I wouldn't mind, but ....

..... I went to the vintage market at Spitalfields today.  What is it with vintage?  I've been to many stores branded as such and all I've ever discovered is old tat.  Is my old tat now on trend?  The only person I've ever seen who looks good in vintage is a colleague at work, but you could give her a bin liner and she'd turn it into something stylish.  Not everyone is like her, though. Mostly, when I see people wearing a shapeless, heavily patterned, polyester dress, all they're telling me is that they've stolen my elderly aunt's wardrobe and I should call the police.

And what is it with old costume jewellery?  The market was full of it.  Old brooches that were so heavy, you'd be carrying twice your own body weight if you managed to pin them on your lapel.  And old handbags that must once have been stuffed full of dirty linen hankies, half-eaten foxes glacier mints and a china tea cup taken on journeys to the seaside so you could have tea in a proper cup.  And old hats that had been surgically removed with a chisel from hair permed and sprayed so tightly, it was virtually transmuted to rock.  And scarves; the place was full of bins of old scarves.  The remnants, no doubt, of a retired magician who donated his supply of scarves to the old scarves home after they'd made their last appearance from up his sleeve.  Or scarves that had spent their lives keeping out the chill from the necks of church-going ladies at Sunday morning service, the knot tightening every time they made moon eyes at the 'lovely' vicar. And fur coats - loads of them - hanging on rails looking forlorn; everybody a little awkward about overtly admiring them for fear of having a tin of Dulux One Coat Satin tipped over their head. 

You may be thinking I'm displaying overly negative views on 'vintage'.  Maybe it wouldn't have been so bad, if I hadn't slipped away from the vintage to look in 'Jigsaw'.  The moment I stepped through the doorway, I was told it was a very exciting time in there because the new collection was in.  At first I thought she meant they were collecting for a new lifeboat, but then I realised she meant the clothes.  The shop assistant approached me twice to say that other sizes were available.  I admit I like a dessert, but, reading between the lines of her barely disguised assumption that there wouldn't be anything in my size on display, I deduced it was because my size would take up too much room in the store.  I wanted to tell her that I had bought a course of Power Plates classes, I planned to attend those pilates classes I'd avoided, I was a new recruit to Zumba and was trying hard to give up my morning cheese bagel.  I wanted to assure her that there was hope for me.  I wanted to say that I'd seen collections come and go and to ask her if a group of children in India were busy sewing something in my size from disused parachutes.  But, I didn't.  Why do we let these assistants judge us so openly?  I went back outside to the vintage market and decided to go and have a full English Breakfast.  For Lunch.  Let 'em think what they want.  For me a full English Breakfast is truly and satisfyingly vintage.

I wouldn't mind, but ....

..... while enduring a throat infection instead of a holiday, I was pretty much housebound.  And what do you do when you're housebound and surrounded by books that you've already read?  You watch TV.  Daytime TV.  My remote reached channels it had never reached before.  I lost count of the number of homes on sale in the country; heirlooms sold at auction for less than the bus fare to get there; makeovers of women who stretched the boundaries of photoshop to it's very limit; confessions of men and women who slept with their in-laws (why do they always have spots?).  I clung on through all this until it was time for 'Eggheads' on BBC2.  I absorbed the general knowledge of this joyous programme until I felt I knew the answer to everything.  In fact, if I'd been able to shout through the laryngitis, I'd have exclaimed "stop Eggheads, we have all the information we can cope with".

But, there was one other thing that got me through this period of ill health.  And that was my search for sightings of Pitbull, the rapper.  No music channel escaped my attention.  If he was on, I was watching. Such an intriguing individual.  Never alone, always stuck like glue to a buxom woman and examining her charms with the eyes of one who knows that he's got the sharp suit, the money and the rap to make her skip school for the afternoon.  And his voice, what a sound.  Like a human bassoon.  An orchestra would be proud to find him in their woodwind section.  And his lyrics.  So full of meaning:  "I was playing with her, she was playing with me, next thing you know we were playing with three".  Surely this is a message to teenagers urging them to use contraception to avoid unwanted pregnancies? 

And from his collaboration with Ne-Yo: "Excuse me, but I might drink a little more than I should tonight".  Surely this is a warning to teenagers to go easy on the alcopops or to at least have the manners to apologise first for throwing up over the homeless person sheltering in the HSBC doorway.  Here, I think we have a rapper with a social conscience.  Yes, his videos might be full of ladies who forgot to get dressed before the cameras rolled.  Yes, he may or may not have been involved with drugs.  Yes, he speaks out of only one corner of his mouth, but just imagine what the rest of his mouth must be doing.  Yes, he might clog up your BT Friends and Family allowance with Ricky Martin, Shakira and Gloria Estefan.  Yes, he might be embarrassing to hang out with at a bus-stop gyrating with the twirlies (before 9.30am).  Yes, he's named himself after a dog (he could so easily be called chihuahua).  But, he's been awarded the keys to the city of Miami.  And that's one big set of keys!  And who doesn't enjoy latino rythmns?  Certainly, slumped on the sofa, pumped full of strepsils and just enough energy to press the remote, Pitbull spoke to me and it was better than any lozenge.