Tears and Karaoke

You can tell a lot about a woman by her choice of karaoke song. Jan who is still consumed in bereavement of ending her pants relationship with MM is still in a word, a mess.

She has taken to her bed, (well not literally, she leaves it to go to work, but returns to it at her earliest opportunity. Add to this her alarming devotion to Hagen Daas Strawberry Cheesecake ice cream, sinking way too much Chablis and bemoaning her inevitable long-term spinsterhood fate and you have a woman on the brink.

I took affirmative action and suggested not retail but karaoke therapy was the necessary cure. During my break-up with Mr America, I found solace in my ultimate karaoke number - Sinead O'Connor's Nothing Compares to You. When I first sang it, clutching the microphone in my hand as if my life depended on it, my voice disintegrated from the foghorn tones I am noted for, to a mournful, breathy surprisingly tuneful (or were my audience just trolleyed) semi-whisper.

I lived every line and apparently acted like I was dying from a broken heart which of course I thought I was. At the end of song, I received the enthusiastic applause of my friends and proceeded to weep or should I say snivel very loudly in a very ungirly way. It was only my friend Dee's timely intervention with a pack of kleenex that saved me from the ultimate snotty nose humilitation of reaching for the nearest paper napkin.

With this in mind, I volunteered myself as Jan's wing woman when she declared she needed to release her pain...through song. We headed to the pub. Three glasses of white wine, one vodka and tonic and two brandies later Jan let rip brandishing the microphone like a deadly weapon. She eased her way in with Kelis "I Hate You So Much Right Now", talked her way through Rolls Royce "Love Don't Live Here Anymore" (well let's be honest there are some pretty high notes in it!) before emerging a diva reborn, with me providing back up, on Gloria Gaynor "I Will Survive".

"He's a bastard" said Jan, clunging onto her walking dignity with the help of my arm as we walked home. "Yes he is" I replied firmly. "But I love him!" she wailed then throw up by the roadside. My love hangover duties will continue for some time I fear !