February 18th - February 24th 2002
Sunday Curling
Saturday Pearl without price
Friday Alcohol/pain
Thursday And Bob Dylan
Wednesday 4 out of 12
Tuesday Apology
Monday Blue with cold
Sunday 24th February 2002
Me: "I'm fully expecting a Special Pull-Out-and-Keep Supplement on Curling in tomorrow's editions."
He: "One Hundred and One Things You Didn't Know About Curling."
Me: "Innit. Actually I'm engaged in an active attempt to maintain my hitherto total ignorance about curling."
He: "The thing that puzzles me - do they have to have special shoes?"
Me: "Apparently they do, one shoe with a rubber sole and another with a teflon coating."
He: "Ah. Fascinating really. Can you see it becoming the new leisure fad - a night out for the boys down the local curling rink?"
Me: "Like going to the dogs. Me and va lads iz going dahn da curls."
He: "There has to be a rink out there somewhere in London. Walthamstow or whatever."
Me: "No, apparently there are no curling rinks in England."
He: "Your resolution to remain ignorant's not doing too well, is it?"
Those of you who are unfamiliar with the general tenor of events at Sleaze (at Crash on the final weekend of the month) will sympathise when I tell you that I mislaid my wristwatch whilst I was there this Friday.
Those who know the night will, I fear, merely giggle...
Told you: I am Blogger Z.
Saturday 23nd February 2002
Whitechapel being traditionally the, um, ethnic melting-pot that it is, I guess I shouldn't have been particularly surprised that the only white face I saw throughout the two hours I spent at The Whitechapel Dental Centre yesterday belonged to the receptionist. Nor that it turned out that she came, originally, from Texas.
At one stage a young black girl came in, the receptionist ushered her into a cubicle, and I overheard this conversation:
Black Girl: "So - busy?"
Texan Girl: "Ah, y'know, not too bad."
BG: "That makes a change, for this place."
TG: "Well, it's Eid so.."
BG: "Aid?"
TG: "Eid? The, like, religious thing?"
BG: "Oh I thought they'd had that already."
TG: "They have more than one? Apparently? This is the one where they sacrifice a sheep?... Not sure where they do it, though."
BG: "Eeeuw."
TG: "Yeah.. I was told.. some prophet was, like, lost in the desert, and he was going to slit his son's throat but God, well Allah I guess, Allah sent him a sheep to kill instead?"
I thought about telling her that the prophet's name was one she might have heard of, namely Abraham, but thought better of it.
I wonder now whether she'd have been any more familiar with the name of the sacrifice: Daniel Pearl.
Friday 22nd February 2002
Having lost a certain amount of sleep over my visit to the dentist today, it turned out I was scheduled for a mere check-up. When I eventually got to see the dentist (two hours after my appointment) I think both he and I were somewhat alarmed by the amount of white space evident on the x-ray.
The good news, what there is of it, is that the few remaining teeth that I do have are apparently good teeth, strong teeth, firm, manly, positively butch teeth.The bad news includes the aforementioned cavities, a looming extraction and, oh look, an abscess. And, oh look, another abscess.
The really bad news is that I've been prescribed two antibiotics - one of which, when taken with alcohol, produces vomiting.
Hmm. Alcohol/pain. Pain/alcohol...
One thing's fer sher: I won't be starting the course before Monday...
Thursday 21st February 2002
"For my twelfth birthday, my father's best friend (another tall, good-looking man), Bebe, made me a hand-carved sailboat..
"All around us, people were sailing other boats - some with remote-control motors - easily and neatly. But, beautiful job of carving that it was, Bebe's boat would move out, turn sharply, come back, and bump the shore. Or if the breeze had any strength at all, the boat would simply turn on its side and drop the mast in the water.
"Bebe was an easygoing guy - all my father's close friends had to be - and was sitting back while Dad sputtered and pulled at this string and that, and tried to tighten the other bit of slack. That's when I looked up and saw the elderly man standing a few feet off, watching.
"He was just about my height, was wearing a gray sweater, somewhat baggy pants, and cloth shoes. His white hair tufted from both sides of his head. he had a full, gray mustache, and he stood with a pipe held against his chest, in one rather slender hand..
"He looked down over my father's shoulder. 'Excuse me,' he said. 'If you loosen the black sail there, you won't have such a problem with the way it leans...'
"A little flustered, my father said, 'Well, all right... go ahead if you want.'
"The man knelt down at the boat. As soon as he took it in his hand, he frowned. 'Oh,' he said, looking up at us. 'Well, you do have a problem here. It really is just too top-heavy.' He sighed and loosened the sail anyway.
"'That's what I told him,' Bebe said, meaning my father.
"'This probably won't help then,' the man said, finishing his knot and standing, while the boat bobbed at the lake's edge, 'very much. But it certainly looks nice.'
"'Thank you anyway,' I said and held out my hand. I was not going to let our visitor get away without a handshake. He took my hand firmly in his. 'Thank you,' I said again.
