."

He said he would bring me a list of lawyers to choose from and he could make two calls on my behalf, just to give the details of what had happened. Was in quite a quandary. Best person, practically speaking, would be Mark Darcy but really did not like idea of admitting have got into mess again, especially after he sorted out all the Mum and Julio stuff last year. In the end I plumped for Shazzer and Jude.

Feel like my fate is now in the hands of some fresh-of-Oxbridge Sloane. God, it is so awful in here. So hot and stinking and weird. I feel like nothing's real.

4 p.m. Very black. All my life I have had the feeling something terrible was about to happen and now it has.

5 p.m. Mustn't get down. Must keep my mind off it. Maybe will read poem, and try to ignore first two lines:

"If "by Rudyard Kipling

If you can keep your head when all about you

Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;

If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,

But make allowance for their doubting too;

If you can wait, and not be tired by waiting,

Or, being lied about, don't deal in lies, Or, being hated, don't give way to hating,

And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise;

If you can dream - and not make dreams your master;

If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim;

If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster

And treat those two impostors just the same;

if you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken

Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,

Or watch the things you gave your life to broken,

And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools;

If you can make one heap of all your winnings

And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,

And lose, and start again at your beginnings

And never breathe a word about your loss;

If youi can force your heart and nerve and sinew

To serve your turn long after they are gone,

And so hold on when there is nothing in you

Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on!"

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,

Or walk with Kings - not lose the common touch;

If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you;

If all men count with you, but none too much;

If you can fill the unforgiving minute

With sixty seconds' worth of distance run-

Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,

And - which is more - you'll be a Man, my son!

Poem is good. Very good, almost like self-help book. Maybe that is why Mark Darcy gave it to me! Maybe he sensed I might get into danger! Or maybe he was just trying to tell me something about my attitude. Bloody cheek. Not sure about sixty seconds' worth of distance run anyway, or if actually want to be man. Also is a bit hard to treat this disaster the same as triumphs as have not had any triumphs that can think of, but still. Will force heart and nerve and sinew to serve turn etc. in manner of First World War or jungle soldier or whatever Rudyard Kipling was and just hold on. At least am not being shot at or having to go over top. And also am not spending any money in jail so actually helping financial crisis. Yes, must look on Positive side.

Good things about being in jail:

1. Not spending any money.

2. Thighs have really gone down and have probably lost at least half a stone without even trying.

3. Will be good for hair to leave it without washing such as have never been able to do before as hair too mad looking to go out of door.

So when go home will be thin, with shiny hair and less broke. But when will I go home? When? I'll be old. I'll be dead. If I am here for ten years I will never be able to have any children. Unless I take a fertility drug when I get out and have eight. I'll be a lonely, broken old woman shaking my fist at street Urchins who put turds through the letter box. But maybe I could have a child while in prison? I could get the Assistant to the British Consul somehow to impregnate me. But where would I get hold of folic acid in jail? The baby would grow up stunted. Must stop this. Stoppit. Stoppit. Am catastrophizing.

But it is a Catastrophe.

Will read Poem again.

Friday 22 August

Calories 22, unforgiving minutes filled with distance run 0.

8 p.m. Women's Correctional Institute, Bangkok. This morning they came and moved me from police custody to proper prison. In despair. Feel as if this means they have given up on me and accepted I'm done for. Cell is big filthy room with at least sixty women squeezed in. Seems that any power or individuality is being relentlessly peeled away as get filthier and filthier and more exhausted. Cried today for first time in four days. I feel like I'm slipping through the net. I feel like I'm going to get forgotten now and just languish here, a wasted life. Will try to sleep. Would be so great to sleep.

I I p.m. Aargh. Had just got off to sleep when was woken by something sucking my neck. it was the Lesbian Ring who had got me. They all started kissing and groping bits of me. I could not bribe them to stop because I had already given away my Wonderbra and no way was I going round with no knickers. I could not scream for the guard as that is the worst thing you can do here. So I had to swap my jeans for a filthy old sarong. Although obviously I felt violated, part of me could not help but feel it was so nice just to be touched. Gaaah! Maybe I am a lesbian? No. Don't think so.

