16 Dec 2003

16.12.03 - That dreaded season

It's that dreaded season again -- holiday party time. I think I pickled my liver last week what with all of the clients parties, drinks with friends and our agency party (debauched, even if it was at the very chic Kingly Club. I woke up on Friday sitting in a chair, completely dressed, with a feather boa and a plate of food I hadn't touched. Classy.



Had drinks with Tim last night. We love Tim. He'd spent the day in cabs delivering old master paintings to clients. l He becomes so animated talking about dance that his legs swing and kick and move about with excitement. We drank wine in the Rockwell bar in Trafalgar Square then set off into the bitterly cold night air. It was meant to get down to -6 celsius last night. Time for gloves and scarves and heavy coats -- but I do love this time of year in London.



Off Sunday to San Francisco to horrify my friends with how fat and old I've become -- it's a danger of being away for a year.

9 Dec 2003

09.12.03 - It only took 37 years

A few have asked why the Rugby was such a big deal. Simply, the UK's not won a football, rubgy or cricket world cup since the England team won the football World Cup in 1966 -- so the country's got good reason to celebrate. And they're not unfun to watch at all.

8 Dec 2003

08.12.03 - Gemisch

Said goodbye to Jenn last night with a big boozy dinner at Oxo Tower. Stunning views, but rather uninspiring food. Go for cocktails at the bar, but skip the Brasserie and it's fusion nonsense. The duck rillette was greasy and tasted of tinned meat, but the pan fried sea bass was nice. Jenn's off to San Francisco and an impressive VP media job. How inspiring.



Saturday stayed in a watched Bowling for Columbine on the telly. I was prepared to dislike Michael Moore -- his flippancy and general disheveledness in the media -- but the documentary is compelling and disturbing. The security camera tapes from Columbine are difficult to watch, but no less so than the ultra-smug Charlton Heston, clearly feeble but evil enough to appear in communities hit by gun violence to rally the NRA hours after people have died.



The England Rugby team do their celebrational parade down Oxford Street today to Trafalgar Square. People have queued up since 11pm last night for the 20 minutes or so that the team will be there. Oh well. Good on them anyway. It was a brilliant game.



Getting rather excited to go home and see everyone. Won't be long no. Better do some shopping.

5 Dec 2003

05.12.03 - One of us, one of us

Yesterday, it pleased her Majesty's goverment to grant me indefinite leave to remain. In other words, I was given residency in the United Kingdom and I'm no longer dependent on an employer sponsoring a work visa to remain in the UK. It's a type of freedom, and some reassurance, and an oh so lovely goal I've accomplished. In 12 short months I can apply for citizenship which has become an increasingly important idea -- I want to really feel I belong here. I want to be able to vote and influence the country. I want to know that this small dark island I've made my home counts me in its citizenship.



The responses from friends has been amusing to read. The Americans are very earnest in their congratulations. The Brits have, without fail, taken the piss (which really tells me I'm fitting in.)

3 Dec 2003

New blog

I'm doing my best to get this up and running, but surprisingly it's difficult.

21 Oct 2003

In Vienna, on Sundays, one doesn't use the conventional greeting, "Guten tag" . Instead one barks an energetic "Grüss Gott!" (Greet God!) which made me wondering if I'd happen onto some fervently religious shopkeeper. It was just one of many unsettling moments I'd encountered during my weekend in this strange, wonderful city. The night before, lost in Vienna's dark streets, I'd happen upon a "Free Öcalan" concert/protest in the Stephansdomplatz. The dark, cold square, dwarfed by the gothic church was filled with the sound of Kurdish music. The high, plaintive wailing of the singer made it all so creepy and yet poignant. In the dark, in the shadow of a mediaeval past, the music was intoxicating. Suddenly, as the music quickened, the entire crowd seemed to be locked by arms in a large dancing circle. I stepped away unable to figure out the complicated dance.



Thirty minutes later I was in a bright crowded bar/restaurant muttering enough German to buy and beer and find a seat and wondering why most Viennese bars seem to play the same mix of music -- Bierhall songs, Edith Piaf and old Frank Sinatra. I soon realised, with shocking horror, that an inane song we learned in high school German about a three-cornered hat -- "and if the hat doesn't have three corners, then it is not my hat" -- was a crowd favourite that seemed to inspire them all to sing. The bars, or the three I've been too, are much more informal than in London. They are true meeting places where people come to drink, to talk, to eat and to relax. The Austrians seem a welcoming people and I was pulled into conversations many times (the length of which was directly porportional to the amount of English they spoke or the amount of German I could understand.) It was very comforting.



Did I find a man who spoke enough English or had patience for my haltering German? No. Instead I met a darkly handsome, curly-haired Bulgarian with a name full of three-point consonants who was either a tourguide or a busdriver and who either just arrived in or moved to Vienna. The rest of the conversation was a bit of a muddle, but to be honest after about 15 minutes it didn't matter. We snogged whilst the crowd sang a polka. Surreal.



The next day, out in the cool morning air, I came across a Ski festival on the steps of the imposing townhall. They'd built a ramp, covered it in snow, and were doing ski jumps into the courtyard. The skiiers, all seemingly stunning blond men, mingled in the crowd trying to get passer-bys to their sponsor's booth. I sadly fended a few of them off, then bought a bag of roasted chestnuts and sat on the haybales to watch youngsters fly down the steep ramp. An hour later I was queuing at the Albertina to see the first comprehensive Dürer exhibition in thirty years.

20 Oct 2003

Back from an all-too-short trip to Austria. Pictures from Vienna are online here. Blathering coming soon.

15 Oct 2003

What I won't do for good coffee... Like going to Vienna for the weekend.

14 Oct 2003

Good thing I'm getting glasses because I failed to notice that I accidentally ordered the "Large Print" version of Bill Bryson's "A short history of nearly everything" on Amazon which is about 1000 pages long in large type.

13 Oct 2003

I'll have... a lazy eye, a stigmatism, farsightedness, and those overpriced Paul Smith glasses, please. I now know the price of getting older. It's £289.64.

9 Oct 2003

Knock it off Three days in a row, my horoscopes have been telling me to take my loved one out tonight I'm starting to become angry at fate.
There's that old saying that something "... is like writing about dance" -- when one thing is painfully inadequate for capturing or describing something experiential/masterful/moving. A bit like me writing about romance. But I'm going to have to attempt it because last night I went with friends to see the Trisha Brown dance company at Sadlers Wells.



Dance is one of the few arts I have no training in, insight to, or opinion about. It's a bit of a mystery. I have no sense of what's new or old form or style, what's exceptional or exceptionally awkward, when they're meant to be dancing in unison or if slight variations were planned. It's hard to tease apart the concept of a dance piece. The three last night, for example, we jokingly called: Dancing buddhas in urban wastelands, The loneliness of an ear infection, and My rainbow lies in tattters. They were really about none of those, obviously, but without the floridly written programme it was hard to tell what narrative/feeling/moment they were dancing.



