October 31st - November 6th 2005
Sunday Contestation
Saturday Fireworks
Friday Tabloided
Thursday Subversive
Wednesday Drapery
Tuesday A plan
Monday To rent
Sunday 6th November 2005
Given the double-digit nature of my birthday, I was fairly determined not to over-celebrate - which is just as well given that a suspiciously high proportion of my friends were unavailable for one reason or another: if I say that paying my paper bill scrapes onto a list of the day's highlights, somewhat below bumping into Luke Howard at Borough Market, that gives you some idea.
Unusually, I didn't even seek out any firework displays (partly, perhaps, because all that's deferred until next week but also thanks, I must admit, to a steadily growing sympathy for the fall-Guy).
So the evening was spent, not with a bang but, as advertised, at The White Swan.
The anniversary contest itself (co-presented by Jimmy, who as a presenter, makes a very good landlord) was enlivened by the surprise appearance of no less than Luca, reprising his performance of two years ago (with, it must be said, considerably more success - both aesthetically and financially).
This year he declined to consult me beforehand; wisely, I think, given that I have been considering the impact of a strategically-timed revelation of a Martyrdom Operations Vest...
Saturday 5th November 2005
Friday 4th November 2005
One of the first rules of Planet Tabloid is "When something looks incredible, it usually is (but, hell, run it anyway)."
You might want to bear that in mind when marvelling at the extraordinary coincidence of assaults reported on not one, but two, fictional hard-man brothers yesterday.
Consider the timing: Rebekah 'The Ginger Ninja' Wade detained for assaulting Ross 'Grant Mitchell' Kemp very late on Wednesday evening.
Angela 'Who?' Bostock detained for assaulting Steve 'Grant Mitchell' McFadden on Thursday morning.
And then consider who stands to win or lose from these stories: Kemp, ostensibly testosterone-rich actor: potential loser; Wade, tabloid editor who has gone big on domestic violence: potential big loser; McFadden, returning Eastenders actor, potential winner; Bostock, retailer of tabloid tittle-tattle, potential big winner.
And then look at whose photo was splashed all over The Sun this morning. Neither Rebekah Wade nor Ross Kemp but, yes, Steve McFadden.
You couldn't make it up? Well, er yes actually, you could.
Thursday 3rd November 2005
I think - at its best - Six Feet Under has presented a very humane, and relatable, argument for all the subversive things that the outsiders in our culture want to hear said.
- Craig Wright, Writer/producer, Six Feet Under
Wednesday 2nd November 2005
Hallowe'en rolls round again, and with it the annual challenge of finding a costume for the traditional costume-party (courtesy, this year, of prog-rock combo David and The Swedes).
This year I resolved on (and, more to the point, executed) a cunning plan to build on two-years' semi-success with black cotton sheeting by adding an extension or two, the exact nature of said extensions to be decided, somewhat bleary-eyed, in the fabric department of John Lewis eight hours before the party.
Touches of red, I'd thought; hence a few yards of red ribbon and plaited cord to be pinned down dangling inside the sides.
And let's have a proper hood this year (rather than pulling up one or other corner and draping it over my head whilst trying to avoid showing my pants in the process). And, if a hood, then a lined hood - though not too red - and, ooh, look, black lace!
Despite several hours spent cobbling it all together into something that looked like clothing rather than a dusty corner of a rag warehouse, plus (gasp) some real hand-sewing, the result was pretty unwieldy: said extensions implying a front and a back, and hence a right, and a wrong, way to put it on, which added considerably to the gaiety of nations as I struggled my way into it outside a pub just up the road from the party.
This year, more than one person asked who I'd come as, which speaks either to the inappropriateness of the additions, or the declining familiarity with Bergman's Seventh Seal; do I really have to make myself a scythe next year?
But I showed willing, as did many others - as Jonathan's party pictures demonstrate.
Tuesday 1st November 2005
This year my birthday falls on a Saturday; the very same Saturday, it transpires, that The White Swan celebrates 20 years of Amateur Strip.
That's that sorted, then. Or the closing hours thereof, at least.
Monday 31st October 2005
John Amery began life as a bed-wetter and a tantrum-thrower. According to his kindergarten reports he always wanted to do "the exact opposite of what he was asked to do". Everything he did was designed to shock.
He would turn up at school wearing a long necklace, stretching down to his knees. When his younger brother Julian was born, he threw a lighted match in his pram, and tried to poison him with liquid polish.
John's nanny found him a "very queer little boy", not least because he was always drawing obscene pictures of naked women with male genitalia.
He continued his delinquency at Harrow. There, like a latter-day Flashman, he managed to be both a bully and a coward. Eventually, when he refused to accept a beating for "walking a bye in cricket instead of running it" he was asked to leave.
It was at this point that he became a rent boy.
(..as well you might, on having your education terminated because of a refusal to abide by the rules of cricket. Nigel Farndale (yes, him) on the brothers Amery: ("The good one becomes a war hero, fighting in the Balkans with the SOE, the bad one is hanged as a traitor to the Crown").
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