Sunday 24 August

Minutes spent crying 0 (hurrah!).

Much more cheerful since sleep. Think will find Phrao, Phrao is my friend as she was transferred at same time as me and I lent her my Wonderbra. Even though she has no breasts to put in it she seems to like it - she is always walking around in it saying 'Madonna'.

Cannot help thinking it is cupboard love or underwear drawer love but beggars can't be choosers and it is nice to have a friend. Also do not want it to be like when Beirut hostages got out and it was obvious no one really liked Terry Waite.

You see, You can get used to anything if you try. Am not going to give in to being all mopey. Sure they must be doing something at home. Shazzer and Jude will be organizing newspaper campaigns like for John McCarthy and standing outside the House Of Commons with banners with my head on, holding up torches.

There must be something I can do. It seems to me if getting out depends on catching Jed and extracting a confession then there ought to be a bit more bloody effort put into catching and extracting.

2 p.m. Hurrah! Am suddenly most popular girl in cell. Was quietly teaching Phrao words to Madonna songs as she is obsessed with Madonna, when a little group started forming round us. Seemed to be considered some kind of goddess as knew words to Immaculate Collection all the way through. Ended up being forced by popular demand to perform 'Like a Virgin' standing on a pile of mattresses wearing the Wonderbra and sarong and using a Tampax as a microphone at which point the guard started shouting in a high-pitched voice. Looked up to see the representative to the British Consul had just been let in.

"Ah, Charlie," I said graciously, getting down off the mattress and hurrying towards him, whilst trying to pull the sarong up over the bra and retain my dignity. "So glad You've come! We've got lots to talk about!"

Charlie did not appear to know which way to look but seemed to keep plumping for the Wonderbra direction.

He brought me a kit from the British Embassy with some more water, biscuits, sandwiches, insect repellent,

pens and paper and, best of all, soap. Was completely overcome. Was the best present I had ever had in life. "Thank you, thank you, I can't thank you enough," I said emotionally, on the verge of flinging my arms around

him, and taking him roughly against the bars.

"No problem, standard issue, actually. Would have brought you one before but all the bloody totty in the office kept woofing the sandwiches."

"I see," I said. "Now, Charlie. Jed."

Blank stare.

"You remember Jed?" I said in a Listen-with-Mother voice. "The guy who gave me the bag? It's very important that we catch him. I'd like you to take down lots more details about him and then send me someone from the Drug Squad who can spearhead the search."

"Right," said Charlie seriously yet at the same time deeply unconvincingly. "Right."

"Now Come along," I said, turning into a Peggy Ashcroft style figure from the last days of the Raj who was about to rap him over the head with an umbrella. "If the Thai authorities are so keen to set an example over drugs that they're locking up innocent Westerners without trial, they've got to at least show an interest in catching the drug traffickers."

Charlie stared up at me thickly. "Yar, right, right," he said, furrowing his brows and nodding heartily, not the faintest glimmer of understanding illuminating his gaze. After had explained it a few more times Charlie suddenly saw the light.

"Yar, yar. See what you mean. Yar. They've got to go after the guy that put you in here because otherwise it looks as though they're not making an effort."

"Exactly" I said, beaming, delighted at my handiwork.

"Right, right," said Charlie, getting to his feet, still wearing his very earnest expression. "I'm going to get them to get moving on this right now."

Was watching him leave, marvelling at how such a creature could have risen through the ranks of the British diplomatic service. I suddenly had a brainwave.

"Charlie?" I said.

"Yar," he said, looking down to check that his flies weren't undone.

"What does your father do?"

"Dad?" Charlie's face brightened. "Oh, he works in the Foreign Office. Bloody old fart."

"Is he a politician?"

"No, civil servant actually. Used to be Douglas Hurd's right-hand man."

Checking swiftly that the guards weren't looking, I leaned forward.

