April 8th - April 14th 2002
Sunday Emin's pussy
Saturday Epic
Friday Asterisk
Thursday Assignation
Wednesday Living on a wall
Tuesday Answers
Monday Queueing
Sunday 14th April 2002
Tracey Emin lost her cat. So she put up some posters. People worked out who made the posters. People started purloining the posters. So she put up more. And more people took them down. Last we heard, copies of the posters were changing hands at £500 a pop. No word on the cat.
Saturday 13th April 2002
Yesterday turned out to have a certain epic quality to it, what with one thing and another.
It began with both a bang and a whimper when I turned up at the dentist, expecting a routine scratch-and-poke from the hygienist only to find myself undergoing far from routine root canal treatment.
"DO YOU FEEL PAIN!?!" the dentist shouted over the noise of the drill. Not the best way to reassure the long line of patients waiting outside the open surgery door, I'd have thought, but with three hands holding my mouth open wide enough to pop in yet another spanner and a couple of monkey-wrenches I was in no position to argue.
"RTC - where dentistry becomes butchery," he joked. Most amusing. (Almost as funny as his joke about the Turkish man, the Iranian and the Indian - which at least had an appropriately East-ended trans-nationalist edge to it.)
Three-quarters of an hour later, I staggered out into the Whitechapel Road feeling like a complete hero. Now for the Mad March Hair.
Sally, Salif, Selim, or whoever it was that cut my hair last time being busily engaged in a surprisingly detailed discussion of the brothels of Amsterdam ("Ladyboys, you know?") I found myself in the enigmatic hands of his diminutive partner.
There's never yet been a James Bond villain based on a hairdresser as far as I know, but when they get round to it this guy, trust me, will be a natural: mute, four foot six, manic stare, dressed entirely in black, he made Oddjob look like Ronald McDonald.
But, hell, he gives good haircut.
Quickly home then, pausing only to peer at myself in any reflective surface, just in time to catch my colleague Nigel winning the afternoon edition of The Weakest Link.
And a damn fine job he made of it too, even taking into account the quality of the opposition (one of whom thought Mickey Rooney had starred in a movie called Angels with Dirty "...Laundry?")
Quick bath, and then into the West End and the upper room at the Retro Bar for Dear David's Departure Do.
Many many bloggers, much conversation, most of it lost in the alcoholic mist, though I do dimly remember discussing the digitisation of everyday existence with Meg and Norman Mailer's anus with Luke.
It was that kind of evening.
Onwards and upwards, kinda, to Bar Code where we were supposed to be celebrating Alex's birthday. Which we did, as far as I recall. Even though Alex was no longer there.
And then home. Probably. I don't exactly recall.
Friday 12th April 2002
Find the missing letter(s) in yesterday's headlines:
George * Bush: young, handsome, hunky
Thousands queue to see royal *omb
Thursday 11th April 2002
Last night in a series of ellipses, beginning with an exchange of text messages:
He: Are you at home? Turn on your tv.
Me: Swanwards!
He: Everybody chant VAGUE ASSIGNATION
Me: Too late!
"80% of success is showing up" - Woody Allen
Smokers slower to become drunk
"Dr Susan Maier, a co-author of the paper, said: "We know that alcohol abusers generally 'drink to effect'. This means they drink until they feel an expected level of intoxication. It is also known that smokers drink more alcohol than non-smokers. This study suggests a possible reason."
"But you look at the pictures of Ms Millet, jeune and slightly more vieille (she's 54 this year), and wonder: how did she get like this where she cannot pop out to the local supermarché for some milk and bananas without ending up, replete, collapsed behind a skip, with gallons of sperm in her hair?"
A little while after the death of his wife, Lord Dacre (the historian formerly known as Hugh Trevor-Roper) found his eyesight beginning to fail. Shortly after that, he began suffering from a bizarre series of hallucinations:
"The horses were real thoroughbreds and the way they moved was a pleasure to watch, whereas the bicycle races had bored me to death."
One night, being driven through a housing estate, he saw a huge, colonnaded Renaissance square and architectural fantasies of all kinds.
Another time, on his way to put out the dustbins, he found himself lost in "a cemetery of dead machines", surrounded by old combine harvesters and lorries.
Inside, the house would suddenly grow an extra staircase.
One day he arrived on the platform of his local station to find his train to Oxford already there, waiting. "It was a bit odd, more like a Tube train.. I stared at it and, as I did so, it quietly melted into air."
Another night, on the short walk home, he became disoriented and lost, and eventually found himself in an endless tunnel. Every now and then, he would apparently pass heaps of old machinery - and then, suddenly, "in splendid isolation", he came across a Hepplewhite chair.
Eventually, after an extended Internet search, he discovered the nature of his condition: Charles Bonnet Syndrome.
Wednesday 10th April 2002
Well obviously I was using heavy narcotics or I wouldn't have been living on a wall.
Marianne Faithful talking to Jonathan Ross about the time she spent living rough in Saint Anne's Court, Soho.
A big shout out to de fallen leader of de Windsor massive. She was always a hero in de ghettos of Berkshire. I'm glad to hear I was an influence on de Queen's Mum and not just on Prince Harry - who has always been one of me best customers.
Ali G responds to the news that the Queen Mother was a fan.
You're history.
A little old lady leaves a comment in a book of condolence for the Queen Mother.
Machines can fail you, but birds never will.
T K Mishra home secretary of Orissa, reacting to the news that, despite plans to scrap India's carrier pigeons, a 'skeleton pigeon service' might be retained to operate between remote police stations in case of a paralysing natural disaster.
The hour awaited a speech, Mr Alpher remarked, but what Israelis got from Mr Sharon was a 'telegram from hell'.
An Israeli writer reacts to Mr Sharon's speech to the nation last week.
Tuesday 9th April 2002
The headline about a shipping magazine that decided to stop referring to ships as feminine? Lloyd's List says ships not she-worthy.
The dead comedian who had an infamously large member? Milton Berle.
This week's episode of Teachers is repeated tonight on C4 at 1205.
Good of them to respond to my criticism by making JP's homosexuality a core plot pivot; less good to see it reduced to a peg on which to hang an extended comedy routine in which Brian wonders whether he too may be gay; not at all good to hear JP simplify matters by asking Brian whether he's "ever wanted an erect penis shoved up your arse."
Harmless enough, I suppose, and well-meaning in its own way but... well, watch it yourself and see what you think.
Monday 8th April 2002
The British have always excelled at queueing - but this is getting ridiculous.
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