They were quite beautiful. Modern, sparse, lightly accompanied, movingly performed. But foreign all the same. I felt quite the philistine, especially when we were uncertain whether to get up and leave when the curtain came down during what was a short break between dances.



On then to Exmouth Market for tapas. My dinner company: Karin, a fellow ex-pat who can protest her preference for living here whilst simultaneously launching into longingly detailed discussions of New York and krispy kreme donuts. Tim and his flatmate Michael, both rail thin with shocking amounts of blond hair and a charming habit of over-e-nun-see-a-shun for effect. It was lovely company -- the flirtatious snarl of gay man is a language I'd fear I forgotten. Unfortuantely, my decreasingly poor eyesight (and the red wine) and the nervousness of new people left me with a pounding headache.



So today, the languid bodies of the dancers in my memory, and the harsh reality of my hungover body in the mirror terrorised me into going to the gym where the sight of my jiggling body on a treadmill probably terrorised the body-concious of Soho. Now let's see if my new birthday resolutions of getting out more, meeting new people, and getting healty outlast the week.

7 Oct 2003

The Russian Roulette was apparently a fraud.
News round up So, Coronation Street gets it's first gay kiss, drawing 14 million people to the Sunday episode to watch the dimpled puppy dog Todd lay one on the dreadfully wooden and orange Nick played by former gay icon, pop has-been Adam Rickett. Unfortunately, the ensuing episodes are a mess. First we have to deal with the menacing Nick calling Todd "a sick mind game player" and forcing him to out himself. Then, the endlessly shrill Sarah finding out her cute boyfriend is confused about his sexuality (or maybe just realising how common she actually is.) All around a mess, and annoying that Corrie is seeing more man-on-man action than I am.



Years ago I worked on the Mirage Resorts website. We put Siegfried and Roy on the web, meaning we had to sit through hours of digitised video and the endless loop of Michael Jackson's rank theme song. They seemed ancient by-products of plastic surgery then, but now it's the sad news that Roy Horn was mauled by one their famous, and endangered, white tigers. I'm increasingly against these types of animal shows having done the backstage tour of the chained elephants and caged lions of the Ringling Brothers Barnum and Bailey Circus. It's hard to be surprised that these animals act, well, like animals.



I have so little to say about Arnold as governor. Don't forget that California was responsible for hoisting Ronald Reagan into politics. He'll be a disaster of course, but the world is indeed a scary place.



The Independent, one of England's traditional broadsheets is experimenting with a tabloid format within the M25 (Greater London). Unfortuantely, they've kept Janet Street-Porter.



Lastly, ratings are in on the thoroughly disturbing Russian Roulette where "magician" Derren Brown whittles down a group of volunteers to the one who will load a single bullet into gun which Brown holds to his head or to a haystack depending on where he thinks the bullet is. I didn't watch, but 4M of my fellow citizens did. Now, if he was pointing the bullet at the wires holding David Blaine above the ground I'd have watched that.

6 Oct 2003

Kiss 34 goodbye. And gladly too. The week in review: end of holiday, a hospital scare, too much social drinking, an awkward business dinner, falling asleep sitting in a chair when I was meant to be out clubbing, spending my birthday with charming, but straight, people discussing birth/baby constipation/marriage/house renovations/work, the heartbreak of realising a crush was going to always be one-sided, waking up the morning after wanting to pull the duvet over my head.



Looking forward to 35. Getting a life coach, getting over "it", getting some goals and a purpose, getting a flat I like living in, getting mentally and physically healthy, getting my shit together so that I deserve getting a boyfriend who's not fictional, getting this site updated, getting to a point where 36 will be a celebration.



I've got a lot of work to do.

5 Oct 2003

I'm officially old.I was going to go to XXL, London's club for the more-than-stick-figurish. Instead I fell asleep in the chair at 9 and work up long after it was over. Hopefully I'll stay awake for my birthday drinks later this afternoon.

2 Oct 2003

My horoscope says I should hire a babysitter to spend time tonight with my loved one. Ok, how many things are wrong with that statement?

1 Oct 2003

Sweet relief Tuesday I found a small, painless lump in my groin whilst showering. Panic and fear immediately set in. I didn't have a GP so I called the NHS who told me to rush to the clinic in Soho. It's quite embarrassing having to repeat over and over what was found where to various nurses, receptionists, advisors, doctors, etc. I can see why men would be tempted to ignore it, to not have to describe it or think about it or tell a complete stranger that one found a lump when touching one's scrotum. The clinic sent me on to UCL Hospital. I sat fearing I had some sort of cancer. Then wondering how I would deal with cancer. Could I stay in the UK and be treated? Would I have to move back to the US? If they had to remove the testicle, would they replace it with something or just leave an empty space? How would I walk up two flights of stairs with a stitched up groin? How much work would I miss? Who would I call and tell? Who would I ring to visit me in hospital, or bring me a toothbrush, or just be support in a difficult time?



I felt very alone, scared, sad.



The doctor sent me upstairs for an ultrasound. I laid half naked on a bed whilst some doctor squirted cold jelly on my private parts to run a plastic wand all over. I got to watch the ultrasound. The foreign, greyscaled voyage through one's internal parts is quite compelling -- and terrifying. I gulped everytime she stopped to scan a dark spot, or revisited an area of the groin. I stared, wondering if I was watching some form of cancerous tumour in my body, wondering what was normal and what was abnormal.



The good news is that the lump is absoutely benign and commonplace. Embarrassingly, it's a vericose vein. How one gets a vericose vein in that area, I've no idea, but it's common in men of my age. There's nothing to do about it -- it will just come and go for the rest of my life. The NHS were quite good about it, reinforcing that I'd done absoutely the right thing. If it had been cancerous, then earliest treatment is best. My sense of relief was palpable -- it grabbed my body and squeezed hard. I wanted to stand on Tottenham Court Road and have a good cry. I wanted to call and tell everyone I was ok, that I'd had a brush with mortality that had been postponed a while longer.



As quickly as the relief comes, it goes, and life becomes ordinary again. And one has to get up in the morning and fight the Tube and buy a cup of coffee and check their emails and write their presentations and find lunch and answer phone calls and go all the usual things and all the usual crutches and doubts and small satisfactions and life-crap. It was sweet -- and fleeting.

26 Sept 2003

Ciao!



I know Kelly and Robert and I were in Florence for a day in the 80s. I know that. But don't remember a thing about the city. I can't remember what we did. Did we see the Duomo? Go to the Uffizi? Walk over the Ponte Vecchio? Or did we just fight in the train station? Anyway, it was all new to me.



You can view the pictures here.



I arrived in Florence on Friday and was taken to my hotel, which is really an "apart'hotel" on the river Arno near the Ponte Vecchio. Standing on the bridge one has lovely views up and down the Arno, but the real joy of Florence is the city centre, the Medieval and Renaissance areas which are compact and walkable and crowded with groups of tourists.



