"This is a skating rink, not a hold onto the side rink."

Something I've meant to do for the last few years is go ice-skating on the rink which is built in the courtyard at Somerset House on the bank of the Thames. Whenever I've seen skating on the television it always looks dead easy, so I figured that it must be worth a go. The people in the winter Olympics or James Bond in On her majesty's secret service go zooming about over the ice looking generally swanky, and in my head my imagination assumed I'd be doing much the same. I'd whizz about a bit and perform the odd triple axle before swooshing to a dramatic stop to coos of admiration from a group of willowy blonde girls with bobble-hats and rosy-cold cheeks who seem to hang round winter sports facilities.

Finally, I got round to going the other day. As it turned out my imagination completely lied to me (as usual) and I could have saved myself a heck of a lot of time by taking all the ice cubes out of the fridge, sitting on them for half an hour, and then painting my arse purple.

Ow.