Top
  Nonsense
    These We have Loved
    BLOGADOON
        latest
        next week
        previous week
        first week
    Links


Responses to:
    blogadoon@iansie.com

º December 25th-31st 2000
Monday Palestinians under siege
Tuesday Christmas spirit
Wednesday geek-speak
Thursday roomful of desperate men
Friday not a gentleman
Saturday Blog-break
Sunday Blog-break

º Monday 25th December 2000

As an antidote to the seasonal overdose of virgins on asses tromping through snow-covered woods, a timely reminder of what's happening to the real geography of the so-called Holy Land: Edward Said's stunning analysis of the hard truths of Israeli policy that nobody seems to want to discuss: Palestinians Under Siege, from (where else?) the London Review of Books.

It's a long but exceptionally cogent piece, probably best printed out and read at leisure. (Take a moment to download the accompanying maps too, they're crucial to his argument.)

Like, what else you gonna do this Christmas, watch Victoria Wood?

º Tuesday 24th December 2000

Last night I spent at work - how cool is that?

Hence this sneak preview of a exemplary act of seasonal malice: The Queen Mother's display of duty and fortitude was marred by a bizarre outburst from the Princess Royal as she made brisk work of gathering up presents from outstretched hands. Taking one pensioner's offering for the Queen Mother - a hand-made basket of flowers - the Princess remarked: "What a ridiculous thing to do."

You go, girl.

This comes from a Daily Telegraph story with the intriguing headline The Queen Mother's act of defiance. You'll be wanting to know what the brave old bat's been up to this time. Don't hold your breath: she went to church.

º Wednesday 27th December 2000

Geekspeak hits the front pages. Speaking of Michael McDermott's massacre of seven of his colleagues at an internet consultancy near Boston, Massachusetts, a colleague commented: "It seems like a random ridiculous thing".

Well yah.

º Thursday 28th December 2000

You may find this difficult to believe, but back in the early days of rudimentary e-mail and nascent dot-commerie, I found it cool to go out of a night wearing my e-mail adress on my t-shirt. (My colleagues liked it too, so I had t-shirts done for them as well.)

Night after night I'd rush home to see which wired hunk had decided to take up the challenge of starting a virtual relationship and, night after night, none did. Until one magic moment when, yes!, I got a note: "Hi. Just checking to see if this is a real address". Errr?

We corresponded, exchanged some great Laurie Anderson quotes ('Your shirt on my chair...' is good in English, even better in Portuguese), I discovered he was a Brazilian post-grad in architecture, and we graduated to exchanging phone numbers.

"Course, the thing is, you know what I look like and I have no idea at all who you are," I ventured. "Oh, I was pretty drunk, I'm not sure I recall you that good," he said. "Ermm, glasses? Pony-tail?" I replied. "Oh," he muttered "I think I would have remembered a pony-tail..."

And when I checked back to the original e-mails (you've worked this out already, haven't you?), yup, he'd been writing to my colleague all the time. Bastard.

Nevertheless we became great friends, and used to go out once a week or so until, four years ago, he went back to Bel Horizonte to become, in time, the Deputy Head of the Architecture School. Now he's back in town for Christmas.

So, last night, to Manto's (we even ate) and then on to the Theatre Bar at West Central, somewhere I recently decided was one of the few West End Bars where it's possible to hold a decent conversation, which we did.

And then, later, to Bar Code where finally, at long last, enfin, I found the roomful of desperate men I'd been promised for Christmas. Paradigm-moment: the three guys standing swaying just in front of me, each eyeing the others, and each plainly thinking: "Well, he's quite cute but he's very very drunk. Hmm..."

º Friday 29th December 2000

Last night to Bar Code: Wednesday night was so entertaining that I decided to do it all over again on Thursday. Crap tactics but, hey, it got me out the house.

At some stage in the evening, one of a group of guys leaned across. "You're an actor, aren't you...?" he demanded. "No" I replied, with a carefully-constructed crook of the eyebrow, implying "Attractive, yes, confident, yes, even perhaps, yes, a little fabulous. A star, certainly, but an actor? I don't think so."

There was a mutter from the group behind him. "Yes," he continued, "League of Gentlemen!"

Hey ho.

º Saturday 30th December 2000

Blog-break

º Sunday 31st December 2000

Blog-break

......previous week