"The ritual once started, Bebe shook hands with him, and finally, standing, my father did too.
"The man smiled, nodded, gestured with his pipe, and turned away. I didn't think my father knew who he was, but I was sure Bebe had recognised him. But Bebe was looking over my dad's shoulder again; and Dad was again squatting over the boat.
"I glanced back at the man, who was thirty yards away and almost invisible through the park's Sunday strollers.
"'Hey,' I said, 'do you know who that was?'
An abbreviated extract from Samuel R Delany's autobiography, 'The Motion of Light in Water', remembering how he had help with his hand-carved sailboat from none other than Albert Einstein. Beautifully-written, don't you think?
Later in the book, Delany recalls a last-minute change of programme at the Greenwich Village coffee-shop where he was playing guitar: "Billy got up and I went with him outside, while he squatted in front of the placard and, with two bits of scotch tape, below my grandly lettered name, added the piece of paper on which, from maybe three feet away, you could just make out: AND BOB DYLAN."
Wednesday 20th February 2002
I like to imagine that when Little Miss Bitch found herself accidentally assaulted by a bar stool at the Retro Bar last night, she may have looked around for her friend Darian, not spotted him, and thanked God she was the only one likely to blog the incident.
Little did she know that the man with the flying stool was David, a blogger, and that amongst his team-mates, standing giggling at the bar, were Jonce, a blogger, and I, also a blogger.
David may have been thinking himself lucky not to have had his embarassment witnessed by his blogging boyfriend Marcus. And that of the three other bloggers potentially present, only Iain saw it happen, Dave being down under for a pee, and Scally being...no doubt down under something else.
And no out-of-town visitors, so Mike, Sparky, or Tim won't be blogging a first-hand account either.
Phew. Only four witnesses out of a potential dozen. Positively discreet.
PS: Three of the above named people are also known as Blogger A, Blogger B and Blogger C. Not me though. I am Blogger Z.
Tuesday 19th February 2002
Did you know that in America, "English" is a synonym for "spin"? Me neither.
Sunday's Independent carried an apology for their property-column coverage of a house in West Sussex that they said had once been "owned by Nigel Brock, one of the three murderers of Thomas Beckett".
In fact, as they admit, there were four murderers, not three.
None of them called Nigel Brock.
The man who opened the cathedral door for the assassins was called de Broc.
But his first name was Robert, not Nigel.
And there's only one t in Becket.
Five errors in twelve words. Hang on though - isn't Canterbury rather a long way from West Sussex?
Monday 18th February 2002
As is obvious from the entry below, I ain't Blogger A, B, C or E either.
Dammit.
Saturday night's internal dialogue:
2300 hrs: "Whee, if we carry on working at this rate, I might even get out in time to catch the last tube to Brixton."
2400 hrs: "No, well, it's a cold night to have had to travel across town."
0100 hrs: "If I leave in five minutes I should be just in time to catch the bus to the White Swan"
0114 hrs: "I hope that wasn't a bus I just heard leaving."
0125 hrs: "I guess that was a bus I just heard leaving."
0130 hrs: "Fuck, it's cold."
0135 hrs: "Ten minutes to the next bus. Nice bus. Pretty bus. Come on, bus."
0140 hrs: "Yes, pulling my scarf up to cover up my ears makes me look like a complete div and, no, I Do Not Care."
0142 hrs: "I could hail that cab, but then I won't have enough cash to get a drink."
0145 hrs: "Come on bbbbbus. Only fifteen minutes before they stop admitting people at the Swan, for christ's sake."
0147 hrs: "Fuck, it's cold."
0150 hrs: "If the timetable calls for buses at a quarter to and a quarter past, then the bloody buses should bloody be here at bloody quarter to and bloody quarter past."
0155 hrs: "Now I'm cold and angry."
0200 hrs: "Now I'm bloody cold and bloody angry."
0205 hrs: "On the other hand, if I'm not going to get a drink, I can afford a cab."
0207 hrs: "Send Cab Nnnnow."
0210 hrs: "Send a Fffffucking Ccccab"
0215 hrs: "When, or rather if, the bloody bus arrives, I am not going to lose my temper with the driver, I am not going to demand to know what's going on, and I am not, not, not going to swear."
0216 hrs: "Listen you tosser, I've been standing waiting for this fucking bus for sixty fucking minutes and I've frozen my fucking tits off, now what the Fuck is going on?!!"
If "***" is the name of your favourite celebrity (Madonna, Kylie, Marc Almond, Will Young, Wil Wheaton, whomever) do you:
Psychologists at the Southern Illinois University School of Medicine believe they have identified a condition known as CWS, or Celebrity Worship Syndrome.
They say that if you answer yes to the first three questions, you have a mild form of CWS. A yes to questions four to seven indicates serious CWS. And if you answer yes to all ten questions, you should probably seek help.
No sign of two much more relevant questions:
......previous entries