Friday I walked around and slept. Saturday I went to the Uffizi Gallery,Near the Uffizi is the Piazza della Signoria where Michelangelo's David once stood. There is now a copy -- under scaffolding. The original is in the Palazzo dell'Academia and is also under scaffolding. I'm just now clearly seeing how homoerotic the marble sculpture from that time was. It's also bulging muscle, lithesome stance, erotic wrestling.



Steps away is the cathedral, il Duomo, the dome of which was the first dome built during the Renaissance. You see the dome from all over the city, capping tiny alleyways. The tiny alleyways can be confusing, but they also keep the city cool and breezy. One also sees, hanging in the small alleyaways, number of rainbow flags. At first I thought, "how nice that they so clearly mark the many gay businesses and bars" but soon realised to my embarassment that they're anti-war flags printed with the word, "pace". I must ask Tim if they're anti Iraq war flags or anti-violence, but it's still wonderful to see so many of them.



Sunday I was going to go to Siena, but it rained so instead I took a bus to the small town of Fiesole where one can get brilliant views of Florence from the foothills. Unfortunately, it was too hazy for decent pictures so that will have to stay in my memory. Sunday night I went out to a small and rather dismal bar (the nightlife in Florence isn't so wonderful) but stumbled into an outdoor jazz concert in the Piazza della Signoria which was lovely. besides the rain on Sunday the weather has been really lovely.



Monday everything closed it seemed, so I went to the Palazzo Pitti. The Pitti is an enormous fortress like palazzo built by a wooltrader who was a rival of the Medicis. Unfrotuantely, he died before the palazzo was finished and the Medicis took it over. Ah, irony. Behind the Palazzo is the Boboli Gardens, which claim to be the largest and best-kept gardens in Italy. Parts of it are lovely, but my anglophilia is firmly in place and I found a lot of the gardens to be shambolic.



So, the food is stunning, although I'm sick of eating carbohydrates. Everything comes with bread. I had a rather fantastic meal of osso busco (stewed veal shank) and roasted potatoes. I also had some sort of white fish stewed with wine and tomatoes that was quite nice. Otherwise, I tend to mostly snack -- little panini from open air cafes and calzone, little tomato and mozzarella pockets. Then, of course, there is gelateria on every corner -- selling sweet, sticky, cold gelato. Melon has been my favourite, although I sampled a range, of course.



I haven't interacted much with people. They seem more polite than the French, but it's hard to tell. I'm learning very little Italian, but enough for the basics. I was surprised, although shouldn't have been on reflection, by how much I can surmise about the written language from the French I know. Once you start to see patterns the root of the words are quite similar that I can guess my way through some of it. So I'm not as hopeless as feared. Also, one knows the food lingua quite well.



So Florence was idyllic and artful. Rome was a mess. I had some sort of breakdown. Spent two days in bed with a fever. The hotel was small and dark. The city was humid and heaving with tourists. I queued for hours to see the Sistine Chapel. It was packed with people sushing each other. You walk through miles of muraled hallways so that the chapel itself is anti-climatic. One also gets a bit, oh I don't know, jaded, about the conspicuous wealth in the vatican when so much of the world is starving. Hypocrisy at it's height.



I came back early, glad to be sick in my own bed. Glad for the cold and the clouds and London itself.

3 Sept 2003

Words I promise to never use, no. 1: Esconced

28 Aug 2003

How was Brussels, you ask? Brussels was grey. Brussels was boring. Brussels was everything I remember and everything I've heard about it. Luckily, the Hyatt was beautifully designed in Parisian art nouveau and the bar was staffed with lovely men.



Jana, Jen and I mostly ate -- the restaurants are fabulous and it's no wonder the Belgians eat out more often than any other European country. From the "classique" Brasserie Georges to the trendy patio at Lucas, everything was delicious.



We also mostly drank. Champagne, wine, beer, pastis. We met a crazy Iranian in the bar of the hotel who is either very well connected or entirely fictional -- we're not sure which. But he was definitely charming and entertained us over two nights with his stories of his S+M dominatrix girlfriend and the Iranian ambassadors villa in Morocco.



But, three days was more than enough and I shan't be returning to Brussels by choice.

21 Aug 2003

Is it's Tuesday, this must be Belgium Continuing my tour of places I visited, but don't really remember during my study abroad bus tour of Europe I'm going to Brussels this weekend with some mates from work. Purported to be the most boring city in Europe, we're at least staying in a luxury (but affordable) hotel. I plan on enjoying mussels, frite, belgian beer, and a scenic tour of Bruges. More importantly, I plan on enjoying not being in London for the Notting Hill Carnival which turns Kensington into chaos everywhere. And heck, I might even plan on enjoying a Belgian.

19 Aug 2003

Ummm. I don't know. My answer to Giovanni's question about what I'm going to be doing with all that time I'm spending in Italy on my own. Umm, I don't know. Probably much the same as what I do here. Shop, eat, go out, not speak to anyone, look suspiciously at anyone who talks to me, daydream. Oh yeah, probably soaking up art and culture, but I'm not looking at any big life change -- I'm not expecting a torrid holiday romance or to suddenly fall in with a group of expatriated socialites. I'll do my best to resist the tourist entrapments of unfolded maps and cameras dangling around my neck, but I'll be a tourist and as it's hot hot hot there will no doubt look like the fat american abroad. No, it will be a trip of reading books, sightseeing, listening to my iPod and running the looping self-deprecating monologue in my head.



I'm training for it. Breaking in new walking shoes. Going to the gym. I'm considering self tanning my pasty white legs. Buying new luggage. Reading up about what do see and do and buy. Staying for five days in the seemingly beautiful Lungarno Suites on the Ponte Vecchio in Florence. Then a further five days in Rome at the Hotel Locarno in Rome. They're meant to be nice hotels. I'll need to spruce up a little.



I'm choking down the irony that my three closest mates here love Italy. Go all the time. Oh sure, they're all in relationships and much more seasoned travelers than I, and they speak the language, and I'm undoubtedly a pain in the arse to travel with, so it's not surprising I'm going on my own and once I'm there I'll choke down that chunk of irony with a glass of Chianti. Or several.



I'm looking forward to being severely intimidated by Italian men.



When I went to Greece on my own it seemed so brave. It was a "I'm conquering Europe and don't give a fuck" moment in my life. I wanted a beach holiday, no one else did, so I did it alone. It was heady, empowering. But two holidays later, and several pictures of buildings and places with no people (or indeed, no visual record that I was actually there) the solo explorer thing is old hat.



Crikey, I'll need to buy a hat. I've a head like a watermelon, and they're almost always unflattering, but last time I was in the sun I spent days peeling skin off my scalp. That will be fun.

