October 15th - October 21st 2001
Sunday Strange and hostile
Saturday Down with the war
Friday Humbucks
Thursday Cost of a kiss
Wednesday Sir
Tuesday Harry and David
Monday Lies and nonsense
Sunday 21st October 2001
Hmmmmmmm:
"[Taliban] culture is sharply opposed to the cosmopolitan, imperial, sophisticated history of the great city; their values are of the Pashtun-speaking hills, of plain-living, devout warrior-priests, living an austere life which is not just monastic but, when it is not celibate, predominantly homosexual.
"That's the wrong word - they are not homosexuals in a Western sense - but they certainly emerge from a culture long noted in Islam for such attachments, and it's worth saying that official condemnation of sodomy was relatively slow to emerge. Their culture, in short, is strange and hostile not just to us, but to Kabul (which they have made little effort to reconstruct) and to pretty well the entire Islamic world."
- Philip Hensher The Lost City
Saturday 20th October 2001
"So, are you down with the War Against Terrorism? It's gonna be a total success!"
US Troops behind enemy lines says the headline on today's Daily Telegraph, and illustrates the story with a big picture of gallant British Marines striding ashore.
The caption reads: "Shown here, some plucky Brits landing on a beach during a training exercise in Oman, quite some way from Afghanistan, a country which, being totally land-locked, has no beaches, obviously."
Okay, I lied about the caption.
The euphonic Abdul Wakil Muttawakil, erstwhile Taliban Foreign Minister, now mysteriously AWOL somewhere south of Suez, was apparently known as The Internet Mullah, on account of his interest in all things Interwebnet.
Earlier this year, it's said, he proposed that all Taliban ministries should install an internet connection. The powers that be were eventually persuaded to have just one connection, in Mullah Omar's office.
Then they raided Muttawakil's home: to make sure he wasn't logging on from there.
Muttawakil is said to be that rare thing, a Taliban with a sense of humour. Let's hope so.
Friday 19th October 2001
Commenting on the reported dearth of lavish City parties this year, Fran Cutler, co-founder of 2 Active party planners (I guess that makes her a party spokesperson?), said: "Life has to carry on. We live with terrorism every day. They're not going to cancel Christmas, are they?"
Actually, I for one wish they damn well would cancel Christmas - but for the fact that it looks as if I'll earn £800 for working December 25th and 26th.
Bah humbucks.
Staying on a Conservative tip, today's entertainment news includes rumours that the ultra-Conservative Monday club may sue the only-slightly-less-Conservative party.
For added laffs, check out the Monday Club's web-site:
"Sites we recommend:
The Royal Family
The Church of England
The Prayer Book Society
The Churchill Society
The Association of British Counties..."
Just what is it about Tory rotters whose name starts with a A? First Aitken, then Archer, and now - for your further delectation - Rupert Allason ("a profoundly dishonest man" yay.)
Two rastas thrown off a plane for wearing t-shirts depicting Haile Selassie? God only knows what would have happened if they'd had Bert on there as well.
I turned down the chance to work last night in order to attend a quasi-charity evening at The Vauxhall Tavern: a sort of Sunday-lite with the usual DJs, the usual Dame Edna and, hopefully, the usual crowd.
So it made sense to blag a ticket for the Damien Hirst private view earlier in the evening, and even more sense to meet David early at Bar Code.
So, needless to say, I was late.
But Andy was there, and various other usual suspects, plus David's ex; good to see them getting on nicely. The Hirst thing itself was deadly dull, but not without its moments: after David had remarked that, if nothing else, the spot-paintings made a good backdrop for photo-coverage we stood and watched a group of twenty-somethings posing, poker-faced, for the camera.
David remarked "That one knows how to work his cheekbones." I said "If he sucks his face in any harder his lips will fall off." And the photographer said "That's great, guys, just keep giving me those changes in expression." My, how we laughed.