"How's your career going here?"

"Bit bloody static, to be perfectly honest," he said cheerily. "Black bloody hole of Calcutta, unless you get down to the islands of course. Oh sorry."

"Wouldn't it be really good for you if you pulled off a diplomatic coup?" I began temptingly. "Why don't you just give your dad a little call ..."

Monday 25 August

7st 2 (attention-seeking thinness), no. of - oh fuck it, brain has dissolved. Good for slimming, surely.

Noon. Bad, low day. Must have been mad to think I could influence anything. Am bitten to death by mosquitoes and fleas. Am nauseous and feeble with constant diarrhoea which is difficult in view of potty situation. In a way is quite good, though, as light-headedness makes everything unreal: much better than reality. Wish could sleep. So hot. Maybe have got malaria.

2 p.m. Bloody Jed. I mean how could anyone be so ... ? But mustn't hold on to resentments or will harm self. Detach. I do not wish him ill, I do not wish him well. I detach.

2.01 p.m. Bloody fucking dog pig black-livered bastard from hell. I hope his face gets put on a porcupine.

6 p.m. Result! Result! An hour ago the guard came in and hustled me out of the cell. Fantastic to get out and away from the stink. Was taken to a small interview room with a wood-effect Formica table, a grey metal filing cabinet and a copy of a Japanese gay porn magazine, which the guard hurriedly removed as a short, distinguished middle-aged Thai man entered and introduced himself as Dudwani.

He turned out to be Drug Squad and a pretty hard nut. Good old, Charlie.

I started on the details of the story, the flights Jed had arrived on and probably left on, the bag, the description of Jed.

"So surely you can trace him from this?" I concluded. "There must be his fingerprints on the bag."

"Oh, we know where he is," he said dismissively, "And he has no fingerprints." leuw. No fingerprints. Like having no nipples or something.

"So why haven't you captured him?" "He is in Dubai," he said dispassionately. Suddenly I felt really quite annoyed.

"Oh, he's in Dubai, is he?" I said. "And you know all about him. And you know he did it. And you know I didn't do it and he made it look as though I did and I didn't. But you go home to your lovely satй sticks and wife and family in the evening and I'm stuck here for the rest of my childbearing years for something I didn't do just because you can't be bothered to get someone to confess to something I didn't do."

He looked at me in consternation.

"Why don't you get him to confess?" I said.

"He is in Dubai."

"Well, get somebody else to confess, then."

"Miss Jones, in Thailand, we... "

"Someone must have seen him break into the hut or broke in for him. Someone must have sewn the drugs into the lining. It was done with a sewing machine. Go investigate it like you're supposed to do."

"We are doing everything we can," he said coldly. "Our government takes any breach of the drug codes very seriously."

"And my government takes the protection of its citizens very seriously," I said, thinking for a moment of Tony Blair and imagining him striding in and coshing the Thai official on the head.

The Thai man cleared his throat to speak. "We ..."

"And I am a journalist," I interrupted him. "On one of Great Britain's top television current affairs programmes," I said, trying to fight back a vision of Richard Finch going 'I'm thinking Harriet Harman, I'm thinking black underwear, I'm thinking. . .'

"They are planning a vigorous campaign on my behalf." Mental cut to Richard Finch: 'Oh, Bridget droopy bikini hasn't come back from her holiday, has she? Snogging on the beach, forgot to get the plane.'

"I have connections in the highest ranks of government and I think, given the current climate" - I paused to give him a meaningful stare, I mean the current climate's always something, isn't it? - "it would look very bad indeed in our media if I were imprisoned in these frankly appalling conditions for a crime I plainly and by your own admission did not commit, while the police force here are failing to enforce their own laws with their own people and properly investigate the crime."

Gathering my sarong around me with tremendous dignity, I sat back and gave him a cool stare.

The official shuffled in his seat, looked at his papers. Then he looked up, pen poised.

"Miss Jones, can we go back to the moment at which you realized your hut had been broken into?"

Hah!