12 Aug 2003

From an email I wrote to Tim regarding the world-famous Gilroy Garlic Festival:



You sound surprised by the thought of people dressing up like garlic. (Yes, they look like big baby

diapers. No, I never wore one myself.) There's garlic beer, and garlic ice

cream, and two days of drunken stinking tourists from the central valley. It's

major business in Gilroy. Poor neighbouring Morgan Hill, their Mushroom

Mardi Gras never took off in the same way. Of course, there was even less that

Watsonville could do with it's artichokes.



DO YOU SEE WHY I HAD TO FLEE?
Tonight. Take thirty modern-day o-level students, lock them in a 1950's style dorm with fried spam and runny custard, a group of sadistic control-freak teachers, and a 1950's curriculum and you get, That'll teach 'em. I love British television.
Tout ça change... On the Amèlie Poulainization of Montmartre.

11 Aug 2003

It's official. It was bloody hot this last week. Yesterday broke Britain's records for hottest day with a stifling 100 degrees fahrenheit.



During the heatwave Tim came over for dinner. It was nerve wracking. My flat was arid. Cooking meant sweating in the already stifling kitchen. I hadn't cooked for anyone in ages. We hadn't really spent any time in each other's company. Oh, and due to a watermelon allergy I had a rash down the side of my neck. Tim had made a series of high expectation statements about "saving up" for the evening. The pressure was on. I was eager to impress, but all of the obstacles were there.



It turned out ok. Our breezy email conversations translated well in person once I got over my nerves. It was strange, after 8 months of emailing, to have him in my flat in person. We talked for hours. Dinner was fine, although that holy grail of French cooking (and Three's Company plot mandatory), coq au vin, was unremarkable. Tim's a charming flirt who spent the night surveying -- and no doubt mentally critiquing -- my cd collection. (I knew I should have hidden the Betty Buckley albums.) We talked movies. Work. Italy. He's encouraging me to holiday there but I'm terrified of doing it on my own. At one point, stretched languidly on the floor looking at DVDs (I knew I should have hidden Barbra in Concert) I realised that I miss the company of men. The physical energy that bounces around the room. The mix of testerone and chest hair. The sexual buzz that's still perceptible in non-sexual situations. Giovanni once told me I spend too much time with straight women. He's right. At work. At play. My social circle is one big ring of Vogue-reading-fresh-painted-sexy-modern-man-trapping- womanhood. I'm crap at making friends with men. Especially gay men. Tim was a test. A mission to make a gay male friend. A test I was trying to see if I passed. I think I did. Now I just have to find a Tim I can date.

31 Jul 2003

This weekend old friends from my college days are coming to London. I've not seen them, or really talked to them, in more than eight years. I'm looking forward to seeing them, but I'm fairly terrified. I keep reflecting on it and realise I'm upset with myself for not doing with my life what I was planning to do. No art, no music, nothing published, no advanced degree, no outrageous romance, no big contribution to the world.



I'm feeling this way because it's a defined period of time to look back upon and say, "did I do what I planned?" The next question is then "what would I have done if I were braver?



Not that I look back and see nothing. I'm in London. That's an amazing thing. I climbed a company ladder and made a quiet reputation in a volatile business. I know some brilliant people. But is it any of it stuff that I can stand and say to the world, "for all I got I gave you back this..."?



28 Jul 2003

As I write this I'm speeding through the French countryside on a train tilting periously to the right trying not to spill tea on the keyboard. Vive l'Eurostar! And the good sense I've got to use it often. Spent an overindulgent weekend in Paris eating too much bread and cheese, drinking too much wine, spending too much money. It rained, everything I own is wet or stinking of galoises, and I've had about three hours of sleep, but I'm feeling fine. Even if I stink of camembert .



I accidentially stumbled onto the end of the Tour de France and watched as the stream of nylon-clad bodies whizzed past. Wish I had had my camera, but was going to meet a friend for coffee and didn't bring it with me. Coffee turned into dinner turned into drinks turned into dancing turned into very restless sleep where I dreamt an entire episode of a sitcom that starred Lucille Ball and Scott Baio (no, I don't understand either.)



Going home tonight to watch the lovely Guillaume Depardieu in Peau d'ange and the hard-to-find Guesch Patti movie.

22 Jul 2003

Lighten up already Thanks for your messages. In looking back, these entries seem fairly dark, but still important to get off my chest. I spent the weekend sleeping, exhausted by both work which is mad and a bit of depression. Part of me wanted to feel guilty about wasting a weekend, but part of me was enjoying laying about, napping, making a mess out of my flat, feeling dramatic. Unfortunately, a pallid lethargy has set in and I'm barely able to concentrate on work and snapping at the constant interruptions I get. But don't worry yourselves. Things are bound to cheer up.



So, let's do a roundup. The BBC and British government are embroiled in the Kelly scandal. The short of it is: the BBC did a report claiming the government "sexed up" the dossier with claims about Iraq's weapons to move the country into war. The PM's spin doctor, Alistair Campbell hit back viciously attacking the BBC and asking them to reveal their source. It rages back and forth until the name of Dr. Kelley is leaked into the press. A week later, after a rather brutal day in front of a parliamentary commitee, Dr. Kelley is found dead near his home. Was it suicide? Did the government push him to it with veiled threats? Did the BBC co-erce him to break his confidentiality agreement? No one will come out clean from this. It appears there are guilty parties. But the truth is, regardless of No. 10's role in this, it may deserve to come down. The country's a mess. We've been involved in a scandalous war. And Blair seems much more loyal to his spin doctors than he does to his country.

17 Jul 2003

Ok. So I write this. This was the response I got: "Hi, I've got a sling and am into fisting (active or passive)."



Now, I didn't necessarily say that I wasn't into slings or fisting (I'm not) and I'm not usually judgmental about other people's sex life, but I really didn't say that balling up my fist and exploring someone's colon was my idea of a great evening in. I should know better with this whole online dating thing, but I thought someone it was clear I was going after a slightly more sophisticated (read: vanilla, actually read: smart, cute, normal) crowd with my ad.



Be real, any sling I was stupid enough to climb into would come crashing down with most of the ceiling.

10 Jul 2003

To seek solace in a bottle and possibly a friend. Occasionally my iPod goes through phase where the random songs it chooses has a theme or mood to fit mine. Yesterday it was a very new folk scene kind of a mood and I spent most of the day listening to the Indigo Girls. How fantastically underrated are they? Why aren't they superstars (besides their unfashionable activism, enthusiasm for life, introspection?) I remember the first time I heard Closer to Fine. I was in college and highly susceptible to the how to find your way through the world message. And I've been an avid fan ever since.



But then, I've been victim to a lot of soul-searching lately. Why the drinking? Why the loneliness? Why the feeling that somehow I'm letting the darkness creep in because it's better than feeling nothing. I told someone I shop as an emotional substitute, but in reality I drink. It's an escape. It doesn't feel out of hand, I'm not missing work or drinking all the time, but I've started to realise I'm not drinking because it's fun, I'm drinking because the rest of it isn't.



