May 9th - May 15th 2005
Sunday Underware
Saturday Shoesies
Friday Humburg
Thursday Dalliance
Wednesday Sir,
Tuesday Crevasse surfing
Monday Smellier
Sunday 15th May 2005
I boarded a Metropolitan train to Amersham, wondering whether the person who designs the upholstery for the seats is the same person who designs the carpeting at Heathrow and the blouses for British Airways' female cabin staff and why, if so, he has escaped punishment for so long...
Everyone on the train looked terribly prosperous, clean and peaceful as they read about Jonathan King and the Nias earthquake in the Standard. It is amazing to watch the skill with which three people can stand in a rocking train, in a space less than two metres square, without touching each other, and read their papers without falling over.
We hit the surface and after Finchley Road I was able to sit by the window. The heating warmed my ankles. Everyone in the carriage was getting drowsy. It was strangely luxurious...
Unfortunately, having finished Christian Wolmar's book I will never now be able to enjoy a long-distance journey on the Metropolitan, knowing that from 1910 until the start of the Second World War commuters - and returning theatregoers - could for sixpence travel in one of the company's Underground Pullmans, and as the train clanked along be served meals in a mahogany dining-room behind green damask curtains.
- James Meek reviews 'The Subterranean Railway' in the LRB.
Saturday 14th May 2005
hello!
we haven't met yet but I already think I know you: your sexy footsteps teetering backwards and forwards and backwards again across that hard wooden floor...
just a friendly note to warn you, you naughty thing - that's two days running you've worn those shoes (I can tell by their distinctive sound) and a true connoisseur of footwear you surely know how hard that can be on the leather!
or do you like to be hard on your shoes? I bet you do...
do I get a reward for that advice? if you could slip your shoesies on earlier it would please me so much. (Immediately you get out of bed?)
I like to imagine you stalking to and fro in just your lingerie...
hoping to meet you soon,
Your Downstairs Neighbour
(That should do it, don't you think?)
Friday 13th May 2005
(A virtual Hamburg. Obviously)
Thursday 12th May 2005
In our article headlined "What's your secret?" in T2 on April 29, we referred to the fact that James Nash had once been suspended from school for a homosexual dalliance with a boy.
We should make it clear that this incident happened when Mr Nash was himself a pupil at the school.
We apologise for any misunderstanding.
Wednesday 11th May 2005
Pedants 'R' We (part two)
Tuesday 10th May 2005
A good headline is one that instantly conjures a vivid mental picture encapsulating the events described: Blind climber not told of crevasse
A bad headline is one that paints an entirely inaccurate picture: High-speed help from surfing doctors
Monday 9th May 2005
In a nutshell: "When confronted by a chemical from testosterone, the male hormone, portions of the brain active in sexual activity were activated in straight women and in gay men, but not in straight men, the researchers found"
Now we need to know just where all this testosterone is coming from. Speaking as one who has always had a certain eerie fondness for his own aromas, I was amazed, a year or so ago, to discover that the shallow pits behind my ears secrete a subtle yet distinctively musky smell. (Please try this at home; I'd hate to find that it was just me.)
Knowing now that we literally sniff our way to a shag casts an interesting new light on the majority of conversations held in busy pubs and clubs - where all too often one needs to press the front of one's face against the side of one's interlocutor's head in order to be heard.
Oooh. Smell 'er.
......previous week