Wednesday 27 August

8st, cigarettes 2 (but at hideous price), fantasies involving Mark Darcy/Colin Firth/Prince William bursting in saying: 'In the name of God and England, release myfuture wife!': constant.

Worrying two days with nothing. No word, no visits, just constant requests to perform Madonna songs. Repeated reading of "If" only means of keeping nerve. Then this morning Charlie appeared - in a new mood! Extremely earnest, top level and overconfident, with another kit containing cream cheese sandwiches that - given earlier flight of fantasy about in-jail impregnation - found self not really wanting to eat.

"Yar. Things are starting to move," said Charlie with the heavy air of a government agent burdened with explosive M15 secrets. "Bloody good actually. We've had movements from the Foreign Office."

Trying not to think about tiny top-level turds in boxes, I said, "Did you speak to your dad?"

"Yar, yar," he said. "They know all about it."

"Has it been in the papers?" I said excitedly.

"No, no. Hush-hush. Don't want to rock the boat. Anyway. There's some mail for you. Your friends got it to Dad. Bloody attractive actually, Dad says."

I opened the big brown Foreign Office envelope, hands shaking. First was a letter from Jude and Shaz, rather carefully written almost in code, as if they thought spies might read it.

'Bridge, Don't worry, we love you. We're gonna get you out of there. Jed tracked down. Mark Darcy helping(!)'

Heart leaped. Was best news possible (apart, obviously, from ten-year jail sentence being lifted).

'Remember Inner Poise and diet Potential of jail. 192 soon. Repeat do not worry, Girls on top.

All our love, Jude and Shaz'

Looked at letter, blinking with emotion, then tore eagerly at the other envelope. Maybe from Mark?

Was written on reverse of long concertina of views of Lake Windermere and said:

'Visiting Granny in St Anne's and touring the Lakes. Weather a bit mixed but super factory shops. Daddy has bought a sheepskin gilet! Could you call Una and check that she's put the timer on?

Love, Mum'

Saturday 30 August

8st (hope), alcohol units 6 (hurrah!), cigarettes 0, calories

8,755 (hurrah!), no. of times checked bag to make sure no drugs in same 24.

6 a.m. On plane. Going home! Free! Thin! Clean! Shinyhaired! In own clean clothes! Hurrah! Have got tabloids and Marie Claire and Hello! All is marvellous.

6.30 a.m. Unaccountable plummet. Is disorientating being squashed on plane again in darkness with everyone asleep. Feel huge pressure to be euphoric but feel really freaked out. Guards came last night and called me out. Was taken to room and given clothes back, met by a different embassy official called Brian with strange shortsleeved nylon shirt and wire specs. He said there'd been a 'development' in Dubai and pressure from the highest level in the Foreign Office and they had to get me out of the country immediately before the climate changed.

Was all strange in the embassy. No one there except Brian who showed me straight to a very bare old fashioned bathroom where there was a little pile of all my things and said to have a shower and change, but be really quick.

Couldn't believe how thin I had got, but there was no hairdryer so hair was still pretty mad. Obviously not important but would have been good to look nice on return. Was starting with make-up when Brian knocked on the door saying that we really had to leave.

Was all a blur, rushed out in steamy night to car, rushing through streets full of goats and tuk-tuks and honking and people with entire families on one bicycle.

Couldn't believe cleanliness of airport. Did not have to go through normal channel but some special embassy route, everything all stamped and cleared. When got to the gate, whole area was empty, plane ready to leave with just one guy in a luminous yellow jacket waiting for us.

"Thank you," I said to Brian. "Thank Charlie for me."

"I will," he said wryly. "Or his dad anyway." Then he handed me my passport and shook my hand in really quite a respectful way such as was not at all used to even before incarceration.

"You did very well," he said. "Well done, Miss Jones."

10 a.m. Just been to sleep. Really excited about return. Have actually had spiritual epiphany. Everything is going to be different now.