I was meant to be a smash here. I was meant to have a whirling social circle of friends, a man to share my life with, an exotic European career. It was meant to have been worthwhile to give up my life, my family, my friends.



Instead my address book is full of clients and co-workers, some people I'm losing touch with, some others who've shunned me for whatever unspoken reasons, and still more whose lives are understandably too rich and people-filled to understand what it's like. Maybe that's why I drink to get drunk, or rather, drink to be able to escape into that fantasy where I'm surrounded by a circle of friends, where I have a special person, where I can feel confident and vibrant and worthwhile. Which I know makes that less and less likely to happen. It's a bit vicious, and I'm feeling the sting.

7 Jul 2003

Saturday I went with Kirsten and her husband to a Bbq in suburban Bexleyheath. It was meant to be in celebration of 4th of July, but it was a grey 5th of July, it was a drive through some of the grimest parts of South London, and was out of time and place. The few English people there were clearly bored by the talk of childhood firework disasters, horrified by the Budweiser and cornbread, and unwilling to play along that I found the whole thing terribly depressing. I'm more and more ambivalent about being an American anyway (I feel fully transatlantic; meaning I'm willing to ignore the worse of both countries and to claim the best), and certainly didn't find any type of pride in the hot dogs, cole slaw, or company. Plus, I felt absolutely ill afterwards. I blame the mud pie.



It's the half-yearly sales so I would have much rather have been in London shopping anyway.

4 Jul 2003

Some other topic. Time to talk about something other than me. Henman's out of Wimbledon. The Metro (a free digest of news that's handed out on the Tube) showed a picture of Henman's wife for each year he's been in the semi-finals. In 1998 it's all supportive optimism. By 2001 it's a painful crushing grimace. Now, it's resignation. Face it Britain, he's unlikely to go all the way. There's still hope for Andy Roddick, who's much more fun to watch.



Every six months a country's leader is chosen as president of the European Union, a largely ceremonial but highly public role. It is Italy's turn which means that Italy's prime minister, the highly irreputable Silvio Berlusconi, is EU pres. Italy's richest person, he was also the defendant in several bribery investigations until the Italian parliament passed a law giving blanket protection to its senior leaders. He's also America's biggest advocate in the EU. So, underneath the weight of public scrutiny what does he do? He kicks off his very first speech by comparing a questioning German mp to a Nazi concentration camp leader. Then refuses to withdrawal the comment. The Germany government asked, and begrudgingly got, an apology, but this has clearly tarred Berlusconi's tenure. It's would be a farce if it didn't so clearly outline EU's problems.



Watched Scorcese's Gangs of New York last night. I normally love Daniel Day-Lewis, but what was it with the Dustin Hoffman accent? I'm curious to know more about Five Points and that period of New York's history and the accompanying documentary was interesting, but unless you have a preoccupation with ax warfare and bad wigs, I'd skip it.

3 Jul 2003

Poor lad Whilst recently cleaning out my email inbox, I counted more than 100 email messages and replies from Tim in two months. We email each other most days. Sometimes in long, threaded exchanges. Poor Tim's read through tens of messages about my insecurities, my boredoms, my frustrations and responded to each with a level-headed sense of humour. And all this with never actually hanging out. I've only met him three times, and not once in the last six months. hmmmm.

2 Jul 2003

Whiny baby Ok, that's off my chest. I felt much better after I wrote it. Went home, made dinner, cleaned up, did laundry, sorted out my gaydar.co.uk profile. Sometimes a little drama is helpful.

1 Jul 2003

So, Henman's through to the next round. Not a hope he'll make it, but the country's in a fit all the same. Wimbledon hasn't been won by a Brit since 1950s.



I'm in a fit. But it's a combination of stress, anxiety, loneliness, boredom, inactivity, indecision. Sick of where I am, where I am not, sick of being sick of myself. Where I am, where I am not. Who I was. Who I wasn't. Where I am not. I thought here would make me interesting. It didn't. Not really. Where I am. And it made me here, not there, where people who weren't sick of me were. Are? No were. Were they? Possibly. I was. Never back to before, but maybe back to how it was. Or rather, how it should have been. Or rather still, how I'd like to think it was. Where I am not. I had a dream last night. So perfectly lovely, but so perfectly implausible that I woke up hugging my pillow, feeling warm and glowy until I realise where I was. No, really, where someone else wasn't. Where there is never someone else.



It's an enormous fucking bed for one person.



Where I am. And smack in the middle of, but not really anywhere near, where I thought I was heading. Or want to head. Or no, really where I want to head but won't let myself go. To that place and time where I can say I'm finally here. Or, better, we're here. We. I don't think in the plural, except when I'm talking about them. The things they do. The things they say. Or don't. Wherever they are. Clearly where they're not. I have no we. It's only I that am here.



You can italicise what you want in that. Whether you're you or them. Because you probably never thought you'd be alone at 35. And if you did, you certainly never said it to yourself. Never admitted it. Never made yourself reflect on the reality of it. Never thought your pillow was going to be a big fucking source of affection. Not in any smutty sort of way, but just in that you need to hold on to something at the end of the day when you know there are only more races to face tomorrow.

30 Jun 2003

On a Sunday...Lunched at Kirsten's yesterday. She had friends in town from Chicago, pitchers of Pimms, and delicious food. Pimm's is a lovely gin drink made with English lemonade, fresh fruit and cucumber, but I really don't think gin and I get along. I'm feeling very ill today.

27 Jun 2003

Team wrecking Went to a dive pub in Paddington last night for a team buidling event. They're wrecked today. I had sense enough to go home at a decent hour as we're back out tonight for a client event. Plus, the super hot new employee had left and there was no one to salivate after.



I need a real life.

24 Jun 2003

Sunday morning, 6am, a conversation happening in the courtyard below. Two Americans having coffeed. Chatting about their dating situations in their flat, middle-something accents.

-- The German girl wants it.

-- How do you know?

-- Dude, she wants its. I mean _wants_ it, but I'm still into the other one, but she was begging for it

-- But you can't, if you are, even if she wants it bad.



So I'm laying in bed, annoyed that it's 6am, annoyed that it would be too obvious to lift the blinds and find out if they look as annoyingly Matt-Damon-Ben-Affleck as they sound, annoyed that it was too banal to be interesting and not sexual enough to be masturbatory, annoyed that there are accents that piercingly flat.



I wonder if the German girl got it after all.

11 Jun 2003

Don't like goodbyes So R. returned to California on Monday. Seeing him standing on the street, teary-eyed as we said goodbye, is stuck in my memory. I can only imagine what it would feel like to know one's also saying goodbye to live in England. I would be devastated. And I'm going to miss him. For six months I knew I would have instant weekend plans. For six months someone rang my mobile who wasn't work-related. For six months two friends got a chance to reunite and be best friends in the same country, same city. That was wonderful. And now I'm back to Saturday nights in front of the telly watching "Casualty" and cursing that I've little talent for making friends or standing alone in bars. Farewell R., return soon!

