The Dating Detox: A laugh out loud book for anyone who’s ever had a disastrous date!. Gemma Burgess

loud all the way down Sloane Street. (No one can hear me. People don’t walk down Sloane Street. They just jump in and out of blacked-out Rolls-Royces to Chanel and Louis Vuitton and Chloe.) I can’t wait to get to work on Monday and work on the German job, I think to myself. Then I start laughing at the idea that I am actually looking forward to work.

      Still singing, I take a short cut through Belgravia (Carl Douglas,‘Kung Fu Fighting’), avoiding the Pantechnicon Rooms, a wonderful pub where I used to go with Smart Henry and can therefore no longer visit, cut over Eaton Place (Beach Boys, ‘Don’t Worry Baby’) and walk down Elizabeth Street just as my favourite song of the moment comes on: Jay-Z, ‘99 Problems’. No one’s near enough to hear me, so I start singing along and nodding my head and moving my arms like I imagine Jay-Z would. If you don’t know the song, please Google it. The first line says it all.

      At the precise moment I’m singing this line rather loudly, a tall man walks out of one of the posh bakeries on Elizabeth Street.

      It’s Jake.

      I do a textbook double-take, stop and say ‘Oh—hi! Hey. Hi,’ take out my earphones and start to giggle nervously.