February 11th - February 17th 2002
Sunday About time
Saturday Scarfe
Friday Sibling
Thursday Links
Wednesday Committed, smoking
Tuesday Ex-fest
Monday Cluster-hug
Sunday 17th February 2002
It's about time.
Today troubled_diva finally hits forty and gets to finish his fabulous 'forty in forty days' festival.
It's about: time.
Saturday 16th February 2002
Dick Van Dyke Cockney, Advanced Level, Lesson Two.
Non-native English speaker: "And this computer you're selling, is it a good one?"
More-or-less Londoner: "Oh yeah! It's the dog's!"
Non-native English speaker: "?"
I've been trying to track down this quote for ages now, and I've finally found it. It's from a review of Iris by Roger Lewis in the Mail on Sunday:
"The film begins with the characters swimming underwater. Kate bubbles to the surface in the buff and her nipples, I can report, are as big as Eartha Kitt's head. I could have watched her frolic for hours."
If you're planning to take drugs this weekend, try very hard to keep that image out of your head.
Jonce is spot-on when he speaks of sibling rivalry:
MyEx: "I feel so out of touch! I just don't know what to wear any more when I'm in London!"
Me: "Um, well think 'smart-casual' and then throw away the 'smart'. And then take it down a notch or two. Let's see - that jacket, is it new?"
MyEx: "I just bought it today."
Me: "It's fine. Denim shirt - always ok. A white t-shirt wouldn't do any harm. What about the trousers? Hmm, white. The scarf in itself is okay, but tied like that.. The scarf has to go."
A little later, a friend of Mark's joins us and is introduced.
Friend: "And the other guy is your ex, right?"
Me: "Yup."
Friend: "But he doesn't live in London?"
Me: "Ten out of ten. How did you know?
Friend: "The scarf...
Friday 15th February 2002
Last night? Jonce has it just about right (scroll down) though for all he knows blood was shed once we got to the Spiral. Or thereafter.
Thursday 14th February 2002
Don't ask, don't tell: US jets sent into action after two men are seen in a toilet.
I've been asked to explain Blogadoon's policy on links to other blogs, and am happy to do so.
If you have a blog, and I find it, and I think it's even halfway interesting, I will list it on my blogmarks page.
I will not list your blog simply because you've written to me to tell me that it exists; I will list it if somebody else writes to commend it, and I agree with their commendation.
If you're on my blogmarks page and you link to me (either on your page or on a separate links-page), I will also add a link to you in the list at left (which, yes, has certain underlying prioritisations which, no, I'm not going to explain).
If you read Blogadoon regularly, or even irregularly for that matter, I'd appreciate a link from you. If you already link to me and don't appear in the list on the left, please let me know.
That is all.
Update: There were no cards on my mat this morning, but I did get an unexpected £360 worth of holiday pay. And frankly, I know which I prefer.
Reproduced without permission and without comment, this graphic (right) forms part of the illustration to a recent article in the Independent entitled Snobs vs Yobs:Remind you of anyone?
If one event more than other would teach me to pay more attention to the calendar, it should be the fact that I have inadvertently arranged to go on a bar-crawl with my ex "this Thursday", i.e. tonight, i.e.... well, work it out.
No doubt entirely coincidental that the story should break on this day of all days but mildly comforting nonetheless: a typo in a circular about a new ISA from the Halifax directed customers looking for more information to gay chat-line. (If you check out the story, tell me if I'm the only one one who sees a suspicious sub-text in the headline.)
Wednesday 13th February 2002
Say what you like about Princess Margaret, she remains a committed smoker to the last - Buckingham Palace announced yesterday that, contrary to royal custom, she will be cremated.
Three questions from last night's Pop Quiz:
A: I see at least one attractive guy in here tonight.
B: By the cigarette machine in the grey top? Yup.
C: Christ, he's cute. Where's he been all night?
A & B (tutti): He was sitting down, at the far end of the bar...
E: We're hoping you guys have some suggestions about what clubs we should see while we're in town.
C: Well, it depends. What kind of guys do you go for?
F: Er, the guy by the cigarette machine; the guy who was sitting down at the far end of the bar...
Tuesday 12th February 2002
Monday mid-evening and:
David's ex is embarassing him in public
At least one nameless blogger finds himself with one more ex than he had a week ago
My ex is telling me the reason he left the country is that he was having a nervous breakdown brought on by the failure of our relationship
Our best friend is telling us that her ex is back on smack and that if his family asks her what's going on she's going to have to tell them.
Something of an ex-fest. 36 hours to Valentine's Day, and counting...
Monday 11th February 2002
Refreshingly, the press coverage of the demise of Margaret Rose is turning out to be considerably less sycophantic than one might have expected.
I particularly liked the lengthy piece in the Independent on Sunday, headlined Wilful, charming, grumpy and regally badly behaved. The Independent is probably the most republican of our newspapers (it initially refused to carry any royal news at all, until Dianagate forced it to reconsider) and Charles Nevin's article does not disappoint:
"So, the Princess is dead. She will not be mourned, this princess, in the way that the other princess, the wife of her eldest nephew, was mourned. And, in truth, for many she will hardly be missed. Old woman dies, not many notice, fewer care.
"If life resembles nothing so much as a bad movie on Channel 5, Margaret is its queen. Read on and consider, for, beneath the banner bluster, it is one of the leading morality tales of the last century.
"Margaret's old-fashioned prickly princessness - insistence on proper modes of address and constant light fawning - had always been accompanied by a love of the louche... as beguiling and dangerous in her whimsical reliance on, and relaxation of, protocol as Miranda Richardson playing the earlier Elizabeth in Blackadder.
"In her sixties, the long, large and legendary consumption of nicotine and whisky began to be felt. Pneumonia in 1993; a stroke in 1998; a relapse in 2000; another stroke last year, which harmed her sight. And all met with a lack of sympathy as striking as the outpouring that greeted her decision not to marry Townsend all those years before."
When Dame Edna sings a soppy song as part of her act at the Royal Vauxhall Tavern it's considered obligatory for every couple in the house, however manic or middle-aged, to snuggle up to each other and croon along, more or less in time, more or less in tune.
Yesterday, after the mandatory Pop Idol and Princess Emphysema gags, Edna sang "Hopelessly Devoted To You" to a dense pre-Valentines-Day crowd. Marcus and David crooned. Darren and Jim crooned. Stephen and Sean. Andy and Alex. Whilst I looked around in blind panic hoping that my-ex would not choose this moment to show his face as promised.
And next to us, their arms wrapped all around each other, gently stroking whatever bits they could reach: five guys who'd picked each other up at Fist the previous night.
A cluster-hug. Bless.
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