New post-spiritual epiphany life resolutions:

1. Not start smoking or drinking again as have not had drink for eleven days and only two cigarettes (do not want to go into what had to do to get them). Though may just have small bottle of wine now. As obviously need to celebrate. Yes.

2. Not rely on men but on self. (Unless Mark Darcy wants to go back out with me. Oh God, hope so. Hope he realizes still love him. Hope it was him who got me out. Hope he is there at airport.)

3. Not bother about stupid things e.g. weight, mad hair, who Jude invited to wedding.

4. Not discard advice of self-help books, poems etc. but limit it to key things e.g. optimism, not freaking out, forgiving (though maybe not Fucking Jed as shall now be known).

5. Be more careful about men as are plainly - if evidence of Fucking Jed not to mention Daniel anything to go by -dangerous.

6. Not take shit from people i.e. Richard Finch, but have confidence in self-reliance.

7. Be more spiritual and stick to spiritual principles.

Goody, now can look at Hello! and tabloids.

11 a.m. Mmm. Fantastic spreads of newly rounded Diana and hairy Dodi. Humph, though. Just when I am thin she starts trend for newly roundedness. Great. Glad she is happy but not sure he is right for her somehow. Hope she is not just going out with him because he is not being a fuckwit. Understand, though, if she is.

11. 15 a.m. Does not seem to be anything in papers about me - though as Charlie said, it was all hush-hush and kept under wraps by government so as not to interfere with Thai relations, imports of peanut sauce etc.

11.30 a.m. Brown is this season's black! Just glanced through Marie Claire.

11.35 a.m. Though really should be brown is this season's grey as grey was last season's black. Yes.

11.40 a.m. V. bad disaster though, as no. of brown items in wardrobe 0, though maybe some money will come in manner of unexpected release.

11.45 a.m. Mmm. Wine delicious after so long. Really goes to head.

12.30 p.m. Yuk. Feel slightly sick after tabloid gorging. Had forgotten depressed, ashamed feeling you get afterwards like hangover - and sense of world being turned into same horrible talc over and over again where people get set up as good then turn out to be evil and bad.

Particularly enjoyed, at time, priest-turned-shagging-fuckwit story. Is always so enjoyable when other people behave badly. Feel, however, that founders of support group for victims of shagging priest (because 'women who have relationships with priests often have no one to turn to') are being rather partisan. What about others who have no one to turn to? Should surely also be support groups for women who have been victims of shagging Tory ministers, members of British national sporting teams who have slept with members of the Royal family, Roman Catholic clergy who have slept with celebrities or members of the Royal family, and celebrities who have slept with members of the public who have confessed their story to members of the Roman Catholic clergy who have then sold the story to the Sunday papers. Maybe I will sell story to Sunday papers and that is where money will come from. No, that is wrong, you see spirituality has already been infested by tabloid mentality.

Maybe will write book though. Maybe will get hero's return in England like John McCarthy and write a book called Some Other Cloud Formation or other meteorological phenomenon. Maybe will get hero's welcome with Mark, Jude, Shazzer, Tom, and parents and crowds of waiting photographers and Richard Finch grovellingly begging for exclusive interview. Had better not get too pissed. Hope am not going to go all mad. Feel like I should be met by police or counsellors or something and taken to a secret base for de-briefing. Think will have little sleep.

9 p.m. (UK time now.) Arrived at Heathrow with clouting post-flight hangover trying to purge clothes of remnants of bread and pink toothpaste fraudulently offered as airline dessert, rehearsing lines, in preparation for waiting press phalanx - 'It was a nightmare. A living nightmare. A thunderbolt out of the blue. I feel no hatred (bitterness?) for if others are warned of the dangers of one's friends sleeping with strange men, my incarceration will not have been wasted (in vain?).' Whole time, however, did not think waiting phalanx would actually be there. Passed through customs without incident and looked around excitedly for familiar faces, only to be engulfed by - well, press phalanx. Crowd of photographers and journalists with flashguns. Mind went completely blank and could not think what to say or do except parrot 'no comment', in manner of government minister who has been caught shagging prostitute, and keep walking, pushing the trolley, thinking my legs were going to collapse under me. Then suddenly the trolley was taken away, and someone put their arm round me saying, "It's all right, Bridge, we're here, we've got you, it's all right."

