I was invited to a friend's party last weekend and, because I didn't know any of her crowd, I thought I'd stay for a quick one before going home for the dregs of trashy Saturday night TV.

Twelve hours later I was making my way home, impressed at how hang-loose I'd become since I took my life-changing cliff jump a few weeks ago. The best nights are definitely the ones you don't plan a good time for, and sometimes you need a cliff jump to become more chillled out and less regimental about life.

Everyone I met turned out to be fantastic and I ended up making firm friends with a builder called James. For that night, anyway.

I was drawn to him as a "bit of rough" so was a little put off when I found out he'd been to boarding school in the Home Counties. Worse still, as we got talking as night turned to morning, I started pushing him to tell me about his job. After an apprehensive silence, he said: "Building's not the only thing I do. I'm also part of a theatrical troupe and I work as a children's clown."

When I asked for a bit more detail, he said he performed at children's parties, pulling things out of his pants and prising his body into a coat hanger. It all sounded very strange and not at all what I thought I was getting into.

The mental image of a brawny builder type wearing a large nose and silly shoes didn't really set the pulse racing and I began to have second thoughts. Trust me to have scored with a builder with a theatrical background. Where have all the old style labourers gone?

I have a friend who had an arranged marriage a year ago. I was horrified when she told me. Not only was she compromising herself but she was leaving me as the last standing single woman from our circle of friends.

What a betrayal. After half a life-time of getting drunk and sh*gging her boss, she has begun praying on Friday's and attending a Koran club. I have been deeply troubled by her change but it is only when I spoke to her the other day, and heard how content she was, that I realised that my discomfort came more from my own feelings about her marriage, rather than a problem with the marriage itself. She is happy being married and, just because she's wound up with this sometimes infuriating bloke, doesn't take away the fact that she is satisfied with him.

As a single woman, she was bent on settling for nothing less than perfection but since she has been with him, she is learning not to demand too much. The arranged marriage, dare I say it, might actually have been good for her.