Uborka spent the weekend recuperating from its brush with death, and is now able to sit up in bed without assistance and sip a little chicken soup, if it’s not too hot.

The Pete part of Uborka is still slumped in the corner, deathly pale and too weak to click his mouse button. The Karen part of Uborka is bored of feeling poorly, and looking around for something to do.

So I thought I’d stop trying to entertain you with all that wit and originality that Pete does so well and I can’t imitate, and do a bit of soap opera instead. It’s a long time since you’ve heard about what’s going on in World of Karen.

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Holding a drunken party while your parents were out was a rite of passage at my school. Some parents were wiser to this than others, and I note that my dad [also known as the Daft Old Biffer] still hasn’t learned that NO is really the only response that any sane adult ought make when asked by one’s teenage brat for permission to have a party.

I got lucky: post-parental-divorce there was a stage where I could wangle a YES to requests involving the acquisition of leather jackets, scientific calculators, trips to Venture Scout camp, or the possibility of holding a “Cast Party” on the last night of our O-Level production of Julius Caesar.

Perhaps it was the Shakespeare element that threw his spider senses off, but he did say that I could have a party, and he arranged to go out with his new lady friend [also known as The Witch or Stepmonster]. I think some general guidelines about alcohol [none] and trouble [call him in the event of any] were issued, and I signed up to them with my fingers crossed behind my back.

We lived at the time in a huge ramshackle house with smelly carpets and inefficient heating. Actually, I think the carpets only became smelly around the time of the party; there may be some connection. The house sprawled over three storeys, and in a vain attempt to keep hormone-injected teens out of the bedrooms, Calpurnia and I constructed a pile of coats on the stairs. You’ll note that neither of us went on to be engineers. The pile of coats turned out to be easily shifted, and the posters in my brother’s bedroom at the top of the house were mostly defaced.

As you probably know, all good parties wind up in the kitchen. In this case, the kitchen was the only room in the house with a source of heat. While the lads who had played Cassius and Trebonius pelted the windows with soggy cotton wool balls, Calpurnia and I were kept busy making strong black coffee for the guests who had taken a drop too much Thunderbird.

Dad returned to find us trying to pick peanuts and bombay mix out of the carpet with the help of a handful of girls who had suddenly become great friends with us under the influence of alcohol. I believe I was in a certain amount of trouble. Two years later, Nick managed to eclipse the memory of my party with an event of his own that seemed to focus on the reciprocal trashing of my bedroom.

Fifteen years later, Dad still hasn’t learned.

[After we graduated, I spent a month travelling round Europe with three friends and a lad who had somehow attached himself to us. It was a classic "if it's Tuesday it must be Berlin" tour recorded in my diary/scrapbook in a wealth of critique...]

Brussels, 18/7/92 Went off to see the Manneken Pis – a bit silly, really, and it’s very hard to buy a postcard in Brussels that doesn’t feature him and his jet of wter. There are even lifesize chocolate models of him in the confiseries.

Amsterdam, 19/7/92 a humongously long train, only two carriages of which were going to Berlin. Lots of panicky getting on and off, carriages full, should have reserved a seat, panic panic, fuss fuss. Decided to go to Hamburg instead.

Berlin, 20/7/92 38 degrees… sat in a fountain in Alexanderplatz

Prague, 23/7/92 800 krowns and about an hour later we were installed in a foul-smelling, orange-watered hostel, feeling, as usual, hot, tired, grumpy and hungry. We soon cheered up when we walked down the road to the pub and got a nice filling meal, four bottles of wine, and pancakes with fruit and ice-cream for about £12 for the five of us…

Transport tickets cost 8 pence…

AMAZING!.. breathtaking… magnificent… fairytale castle… a puppet-monkey dancing the lambada…

Vienna, 25/7/92 Ali, snap-happy as usual, has been dragging us about to get a picture of this, that and the other “gorgeous” building, green rooves, sunsets, more buildings etc. Catchphrase of the week has been her “I can feel a photo coming on.”

