Happy New Year. After an all too brief trip to the US for Christmas with my mom, and a fast roadtrip to Santa Barbara to see Kelly, and a single night in San Francisco to see friends, and a lovely wait in the upper class Virgin lounge at the airport, I'm back in England. Flew back with Robert to meet Kate and Anne who had spent the week in my flat. We've been shopping and sightseeing -- the new British Galleries at the Victoria and Albert are as delightful as promised. New Year's was spent at home eating sublime snacks from Selfridges and drinking too much champagne. Hope you had a blessed and happy new year.

Cornwall. It took us 1.5 hours to travel the six miles down Cromwell Road to the A4. I was pretty much out of a roadtrip frame of mind by that time. But there was adventure ahead. Kirsten and I stopped in a Moto in Reading and I got behind the wheel for the first time in England. It's terrifying. I felt 15 again, sitting next to my father panicked about where to look or turn. The biggest problem with driving wasn't staying in the left lane or turning left into roads but trying to remember that there is a whole half of a car on your left side. It's impossible to know the distance between your car and other things on the left hand side. I almost removed a couple of mirrors! But Kirsten was patient and kind. Add to that problem the fac tthat I was driving a stick shift with the gear on the left, that the English drive 90+ mph down the motorway, that is was rainy and foggy and nighttime, and that they have roundabouts, and you get an idea of the terror I felt.



Trethurffe Manor was lovely. An enormous rambling country manor in the rambling Cornish countryside. It pissed rain, but we got out to the Eden Project (bio-domes where they replicate various world climates and vegetations -- steaming jungle and dry mediterranean fields.) We visited the seaside, including Mount St. Michael, a 13th century monastery on an islet and St. Ives, quite near the Western-most point of the British Isles. We ate -- haggis, pheasant, an enormous Martha Stewart recipe Thanksgiving dinner (I made whilst drinking champagne -- surprisingly, very good) and drank three cases of wine. We played silly parlor games and watched as our Md stuffed ten raw brussel sprouts into his mouth. (I thought I was going to pee my pants with laughter.) I'll post the pictures soon.

The iPod has arrived. It's beautiful. It's steel and lucite and beautifully white (for now.) It took 4minutes to download 1.5 gigs of songs (338 to be exact) through the Firewire. This may be my favourite product I've ever purchased. Off now for a long weekend in a manor house in Cornwall.

Grateful. I got my health... I got a job... My family... Coffee in the morning... British documentaries... My lovely friends who come to visit... Fountain pens... I live in London - cool ... Digital cameras... The Italians who work on the corner deli... Rainy London nights... Music... My new shower... How good I sound singing in my new shower... Emails that make me feel in touch... How good Judi Dench was in that play... Long weekends in Cornwall... Co-workers who don't mind that I'm occasionally an ass... My mother telling me there's nothing going on then gossiping for an hour... A hope for peace in Afghanistan... Planning a trip to California... My team... London friends who keep me rooted... I've counted my blessings and find I'm on the credit side. Happy Thanksgiving.

Guy Fawkes Day. Once a year, in early November, England gathers around bonfires and firworks to celebrate one of the strangest events in English history. In 1605 Catholicism was an embattled religion -- all were forced to swear allegiance to the monarch as supreme head of the Church in England. Guy Fawkes was one of a group of catholics, called recusants, who conspired to blow up Westminster when the protestant king and others would be observing the opening of Parliament. They stockpiled several barrels of gunpowder (which gave the name, the Gunpowder Plot) in a cellar nearby. They were found out when Monteagle, the brother-in-law of one of the conspirators was handed a note warning him to stay away. The note was given to the king, and a search was conducted of Westminster. The conspirators, including Fawkes, were captured and were hung, drawn, and quatered in January 1606. Every year since, on the 5th November (or thereabouts), the English gather around bonfires burning straw effigies of the Catholic treasoner, Guy Fawkes.



"Please to remember / The 5th November:

Gunpowder, Treason and Plot.

We know no reason / Why Gunpowder Treason

Should ever be forgot."



So now you know. In other news, I bought the iPod and am waiting for it to ship in the UK. I've been loading MP3s onto my Mac in anticipation and can't wait to get my hands on it.



Today, after a meeting on Shaftesbury Avenue we ran into that finest of British wit, Stephen Fry.

Have you seen it? Apple introduced iPod, the new mega-powered Digital music player than can store over 1000 songs but is only 4x2 inches. I'm in love. I want one, making it the third product this year I yearned for: the cube, the Titanium laptop, and now the iPod. I'll have to wait until sometime in November.



Happy Birthday Debra! The little tart tried to keep it a secret, but I let in slip. Poor dear is sick however so I hope she manages to have some fun.

Welcome to the new site. Hopefully this is working -- I should be better at this web thing than I am.