Diary of a desperate woman — with apologies to Bridget Jones

9am At desk and sober. Slight sense of puz­zle­ment soon replaced by real­i­sa­tion that am now ful­ly-func­tion­ing adult and undoubt­ed­ly next CEO. Plan to purge email inbox so only have strict­ly rel­e­vant mes­sages from key indus­try con­tacts, help­ful in my rise to top of tree.

9.02am Arrgh – elec­tron­ic reminder of trade din­ner tonight. When did that invi­ta­tion arrive? Where? How?

9.07am Fran­tic search through emails dat­ing back to Dark Ages. Even­tu­al­ly locate mes­sage from PR girl: Clare! I’m so pleased you can join us for our black-tie din­ner on 28th! Real­ly look for­ward to meet­ing you at last! 7:30 for 8pm; such a great excuse to wear posh frocks! Oh good­ness – have googled PR, and found pic of hideous­ly smil­ing woman, v slim and vv blonde, cross between Princess Diana and Char­l­ize Theron. Will nev­er be able to impress with poise and inner calm. No suit­able lit­tle black dress in wardrobe, every­thing not so much vin­tage as archae­o­log­i­cal.

9.10am Urgent call to best friend Kate in lieu of Gok Wan or sim­i­lar. New dress only option, but how is it pos­si­ble before 7.30 for 8pm tonight?

9.20am Email from Kate with links to online retail­ers. “Click to buy is the way to go,” she writes. Have no idea what she’s talk­ing about, but – ooh, look! Video of impos­si­bly slim mod­els wear­ing impos­si­bly slinky dress­es opens on screen.

9.30am This is more fun than nephew’s World of War­craft. One click on dress and it’s being slinked across screen, and whole range of colours and sizes comes up. Ignored price infor­ma­tion as obvi­ous­ly a mis­print.

Inter­ac­tive screen – v good — spend quite long time mak­ing divine clutch hand­bag zoom up close and rotate

10.01am Clicked on shoes (killer heels nec­es­sary as PR girl undoubt­ed­ly 8ft tall), belt and bag also. Tried dress with dif­fer­ent shoes – v clever, much bet­ter, career as per­son­al styl­ist beck­ons. Enter per­son­al mea­sure­ments – hope I hit the right keys as was hold­ing hand in front of eyes as did so – too scary.

10.05am Shop­ping bas­ket seems to total £6,347 – sure­ly can­not be right? Could fly to Milan for a week’s shop­ping and not spend that much. Email Kate to find out what went wrong.

10.07am Ah, per­haps cou­ture not right for me. Dress­es only suit­able for stick insect any­way.

10.09am Email from Kate: “Try a com­par­i­son web­site.” What have meerkats to do with design­er dress trau­ma?

10.10am Oh I see. Same dress (well, near­ly) but a frac­tion of the price! Check where can buy via smart­phone app – love the lit­tle map, even I can’t get lost with that. Tell boss am going for v high-pow­ered meet­ing with impor­tant con­tact
and leave office with head held high.

11.35am On high street with lit­tle map… haha­ha. Young man wav­ing arms at large shop win­dow to make image in win­dow move. Has gath­ered large crowd – won­der what’s inside the store?

12.15pm Right, back on high street. Sure­ly was sen­si­ble to buy new per­fume?

12.30pm Meet up with Kate, who’s prod­ding win­dow of near­by shop. Fears that will have to sec­tion best friend allayed when she shows me inter­ac­tive screen – v good. Spend quite long time mak­ing divine clutch hand­bag zoom up close and rotate. Only then notice am in front of shop I’m look­ing for.

12.35pm Find dress and head for chang­ing rooms – won­der if staff would notice if I stayed after shop shut? Sofas in chang­ing room more com­fort­able and con­sid­er­ably more styl­ish than mine at home. Chang­ing room even has tele­phone to call help­ful shop assis­tant when dis­cov­er dress is out­landish­ly large and need small­er size – hur­rah! Kate appears with fab­u­lous scarf – appar­ent­ly sug­gest­ed as styling tip, after she scanned a QR code thingum­my on the dress label into her smart­phone. Most impressed and rather keen on scarf too. End up buy­ing dress and scarf – scan­ning bar­code with smart­phone means more time for lunch.

1pm Arrive at restau­rant and remem­ber still no shoes yet. Kate fish­es out tablet com­put­er and finds near­ly per­fect pair – v easy to fil­ter pos­si­bil­i­ties as can sort by size and colour. Email link to Jane for sec­ond opin­ion.

1.20pm Email from Jane approv­ing shoes, so add to shop­ping bas­ket along with bag (v nec­es­sary for co-ordi­na­tion) and check­out. How cool is it that shoes will be deliv­ered to office this after­noon. Get cat­a­logue sent to home as always good to have posh reminder on cof­fee table.

5.30pm Arrgh – can­not believe time. Will have to delete obso­lete emails tomor­row. Have to get home, get ready and get to stonk­ing­ly huge West End hotel in state of Zen-like calm. Thank heav­ens shoes and bag are here.

Mid­night Sch­plen­did par­ty. Take new besht friend, love­ly Princess Char­l­ize, past win­dow of shop where bought dresh to show her inter­ac­tive win­dow. She buys hand­bag – deliv­ered to her office tomor­row – v clever girl. Sch­plen­did inven­tion, shop­ping at mid­night.