The cocktails, whatever the hell they were (blackberries, whiskey??) came rather hard on the beer I'd had at Bar Code, as did David's announcement that he didn't have the energy to go on to Vauxhall. So I wandered back down to Bar Code to try and find Andy - who was nowhere to be found. But David's ex was still there and we chatted, and drank, for a while.
After looking in vain for Andy in Comptons and the King's Arms, I stumbled, yet further inebriated, up to Oxford Circus and (after what seemed an interminable wait) arrrived at the RVT around quarter to ten - just in time, I thought, to catch Edna's act followed by a last tube home.
The RVT was pretty empty, but Wesley was there, and Andy, and - over the next hour or so - Andy'n'Alex, Matthew, Karl and various other familiar faces. I chatted about authorship to Wesley , about The Flower Drum Song to Karl, about property to Andy, drinking all the while. Then Andy bought champagne to celebrate Matthew's degree, so I drank that too.
And then finally, finally, the room being by now more crowded, Edna deigned to put in an appearance - with a pretty lack-lustre act, made all the more lustreless by having to draw a raffle in the middle of it.
After which I had a bit of a dance and stumbled off home - drunk enough to waste ten quid on a cab.
Bit of a why-am-I-doing-this? evening, all told. But hey, at least I turned up...
Thursday 18th October 2001
Join Charlie as he bids a long farewell to New York - the first (and hopefully last) time a Furby has brought a tear to my jaundiced eye.
What has a kiss ever cost you?
Last Wednesday, He-who-could-break-my-heart turned up from amidst the crowd at The White Swan and the two of us, both fairly drunk, fell into our accustomed pattern of conversation, wherein we clutch each other affectionately and he tells me what a Diamond I am, and I tell him I don't care, I just want, in an uncompetitive and non-threatening manner, to get naked with him.
(Slight variation this time, inasmuch as we agreed that we'd already done that once, but it didn't really count.)
Then it's time to leave, he mutters something about being here next week, and we seal the bargain with a little bracing tongue-action.
Predictably enough, soon after that, I realise I am booked in to work a long shift this Wednesday - a long shift that, in the past, has often ended in time to let me get to The Swan soon after midnight but which, under the current hard-nosed economic circumstances, probably won't end till 2am, by which time The Swan will be emptying out.
Arriving at work, I explain that the entire future of my love-life hinges on getting out by midnight, a speech which is met with understanding smiles and no sympathy whatsoever. I am, however, offered the possibility of working a short shift, which ends at midnight sharp but which pays £40 less.
So, from 7 till approximately 11, I sit, and work, and try to calculate the various odds. Are we doing well, and if so how well, and might we get out by, say 1am? Would I be able to get a cab, and if so how long would it take, and what would it cost? Can I afford to gamble, hmm, £40 after tax is, say £28, less the price of a cab equals £23 but I'd probably drink a pint less, so call it £25?
And at 11:30 I decide you can't put a price on romance and announce that I am officially working a short.
And at 00:05 I'm standing in The Swan, ignoring the amateur strip-action, looking around for He-who.
And at 01:10 I'm noticing that someone I know is on stage removing their clothing but, no, it's not Him.
And at 02:05 I'm leaving. Alone. And 25 quid down.
And they say Romance is dead.
Wednesday 17th October 2001
In the same way that some people turn straight to the sports pages of their daily paper, each time I get a new issue of the London Review of Books I turn straight to the letters page: a wonderful compendium of tight-lipped bitchiness in which scholars take a reviewer to task for the, my dear, all-too-obvious gaps in their education.
Until this week, my favourite exchange followed a brief mention of a quote from Cicero ("Vixere") by a reviewer. Somebody wrote in, with his pen up his arse, to point out that "Usually, the announcement is reported in the perfect tense: 'vixerunt.'" Somebody else then gleefully pointed out that "In my day every schoolboy knew that Vixere and Vixerunt were simply alternative forms of the perfect tense third person plural." So nyah.
The October 4th issue of the LRB carried a swift round-table of brief opinion pieces by some of the journal's more distinguished contributors: Tariq Ali, Neal Ascherson, Amit Chaudhuri, Terry Eagleton, Paul Foot, Richard Rorty, Edward Said und so weiter. The compendium was titled, with admirable simplicity, 11 September.
