October 2005
10 posts
1 tag
End of the Line
You can’t imagine what it’s like to lose your mobile phone until it happens to you. At first there’s the sinking feeling that it’s not coming back, an anticipatory worry, building like the interference that interrupts a radio signal – pip-piP-pIP-PIP; then the silence, and a brief moment of liberation, when you can just about imagine a world without it; before the ringing sound of panic, blaring...
1 tag
What are we complaining about?
It being cold in October Kate Moss taking our share of drugs The EU ban on imports of exotic birds. (There goes Christmas) Things not being the way they used to be Lack of British hurricanes
1 tag
Under the Weather
If only my cleaner had more in common with Gwyneth Paltrow. (Sigh.) I realise how that sounds, but it really is the least of my problems. (For starters, I can’t even park my Hummer in the street and my £50 notes won’t fit in my wallet.) After walking home in the drizzle (there is no Hummer, but if anybody has any suggestions about the £50s…), I found a note from my new cleaner, Sylvia, whom...
2 tags
Parting Shot
There was an awkwardness with which Peter swept his hair across his brow. Noticing it, I asked, “did you do something different with your hair today, Pete?” “Yeah, I switched my parting,” he said, once the motion had completed its conspicuous path. “Can you just…do that?” I asked. “Well, guys usually have their parting on the left,” he said. “And girls on the right. But I thought I’d switch it up...
3 tags
The Crotch-Grabbing of Fate
In, what can only be described as a twist, a pirouette and a crotch-grabbing of fate, singer Michael Jackson today received a jury summons at his Neverland Valley Ranch in California – four months after he was acquitted on child molestation charges. If anybody remembers the trouble lawyers had in finding a jury of his peers (although I think two-thirds female, and mostly white was about right),...
2 tags
Rain Man
So, I’m standing outside my flat, in the rain, waiting for a cab in the busy rush hour traffic, when my neighbour walks by. We do the stop-and-chat thing. You know, how it goes. “How are you?” “Fine. How are you?” “Fine.” I extended things by asking where she was going. “I’m just off to M&S to get some wine.” “Ah,” I said, looked at my watch. Seeing that it was 10 minutes to closing time, I...
3 tags
The Big Three Killed My Baby
Oh, ITV. Is it not enough that you bombard us with bollocks programming every day? Were you not satisfied with your 50th Anniversary celebrations, reliving each year in what felt like real-time? Are you not filled with content when you produce yet another detective series with a maverick lead character? Why then, you gaudy yellow and blue thing, must you now interfere with my love life? Okay,...
4 tags
Think McFly. Think.
Another ghost from blog past is Vicky the Violinist. Remember the hot busker I asked out with the aid of a low-fat, savoury snack? (See Pretzel Logic) Well, it turns out, I’m seeing her again. Don’t worry. I realise my actually dating a girl would probably bring about the demise of this here blog; and anyway, since my pretzel antics I’ve not heard a thing from young Vicky. So when I say I’m seeing...
2 tags
Old Strangers
Connoisseur of the surreal, Louis Theroux, this week releases his first book, The Call of the Weird, in which he revisits the subjects of his television documentaries – the off-beat characters on the fringes of American society. Tall, bespectacled and only just handsome, I often meet the comparison with the TV star, whom, I usually point out, was dubbed “the thinking woman’s crumpet” by a leading...
6 tags
Kill the light, Save a Bird