Venice, 28/7/92 Took our pizzas and a large bottle of cheap 9paintstripper) red wine to the edge of the Grand Canal, and picnicked in the moonlight. Teams of gondolas were gliding past with an accordion playing or a tenor in full voice. ali really thought “O Sole Mio” was about ice-cream.

Corfu, 31/7/92 On enquiring what time the last bus came back, were told that there were no more buses back to Corfu Town until 9 the following morning… A lad who worked on the beach offered to take [all five of] us in his car for 3,000 drachma. His car was a battered black box about the size and shape of an old Ford Fiesta… fortunately it couldn’t get enough speed to pelt round the sheer-sided hairpin bends…

There doesn’t seem to be much to do on the island, as I certainly don’t have the energy to trail up the mountain to look at the monastery (however Zorba it is)… I’ll just have to shut up and sunbathe…

I get more and more mosquito bites every day… everyone feels ill to various degrees…

5am Tuesday… Ioannis the mad hotel manager drove us at break-neck speed to corfu Town. Had to wait a couple of hours to get on the ferry… Arrived in Brindisi at 4.30pm… reserved sleepers on a train to Rome to leave at 22.30… Finally crawled into our couchettes – untold luxury! Throw-away sheets!

Rome, 6/8/92 Took the obligatory photos, then went into the Piazza di Spagna’s MacDonalds…

Finally we were walking towards the Colosseum. This is what I expected from Rome: ancient ruins, columns, pillars, carvings, Roman lettering on the walls, Cassius! Brutus! Wow!

Florence, 8/8/92 We walked down to the Uffizi Gallery, but it cost 10,000 lire, with no discount – way over our budget. Everything in Florence seems to cost; same price for the National Museum. We wandered through the ground floor of the Palazzo Vecchio, as that was free. These buildings are strange-looking, like sandcastles! The cathedral was magnificent, but liberally decorated with scaffolding.

Pisa, 9/8/92 We were followed along the road from the station by a creepy looking guy, who didn’t go away for ages, until we all stopped and turned round and stared at him.

Nice, 10/8/92 From Genova we went to Milano (all the journeys merge into one after a while – I can’t remember a thing about it!) We arrived in Milano after dark, admired the station with its gushing fountains and statues…

Made the Nice train with 30 seconds to spare, and couldn’t get a compartment together. A & A were stuck with a load of men, including a Moroccan molester who wouldn’t take no for an answer. K & I had to share with two dishy Australians and the Passenger from Hell. We’re all suffocating so she closes the window. We pull down the seats and she takes a third of the compartment herself, leaving four of us for the other two thirds; we wake up in the morning, actually feeling cold, and she opens the bloody window!!

Sauntered up the Promenade des Anglais, as one is supposed to do when in Nice. It was bloody hot – sweat was pouring down our backs. We’ve all smelled bloody disgusting for at least a week – you’d think it would keep the creeps away, but it doesn’t! Got to the hostel 15 minutes before we were allowed back in – sat outside looking glum, all with one thought, unspoken: I WANT TO GO HOME. Then I suggested we get a train to Paris and home, and everyone’s faces lit up – “do you mean it?” YES!

2nd August 1991 Deb and the girls and i went down to the lake and had an ice-cream… the lake was steely-grey and quite rough, it seemed just like the sea, with street lights and bar lights shining on to it, dancing on its surface. We walked out on a jetty, and looked across to the busy hotels on the other side, and watched the lighthouse blinking white light across the water – more ornamental than useful. Deborah and I sat in an orange-lit cafe on the edge of the lake and drank coffee and chatted… I love Geneva with its cosmopolitan population and its warmth and colour. I really like its atmosphere, it’s busy and bright, with people enjoying the sun, but coming out in a party mood after dark. I want to come back, again and again, to experience this city where all the countries of the world seem to meet in good spirit… Given the choice, I’d live here, but il faut vraiment que je m’epouse avec un rich man to do that!