It was Jude and Shazzer.

Sunday 31 August

8st 2 (Yess! Yess! Triumphant culmination of 18-year diet, though perhaps at unwarranted cost), alcohol units 4, calories 8,995 (deserved, surely), progress on hole in wall made by Gary the Builder 0.

2 a.m. My flat. So nice to be home. So nice to see Jude and Shazzer again. At airport, policeman took us through the crowd to an interview room where there were Drug Squad people and a man from the Foreign Office who started asking lots of questions.

"Look, can't this bloody well wait?" burst out Shaz indignantly after about a minute. "Can't you see the state she's in?"

Men seemed to think it was necessary to carry on but eventually became so terrified of Shazzer's growls of 'Are you men or monsters?' and threats to report them to Amnesty International that they gave us a policeman to take us back to London.

"Just be careful who you get mixed up with next time, ladies," said the Foreign Office man.

"Oh please," said Shaz, just as Jude was saying, "Oh quite right officer," and launching into a professional woman vote-of-thanks-style speech.

Back in my flat, the fridge was full of food, there were pizzas waiting to go in the oven, Milk Tray and Dairy Box, smoked salmon pinwheels, packets of Minstrels, and bottles of Chardonnay. There was a big sign on the polythene hole in the wall saying 'Welcome back, Bridget.' And a fax from Tom - who has moved in with the customs guy in San Francisco - saying:

DARLING, DRUGS ARE POWDER OF SATAN. JUST SAY NO! ASSUME YOU WILL NOW BE THINNEST EVER. GIVE UP ALL MEN IMMEDIATELY AND BECOME GAY. COME HERE AND LIVE WITH US IN CALIFORNIAN GAY SEX-SANDWICH THREESOME. HAVE BROKEN JEROME'S HEART! HAHAHAHA.

CALL ME. LOVE YOU. WELCOME BACK.

Also Jude and Shaz had cleaned all the packing mess up from the bedroom floor and put clean sheets on the bed and fresh flowers and Silk Cut on the bedside table. Love the lovely girls. And the lovely self-obsessed Tom.

They ran me a bath and brought me in a glass of champagne and I showed them my flea bites. Then I got into my pyjamas and we all sat on the bed with cigarettes, champagne and Cadbury's Milk Tray and started going through everything that had happened but think I must have just fallen asleep because now it is all dark, Jude and Shaz are not here but have left a note on my pillow saying to call them when I wake up. They are both staying at Shazzer's because Jude's flat is being done up so she and Vile Richard can live together after the wedding. Hope she has got a better builder than me. Hole in wall entirely unchanged.

10 a.m. Gaaah! Where am I? Where am I?

10.01 a.m. Strange being in bed with sheets. Nice but unreal. Oooh, have just remembered am going to be in papers. Will go fetch from shop. Will cut everything out and keep in scrapbook and show to grandchildren (if ever obtain). Hurrah!

10.30 a.m. Is unbelievable. Like dream or sick newspaper April Fool. Is unbelievable. Diana dies is just not kind of thing she would do.

11 a.m. Am going to put on telly and they will say it has been a mistake and she is back then we will see her coming out of the Harbour Club with all the photographers asking her what it was like.

11.30 a.m. Cannot believe it. Is so scary when is obvious no one in authority knows what to do.

Noon. At least Tony Blair is in control. Seemed to say what everyone was thinking instead of repeating 'grief and shock' over and over again in manner of parrot.

1.15 p.m. Seems like world has gone mad. Is no normality to come back to.

1.21 p.m. Why haven't Jude and Shaz rung?

1.22 p.m. Oh, maybe they think I am asleep. Will ring them.

1.45 p.m. Jude, me and Shazzer all agree that she was our national treasure and all feel very bad that everyone was so niggardly about her and she did not like being in England. Is like great big hand coming down from heaven saying, "If you are going to squabble about her no one is going to have her."

