Page 256 - Bridget Jones's Diary - by Helen FIELDING

Wednesday 1 November

8st 13lb 8oz (yesss! yesss!), alcohol units 2 (v.g.), cigarettes 4 (but could not
smoke at Tom's in case set Alternative Miss World costume alight), calories
1848 (g.), Smoothies 12 (excellent progress).

'Just went round to Tom's for top-level summit to discuss the Mark Darcy
scenario. Found Tom, however, in a complete lather about the forthcoming
Alternative Miss World contest. Having decided ages ago to go as 'Miss Global
Warming,' he was having a crisis of confidence.

'I haven't got a hope in hell,' he was saying, looking in the mirror, then
flouncing to the window. He was wearing a polystyrene sphere painted like map
of the globe but with the polar ice caps melting and a large burn mark on Brazil.
In one hand he was holding a piece of tropical hardwood and a Lynx aerosol,

and in the other an indeterminate furry item which he claimed was a dead ocelot.
'Do you think I should have a melanoma?' he asked.

'Is it a beauty contest or a fancy dress contest?'

'That's just it, I don't know, no one knows,' said Tom, throwing down his
headdress - a miniature tree which he was intending to set alight during the
contest. 'It's both. It's everything. Beauty. Originality. Artistry. It's all

ridiculously unclear.'

'Do you have to be a pouff to enter?' I asked, fiddling with a bit of

polystyrene.

'No. Anyone can enter: women, animals, anything. That's exactly the