Page 167 - Bridget Jones's Diary - by Helen FIELDING

'OK, this is it. It's very simple. All you do is not eat any food which you have

to pay for. So at the start of the diet you're a bit porky and no one asks you out to
dinner. Then you lose weight and get a bit leggy and shag-me hippy and people
start taking you out for meals. So then you put a few pounds on, the invitations
tail off and you start losing weight again.'

'Daniel!' I exploded. 'That's the most appalling sexist, fattist, cynical thing I've
ever heard.'

'Oh, don't be like that, Bridge,' he said. 'It's the logical extension of what you
really think. I keep telling you nobody wants legs like a stick insect. They want a
bottom they can park a bike in and balance a pint of beer on.'

I was torn between a gross image of myself with a bicycle parked in my
bottom and a pint of beer balanced on it, fury at Daniel for his blatantly
provocative sexism and suddenly wondering if he might be right about my
concept of my body in relation-to men, and, in which case, whether I should
have something delicious to eat straight away and what that might be.

'I'll just pop the telly on,' said Daniel, taking advantage of my temporary
speechlessness to press the remote-control button, and moving towards the
curtains, which were those thick hotel ones with blackout lining. Seconds later
the room was in complete darkness apart from the flickering light of the cricket.

Daniel had lit a fag and was calling down to room service for six cans of Fosters.

'Do you want anything, Bridge?' he said, smirking. 'Cream tea, maybe? I'll

pay.'