Mary Beard's contribution was a typical, if perhaps more baldly-stated, example of the prevailing tone: "But when the shock had faded, more hard-headed reaction set in. This wasn't just the feeling that, however tactfully you dress it up, the United States had it coming. That is, of course, what many people openly or privately think...
The current issue carries a series of letters responding to the views expressed by the distinguished contributors to that round-table. Some, such as Marjorie Perloff from Los Angeles, echo the stately tone of the original piece: "I have been a subscriber to LRB since the journal's inception some twenty-five years ago. But I hereby cancel my subscription and shall urge my Stanford students and colleagues to boycott the journal."
Some do not: "When I visit England sometime I'm going to stop by your offices and shove your loony leftist faces into some dog shit" writes Todd Ojala.
A quick net-search reveals that, despite what you might think, Mr Ojala is a well-established freelance journalist. He has plainly crossed a watershed in the 18 months since he wrote to Salon.com, pleading "Let's try to tolerate some actual diversity. Diversity means more than different hair styles, or body piercing. It means tolerating people who have beliefs that you may fundamentally disagree with."
I have nothing to add (except perhaps to admit that, whilst I was mildly surprised to find that I did, in fact, know a few scant facts about the excerpts on offer, none of them happened to be related to the required answers.)
Never mind promising him a state, the least Blair could have done for Harry yesterday was to offer him a free make-over. Some discreetly stacked heels, a touch of Grecian 2000 - and, my dear, have you seen that uniform? It looks like something you'd find in a theatrical costumiers' sale-bin. And barely a medal to be seen. If we're having a propaganda war, let's at least make sure we're dressed for the part.
Awake enough for ya?
Tuesday 16th October 2001
As a well-meaning, liberal parent you are horrified when you hear that a distant cousin has been brutally murdered and you immediately offer to make a new home for your cousin's traumatised child.
Your own son, let's call him Harry, goes a bit quiet when you tell him that he's going to have to give up his room to make space for his new brother, but your friends all seem to think that you're doing the right thing, so you tell yourself that Harry will get used to it in time.
Your foster son, let's call him David, has difficulty making friends. David picks fights with other children, and calls it self-defence. When you attempt to reason with him he starts yelling about how you hate him, and how you hated his parents too. Sometimes he even accuses you of killing them.
As time passes, you realise that David hates Harry even more than he dislikes you. He steals Harry's toys, insults him in public, hits him when your back is turned. When you protest, people frown and tell you that we all share responsibility for the horrible things that happened to David's parents, you should lighten up, cut the child some slack.
Things come to a head when you discover that David, not content with his own big bedroom, has started to colonise Harry's room too - he's taken over Harry's cupboards to store his toys, he's keeping his clothes in Harry's wardrobe. Harry does his best to defend his territory, but he's hopelessly outnumbered.
Things go from bad to worse when some of the neighbourhood thugs start to take Harry's side. Harry says he wants nothing to do with them - but that doesn't stop them posting shit through your letterbox, and worse.
Question is, when do you take David to one side, shake him firmly by the shoulders and say "Look, I'm really sorry about what happened to your parents, it was truly horrible, but this has gone on long enough. I didn't kill your parents, and neither did Harry. We've given you a good home and all you've done is abuse it. This bullying has got to stop."
When do you do this? Around about the time that Harry gets invited to meet Tony Blair at 10 Downing Street...
Mayor Giuliani says: "There's nothing to be afraid of in opening your mail."
Ha - he should come look at some of the bills I've had this month.
Monday 15th October 2001
Is anyone ever happy with their search requests? I can just about live with wtc picture fakes (several of those lately), and barney dinosaur bin laden presumably makes sense to someone out there, as does osama bin laden goat fuck. But world trade center plane funny? And WTC disaster t-shirts? Even more worrying: I'm number one choice for this WTC affair is all lies and nonsense? Eh?
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