2 p.m. Would have to bloody happen on one day was going to be in newspapers, though. Is nothing about me, nothing.

6 p.m. Cannot believe she is dead. Keep having to look at newspaper headline again to make self believe it. Really, Princess Diana was patron saint of Singleton women because she started off like the archetypal fairy tale doing what we all thought we were supposed to do i.e. marry a handsome prince, and she was honest enough to say that life is not like that. Also it made you feel that if someone so beautiful and gorgeous could be treated like shit by stupid men and feel unloved and lonely then

it wasn't because you were rubbish if it happened to you. Also she kept re-inventing herself and sorting out her problems. She was always just trying so hard like modern women.

6.10 p.m. Hmm. Wonder what people would say about me if I died?

6.11 p.m. Nothing.

6.12 p.m. Especially if what they say about me when locked in Thai jail is anything to go by.

6.20 p.m. Have just had horrible realization. Was watching television with the sound down and tabloid front page came up that looked as though it might have had actual pictures of aftermath of the crash in. Realized was horrible part of me that actually wanted to see the pictures. Clearly would not buy said newspaper even if could but ugh! Ugh! What does this mean about me? Oh God. Am terrible

.

6.30 p.m. Just keep staring into space. Simply hadn't realized how much Princess Diana was part of consciousness. Is like Jude or Shazzer being there and full of life and giggly jokes and lip gloss then suddenly being something so grown-up and horror-filled and alien as dead.

6.45 p.m. Just saw on telly woman has been to garden centre and bought a tree and planted it for Princess Diana. Maybe could plant something in window box e.g. um, basil? Could get from Cullens.

7 p.m. Hmm. Basil does not seem right somehow.

7.05 p.m. Everyone is going to Buckingham Palace with floral tributes as if is long-standing tradition. Have people always done this? Is it something naff people do to try to get on the television like camping all night outside sales or good, real thing? Hmm. Feel want to go though.

7.10 p.m. Think going with flowers might be a bit creepy ... but thing is really did like her. Was like having someone in heart of authority who was same as you. Also all huffer-puffers criticized her re: landmines etc. but if you ask me was bloody intelligent use of mad publicity. Better than doing nothing except huffing at home.

7.15 p.m. What is point of living in capital city if cannot join in great expressions of feeling? Does not seem very English thing to do but maybe everything has changed with the changing weather and Europe and Tony Blair and it is all right to express yourself. Maybe she has changed English stuffiness.

7.25 p.m. OK, am definitely going to go to Kensington Palace. Have not got any flowers, though. Will get some from petrol station.

7.40 p.m. Petrol station has sold out. Only things like Chocolate Orange and custard left. Nice but inappropriate.

7.45 p.m. Bet she would like them, though.

7.50 P.m, Have chosen copy of Vogue, Milk Tray, one Instants and packet of Silk Cut. Not perfect but everyone will have bought flowers and know she liked Vogue.

9.30 p.m. V. glad went. Felt a bit shy walking through Kensington in case people knew where was going and that was on own, but then when think about it Princess Diana was often on own.

Inside park was v. dark and gentle with everyone just walking quietly in one direction. Was no histrionics like on news. The bottom of the wall was covered with flowers and candles in the darkness and people relighting the candles that had gone out and reading messages.

Hope that she knows now after all the times she worried about not being good enough, look what everybody felt about her. Really all this should give a message to women who are worried about how they look and being rubbish and expecting so much of themselves just not to worry so much. Felt a bit embarrassed about the Vogue and chocolate and Instants so hid under flowers and looked at the messages, which made you think that you do not have to be a spokesman for anything to be able to express things. The best one was copied from the Bible, I think, and it said in wobbly old lady's writing: 'When I was in trouble you cared about me, when I was in danger you tried to stop it, when I was sick you visited me, when people ran away you took my hand. Whatever you did for the poorest and the smallest people I felt as if you did it for me.'