3 Jun 2003

...did my charm trickle dry? eBoy1 has stopped emailing, claiming to be busy (with his job or with his new man I'm not sure) ending an ongoing stream of email contact that I was becoming emotionally reliant on. I got that flutter in my stomach when my inbox would load and, crikey, that's something I never thought I'd say. And although nothing was ever said (or readable between the lines) I do wonder if at an earlier point I missed an opportunity to re-route the downhill slide to "friendship". It's less that I feel I may have missed the boat than I may have missed the whole bloody Armada. What if he was possibly "it" and he's getting it somewhere else but may have once thought I was it too?



eBoy2 has stopped emailing after I said I couldn't see him on Saturday night because it's R.'s last night in London before he returns home. I was interested in meeting him to see if there was any chemistry, but I killed that horse before it left the startingpoint.



So suddenly, no reason to anticipate getting emails. Besides, you lot never bloody write.



I'm thinking about starting eFriendships with the concerned individuals who thinks I need viagra and penile implants. They write me often.
One of the reasons I love living here. Recent title for a channel 4 documentary on Afghanistan: "Here's one we invaded earlier."



Didn't see it, but am aware of growing talk about the US's failure to create a viable infrastructure in Afghanistan, or indeed to catch Osama bin Laden. Of course, Bush would have you believe that's no longer important, although recent terrorist activity might provide differently.



Blair is returning today from the G8 conference to a wave of anger from Mps who feel we were "duped" into the war by doctored or completely fictitious "evidence" that Iraq had WMD and intentions to use them. There is talk about the possible fallout if WMD aren't found in Iraq including calls for the US and UK to pay reparations to families Iraqis killed during the possibly illegal "war." It's really a simple question, Mssrs. Blair and Bush. Where are they? We were forced into a war because you had proof that Iraq had WMD and were a viable threat to US and UK security. If they didn't, or if they were destroyed prior to March, then the US and UK are, indeed, guilty of highly questionable invasion -- and the maniacal grip they maintain on Iraqi oil is doing little to quell the world's growing clamour for truthful answers. Blair may yet be victim to political backlash if he can't satisfy parliament that the evidence exists.
Celeb sighting Gordon Ramsay, enfant terrible of celebrity chefs, jogging through South Ken. Infamous for berating an amateur chef on a BBC show but lunch at Gordon Ramsay at Claridge's was the best meal I've ever had.

2 Jun 2003

Crap. I've got a lot of it. And it was schlepped during our mini heatwave from one large two bedroom flat to one smaller one bedroom flat. So it's all in South Kensington littered cross the floor and counter tops and i'm not sure where any of it is going to go. Luckily the heatwave is abated and I'm staying home this afternoon to await a delivery and put stuff away.



The flat's small, doesn't have great storage space. Doesn't yet have hot water. Does have a lot of street noice. And an occassional whiff of grilled meat from the kebab shop across the street, but you know, I think I like it.

29 May 2003

I do not want what I can have. I recently was in a bar. Having a drink after work. Kind of, but not really cruising the crowd. I got approached by a man in his mid-40s. Wasted drunk. Tried to lose him. Told me his life story. 73-year old hospitalised partner who he had met when he was a rentboy in 70s London. Open relationship. Looking to play around.



I made a few dismissive comments hoping that would end it. Did my best, "god, I'm bored of you" look and moved toward the bar.



But he intercepted. Tried to flatter me. Grilled me about what I did, and when I said, vaguely, "marketing" threw back his head and laughed an extravagantly loud, gargled laugh.



I could count his cavities.



I wondered momentarily if he was trying to unhinge his jaw to swallow me whole in some snake-like way.



He then went to grab my arm but missed, tripped, and fell whilst pouring his drink all over himself. His bald head shined with gin and he was soaked, but he stood up and resumed the conversation.



I left.



28 May 2003

No one! Excellent. Now that I know I'm talking to myself in cyberspace things can get juicy. Well, as juicy and things in a bone dry life can get.



Just read that that penultimate fag rag Wallpaper is relaunching in June. New editor, new approach, new attempt to widen a niche audience and regain the patina in cool in a relatively anti-cool world. Nonsense about it trying to be more American. The joyful relaunch of a slow death? We'll see.



I remember hearing Tyler Brulee speak once at a design conference. He told a fantastic story about being shot when he was a war correspondent. He recuperated in a swanky Chelsea garden drinking umbrella drinks and questioning his life's purpose. The result? A magazine for overpampered shallow trendy jetsetting homosexuals (and the girls who want to be them) called Wallpaper, because he was surrounded by it. I remember chortling in shock that this was his revelation. So one can't be surprised at the resulting periodical. What's he doing now that he's left Wallpaper? Branding. God help us.

15 May 2003

Who's there? Is anyone actually reading this? If you are, drop me an email at brianj777@mac.com.



Thoughts I'm having a charming email exchange with a charming man, but have lately started to feel that it's very one-sided. And let's face it, I love talking about myself. It's therapeutic. He encourages me to be less self-conscious, but surely not everyone is interested in what's going in my head all the time. So, I'll broaden the discussion.



Several Texan Democrats fled to Oklahoma to avoid a quorum about questionable congressional district redrawing plans brought about by the Republicans. I love this story, although I'm sure there are hundreds of reasons to flee Texas.



I found out that oxtail is, indeed, the tail of any beef animal. But it's never tiger, despite what the Restaurant Georges thinks.



Tony Blair has dodged calls to let Britain vote on a referendum about the broadening of the EU's constitution and Britain adopting the Euro. 80-something % of the country thinks there should be a referendum. And I hate to agree with the bland little man who leads the Tories, but I agree that Blair's adopted a presidential tone that's hindering, not helping government. Our treasury has said the EU hasn't met the five benchmarks we agreed to before joining the Euro and the country doesn't seem to want to do it. 9th June appears to be the date, but how the public will be considered is uncertain.



London's bidding to host the Olympics. Fuck me, the city's already packed with people.



I'm flummoxed that the US has gone after Saudi Arabia for not doing more to prevent the weekend's bombings. Should Saudi Arabia have done more? Likely. Should the US piss off one of it's only allies and sources of intelligence in the Middle East? Don't seem very smart to me.



14 May 2003

I love Paris. Unabashedly. Went with work friends to rip up the town and it was great fun to take Robert who hadn't been in almost 10 years, and had never been on the Eurostar. We stayed in a lovely boutique hotel in the 8th arrondissement. Robert bought a suit for his sister's wedding and I managed to muddle through with my elementary French.







It was a glorious Spring weekend -- sun and warmth and clear blue skies. We had dinner at the Georges on top of the Pompidou and learnt that "le tigre qui pleure" despite sounding like tiger meat, was acutally oxtail. Is oxtail really ox? We didn't know. Robert and I hit the bars in the Marais where he was quite the flirt, apparently. You can see more of the pictures here.

