I make up my protein drink, and have it while I’m getting dressed. I brought a change of clothes today because I don’t want to go out in my office stuff, even though Anna says that I wear to work what most people would wear to a nightclub. For tonight I’ve got a pink Abercrombie and Fitch polo shirt with sky-blue lettering, and my DSquared jeans which Jonathan made me buy on the grounds that they were the ones Madonna wore in the ‘Don’t Tell Me’ video, with the cowboys. I check myself in the mirror and accidentally catch Sauna Slut’s reflection so I have to beat a hasty retreat because he starts waving his thing at me again.

It’s a nice evening although not really warm enough to be out in just a polo shirt but if I put my sweater on (John Smedley, white with an argyle pattern in light blue and brown) then no one will see my arms and chest, which I’ve just spent the last hour working on. So I knot the sweater loosely around my shoulders, but then I see myself in a shop window and decide that I look like a girl, so I tie it round my waist but then you can’t see my arse, so in the end I fold it up and put it in my gym bag. As a result of this, by the time I’ve walked into Soho I’m actually quite cold, and my nipples are sticking up through my shirt, which turns out to be a very good way of making an entrance into Soho. Heads turn. I shall underdress more often.

Jonathan is always late for every date, and tonight is no exception, even though it is my birthday. I have time for a Coke Zero and a chat with the barman and a read of the mags and he’s still not there. It’s eight o’clock and I’m starting to look at my watch just to let everyone know that I am expecting someone, that I haven’t come to Barcode on my own/on the pull, but even I am finding it hard to remain aloof and self-contained and am starting to attract a certain amount of interest. I now wish that I’d kept the sweater on because I might look less obviously like an escort. I keep texting Jonathan WHERE R U? but he’s either got his phone switched off or is not bothering to reply.

Eventually at eight-fifteen he breezes in, carrying Selfridges bags, only forty-five minutes late which is not bad for him. ‘Don’t be cross with me,’ he says, holding up one hand in a traffic-stopping gesture, ‘I’ve been shopping for your present and I have found you something absolutely perfect.’ He puts all the bags down – there are four in total – around the base of a stool. ‘And I’m absolutely bloody parched.’ This is understood by all Jonathan’s friends to mean ‘Please buy me a drink’, so while I’m getting the barman’s attention and ordering two large vodka and Coke Zeros, Jonathan is bending down and fishing around in the bags. I try not to look as it would be bad manners, but I can’t help noticing in the mirror above the barman’s head that he has pulled out the smallest imaginable Selfridges bag and is clutching it between his hands with a very pleased look on his face. The other bags are obviously full of stuff that he’s bought for himself. I say bought, but ‘borrowed’ would be closer to the truth, because ever since Jonathan discovered that Selfridges has a no-quibble returns policy, he stocks up on new season clothes which he wears once or twice then takes back for a refund. He regards Selfridges’ menswear department as a kind of fashion lending library, and has trained himself to ignore the poisonous looks that the staff give him every time he goes in there.