9 May 2003

Did you know? It's cheap to travel to Paris right now. I'm off for the weekend soon, so bon weekend everyone. Going to revel in unpopular francophilia drink French wine, flirt with French men, eat French food, buy French petit choses.



Did you also know that England experienced a brief time of queer acceptability in the 18th Century? Channel 4 did a rather brilliant show about Georgian England's excesses and forgivenesses last night. From Mother Clap's Molly House to the rather indescribable fashion fetish of molly men pretending to give birth to wooden toys and doll, it seemed gay men and women (especially aristocratic ones) had a certain amount of freedom--as long as they appeared to be straight and respectable.



Ah well, I'm celebrating my queerness with a trip to gay Paris. Au revoir!

6 May 2003

Before you start I know not everything is working. But I'm crawling there. And I'm crawling towards finishing the images page. But I was almost crawling on Sunday after an afternoon drinking wine in Kirsten's garden, then going out. So I couldn't face crawling to the computer yesterday. Oh, and I am crawling back to South Kensington -- to rent the flat upstairs from the flat I used to live in. They've agreed to replace the nausea-inducing furniture that was there and I've agreed to pay too much money for a year. Oh well.



Finally watched Withnail and I, that infamous 1980s uni-arthouse favourite. Paul McGann was a stunner and the dialogue is a bit brilliant, if not shrill. Even though it's Britain in the 80s doing Britain in the 60s it reminded me of the grey cold and general downtroddedness that I remember of Britain in the 80s -- and the clothing. I had silver-rimmed round sunglasses then as well.



Can someone please explain "I'm a twat (celebrity), get me out of here!" I know the idea is to choose and vote for your favourite c-list celebrity, but I'm considering voting for the snakes and spiders instead.

2 May 2003

Unsettling; Staring forward and looking back I've got to finish this bloody page. Look at up. That will soon be an image and a name and something more than grey words and orange links. It's not that I've been ambivalent, but there's a lot of computer jockeying that's happened to make HTML and images and get it hoisted up onto the page.



Yesterday, whilst crossing Edgware Road to lunch I saw a hearse with a casket and a pile of flowers. Mortality on display, there to suck up one's distractions and preoccupations and spit them back with a "I'm being buried today" procession through the streets. It's a sad, lonely, unceremonial moment when you realise we do actually all die alone (unless you die with others of course, then you don't die alone, but you're buried alone.)



Then I notice the driver was singing along to the radio. Actually full out singing. I'd like to think he was singing Amazing Grace or something, but he was probably singing Justin Timberlake or some old Oasis songs. Singing like he hadn't a care in the world, or actually a dead person in his backseat.



Shouldn't that be disallowed? Respect for the dead, and all that. What if the deceased hated Oasis? What if they once said, "I'd rather be dead than listen to Oasis" and now they're dead and having to listen to it?



In other preoccuptions. I'm flathunting. I hate it. Too many poorly lighted, badly furnished overpriced flats that letting agents are happy to say are "modern, light, and really fantastic value." By far the best flat I've seen just happens to be upstairs from the flat I lived in when I first moved here. I'm thinking about renting it, but wondering, is that terribly regressive?

10 Apr 2003

Grounded. Me. That pigeon. The statues in baghdad. And now, the Concorde. The anxiety's gone. What happened (or actually what isn't going to happen) happened. Or didn't. And now I can laugh about the pigeon incidence with a relatively light heart.



I was home yesterday with a cold and watching the news from Baghdad. Watching them pull down the statue of Saddam from the city centre. It was anti-climatic. It took a very long time. Several variations of ropes and chains kept breaking and shifting. And the embarrassing moment when some soldier draped the American flag over the head of the statue like one might drape a sack over a hanged man. Then it toppled, and no one was certain what's next. Looting, chaos, faction in-fighting.



British Airways and Air France announced today that the Concorde will no longer fly its sleek, needle-nosed jet on transatlantic flights. Another human ambition (and the last of the romantic aeronautic notions) grounded. I'm not sure I would have ever done it, but am sorry to see it go.

8 Apr 2003

Poor judgment? American troops opened fire on the international press' hotel killing five, including a Reuters journalist. They claim they were fired on first, but it's been denied. I wonder if US troops aren't showing shocking judgement what with the recent spat of "friendly fire."
Today when walking up Seymour Street a pigeon flew into a plate glass window, bounced, and hit me in the head. We both stopped, stunned, before it hobbled off and before I broke out into a stream of profanities whilst wiping the side of my head.



People walked past staring. I think the pigeon stared.



I was aware I looked insane. I'm sure the pigeon thought so.



I felt insane. Barely in control. Wanting to kick the pigeon's ass. Or break the window. Or just generally have a fit in the middle of the street. To raise my fist and scream into the sky "haven't I been the butt of enough of your jokes lately?" To let go of the anxiety pressing against my chest. But I couldn't. You see, crazy people don't rant in London. They mutter, they hide, they learn how to drive little white delivery vans or to present children's television, or to just generally disappear.



An out-of-control-cursing-American-pigeon-target is an unusual sight in London.



Once and only once did a crazy person confront me. I was on the Tube and a man pointed at me and screamed, "they'll kill you if you set foot in Jamaica." I stared back and said, "I wasn't planning to." That shut him up and he neither pointed nor screamed again. He just muttered, "kill you dead, they would".



I live entirely too much in my head. I know that. I have elaborate fantasies that have their own physical, chronological, and psychological dimensions. They are rich in detail and plot and characterisation and can occupy big chunks of time -- whether I'm sitting on a bus, walking down Edgware Road, or working.



I have entire relationships in my head. I plot the initial meeting, the seduction, the emotional arc, the demise, the aftermath. I know where we met, what we did that first morning after, what his friends thought of me, what I wore when we met his parents, what I wanted to keep when he moved out, what his next boyfriend would look like.



I know what happens after I win an £11.5 million lottery. How much I give to whom. How i quit my job.



I know what it feels like at the end of my life. When I'm alone, without family, out of touch with people, friends, reality. When the scenes in my head are larger and more important than reality. When I'm facing mortality and looking back at respectable, yet unremarkable, achievements.



What brought this on? I was HIT BY A BOUNCING PIGEON today. It was a cruel disruption. And my only response to it was to swear in shock. Because, you see, I know how much I can live in my head. How I can stand at the intersection of "life" and "romance" and not see the lights changing. Not see when to cross ... whether to face or follow the traffic ... where there might be left or right or even, yes it happens, u-turns.



But dammit, I'm blaming the pigeon.
Not a secret anymore. For two months I've been working on the BT re-brand. Unable to speak to anyone about it, and devoting most of my life to it, it's strange to have it publick knowledge. It was an immense project, and the most impressive work is unapparent to the average customer. We spent weeks defining online behaviours (in a laborious/rigorous process) that should really make the brand experiential online. We also repositioned our agency from production resource to strategic lead -- of which we're all very proud. But it's exhausting, and not finished, and not really everything it's meant to be.

27 Feb 2003

Partying like a rock star. Just back from a very quick trip to remote Santa Fe for Kirsten and Andrew's wedding. It's an ordeal: 11hour flight to Phoenix, flight to Albuquerque, 1.5hour drive to Santa Fe, two days later do the reverse. I'm knackered. But I got to see John and Jason and their lovely home and I got to see my very dear friend happily married. I got jetlag. Oh and I'll get a sizable Amex bill, but by far it was worth it.

17 Feb 2003

Today. London's congestion charge begins. In order to curb maddening traffic (some of the worse in the world, reportedly) London's mayor "Red" Ken Livingstone proposed a 5 quid charge for any vehicle entering the city center M-F, 9-5. The result is a strange system. Cameras capture license plate numbers then check them against a database of people who've paid the charge either in person or by mobile phone, then send out £80 fines to anyone who hasn't paid. Current reports are that the streets are calm. If it works, the congestion zone will be enlarged. If it doesn't, "Red" Ken won't be mayor. Can't wait for the crush on buses -- it's already impossible to get a bus from 7-9 in the morning, even though I live not 15 minutes ride from work.



Yesterday, Alex Ferguson, manager of the Manchester United football team, stormed into the locker room at the end of a disastrous game, kicked a shoe across the room in frustration, sending it flying to bash David Beckham in the head, cutting him above the eye. How's that for unintentional blame management. Beckham, team captain and husband to "Posh" spice is reportedly furious. (Because he's insulted or because he's England's vainest coverboy we don't know.) Come on David, a little scar may help tone down the pink nails, bleached hair, and sarong skirts.
Not in my name. On Saturday, a million people march through the streets of London to protest the rush to war with Iraq. Although organisers and the government quibble about the exact number (750,000 - 2m) it was still the largest march in British history. They took two routes, one from the south through Westminster and the other from Camden in the North -- stopping traffic and business along the way. It was a peaceful march, there were a few skirmishes and arrests, but generally well behaved (although Hyde Park was a bit of a mess afterwards.) There were young and old, families, students, a far more eclectic crowd than one would expect at a political march. They gathered to hear Tony Benn and Jesse Jackson, liberal democrat leader Charles Kennedy, London Mayor Ken Livingstone beg Blair and Bush to find other alternatives to the Iraq question. It was thrilling, and a bit scary to be part of it. I joined the march at Westminster and made my way up to Hyde Park. It was freezing cold, grey and gloomy and sombre -- appropriate, no? If you disagree with war, then let your politicians and leaders know.

7 Feb 2003

Frightening. The Bush-war publicity machine seems to be working. Salon reports that a Knight-Ridder survey showed that 44 percent of the respondents said that most or some of the 9/11 terrorists were Iraqis.They weren't of course, something repeatedly discussed at the time. Furthermore, a spokesperson for the Prime Minister admitted that part of the British government's now infamous dossier on Iraq was plagiarised from a 1991 student thesis on Iraq. A former junior defence minster, Peter Kilfoyle, said he was shocked that such "thin evidence" was being used to win over the British public. Might not be the first time.

6 Feb 2003

So America's getting its first view of the Michael Jackson interview with Martin Bashir. I wonder what the reaction will be. It's interesting that the UK can be easily whipped into a frenzy but is willing to forgive a man who admits to letting children sleep in his bed because of "naivete" and "innocence." If it had been any other man in the country he would have been lynched by now. At the worst Jackson demonstrates such shocking delusional behaviour that one can hardly believe anything claims of how harmless and non-sexual he is -- making him a predatory threat. At the very least, he's potentially endangering the children by letting them think that they can get into a bed with a 44 year old man and not come to any harm. I also feel extremely sorry for his children who are growing up with no role models other than an emotionally stunted delusional freak for a father.



Enough of that. It was mah jongg night last night, but as I had the set and had to work until late, we never played. I'm forgetting everything as time goes and need a refresher soon. But this weekend is jam packed with visits form old colleagues and a group outing to see the Eva Hesse show at the Tate. And generaly walking around my flat in my underwear as my houseguests will all have gone.

3 Feb 2003

Jaded. I have vivid memories of the explosion of the space shuttle Challenger. It was home ill from school and watching the landing when the horrific images were played and replayed. It was the first time television had the power to make me sit stunned, unable to look away. Even though I was 17, I felt like a helpless child who'd had the wind knocked out of him.



In contrast, the crash of the Columbia, equally tragic, barely blipped across the events of the weekend. Have I become numb to the spectacle of tragedy? Does it have less impact because the world is so changed? Does the scale seem so less tragic and impactful after 11 September because it's 7 and not 3,000? Have American failings become less unthinkable in those 17 years and few days?



If the reports are true, and warnings were muffled because of committee shufflings and wranglings and budget talks, I hope we take a moment to hang our heads in shame. America got to space because we once had the strength of conviction in our dreams, and now may not have the strength to not falter - in so many of our dreams and ideals.

29 Jan 2003

Star sighting Mark Durden-Smith, former host of Channel 4's RI:SE breakfast programme, current babe.

27 Jan 2003

Star sighting Brenda Blethyn, Oscar winning actress of Secrets and Lies and Saving Grace, outside of Selfridges.
Quiet weekend. Barely left the house to nurse the end of this cold. Plenty of time to ponder the dire state of British television and do some reading. Shame, really. The weather appears to have been lovely.



Watched the second part of Stephen Poliakoff's The Lost Prince. The story of Prince John, the youngest son of George V and Queen Mary who, because of his epilepsy and various behavioural problems, was hidden from public view, deprived of royal life and the attention of his parents. It's typical Poliakoff -- slow, incidental, moving -- and a visual tour through Royal life in the early part of the last century. Miranda Richardson, as Queen Mary, was particularly stunning. One forgets the inter-breeding and familial broodings that meant that most of the monarchs of Europe were cousins: the Germans, Austrians, Greeks, Russians, and English -- all descendants of Queen Victoria.



Poliakoff is also responsible Almost Strangers, starring Matthew MacFayden.

23 Jan 2003

Welcome back. I let this thing go to pot -- forgot to renew the URL and the webspace and have just managed to get my act together. Apologies to anyone foolish (kind enough) to think I'd get my act together at all. I'm pleased you read this occasionally. This site's a work in progress so don't be too critical yet. Amused myself today reading through three years of archives. It's lovely to have a look back sometimes.



Last few months: Birthday at a hysterical, drunken murder mystery party in Norfolk. Weekend in Baroque Vienna experiencing the oddity of Oktoberfest in a gay bar. Braved renting a car and drove to Devon to celebrate Thanksgiving in a country house (baked a turkey and didn't poison anyone.) Trip to California for Christmas and lovely days lounging in my mom's flat. Home for New Year's and back at work.



Robert's moved to London for a semester in bucolic Runnymeade. Already I'm worn out from the bars, big dinners, and boozing but that should quiet down soon.