humour jpg "it's friday"

Yeah, we've got perky little round-robin e-mailers like you in our office, too. Now f**k off. I've got a stinking hangover and I'm not in the mood.

K was interviewed yesterday for BBC1's Breakfast News program. Not for the local East Midlands section, either - this would be going out nationally, if you please, at 6:50 am this morning. Providing that they decided to use his clip, of course. Pending a higher-level editorial decision and all that.

We decided that I wouldn't blog about it until after the transmission. Protection of anonymity and all that. I agreed to set the video.

K went out to a posh dinner. I went out on the piss with Buni. K came home at a civilised hour. Buni and I rolled in around 1:30. Several Eartha Kitt records later, Buni called for a cab about 3:30. (I know, I know, school night, don't look at me like that.) I set the video and lurched upstairs towards bed.

Note the use of the word "towards" in that previous sentence. This will become important later.

K got up around 7:40, went downstairs, and saw that the TIMER message wasn't showing on the VCR. Shit, Mike forgot to set the video last night. And I'm on in 10 minutes! He rewound the tape and pressed RECORD. Had his breakfast with Radio 4 as per usual (being a creature of habit), then rewound the tape again, pressed PLAY, and came back upstairs to watch the clip on the bedroom telly (it's also linked to the downstairs video).

The unaccustomed noise of the TV wakes me up.

"Why is the TV on?"

"I'm playing back the video. You forgot to set it last night, but I caught it in time."

(grumpily) "What are you talking about? Of course I set the video."

"But I've just..."

"What time were you due on?"

"Ten to eight."

"But you said ten to seven. Definitely. Several times."

"Oh God, you're right, it's early, I'm confused, it was ten to seven."

"Well, I've taped it then."

"Yeah, but I wound the tape back before recording, didn't I?"

(now wide awake) "YOU WHAT?"

K scuttles back downstairs, cursing. A while later, he returns.

"After my recording finishes, the clock on the program says five past seven."

"YOU'VE WIPED OVER IT."

(crossly) "I KNOW I've wiped over it. It was early, I was confused. Oh GOD..."

(self-righteously, and not a little irritatingly) "I can't BELIEVE that you thought I'd forget to set the video. I would NEVER forget to do a thing like that." (continues in this vein for rather longer than is strictly necessary.)

One hope remains: Peter @ Naked Blog. Knowing from his blog that he was a regular viewer of BBC Breakfast News, I e-mailed him the night before, tipping him off about the programme and swearing him to secrecy. Maybe he'll be able to tell me. Maybe he's already e-mailed me. I tear downstairs to the laptop and open my Inbox.

Returned mail: see transcript for details.

Many hours after sending it, the e-mail to Peter had bounced back to me at around 7:00 this morning. Something about not recognising the address. Shit. Shitshitshit.

And then, with a sickening lurch, I remembered noodle's comments box, four in the morning, my oh-so-brilliant situationist prank. Had I really hit Submit Comment?

I checked. Course I f***ing had.

It was about then that the hangover kicked in.

I'm still watching Midlands Today later on, just in case.

Walking back across Slab Square to the office, about 20 minutes ago, the chorus of this long-forgotten 1978 single by The Flys - which I only ever owned on a home-made John Peel compilation tape, and which, to the best of my knowledge, I haven't heard for the past 25 years - suddenly popped back into my head, word for word, fully formed, for no explanation that I could think of.

(I mentally paused, rewound, and realised that it had entered my head at the precise moment that I was ogling a sexy-looking traffic warden: Ooh, if only I had a car, then I could commit a traffic violation! Yes, I actually thought that thought, complete with uber-queeny inflection. I call this Getting Into Character For My Part. But I'm getting ahead of myself, aren't I? Patience, patience.)

The mental washing-machine effect. I must be turning into my grandmother.

- Mick Jagger, speaking to the Melody Maker, April 1967.

Unfortunately, Zoe seems to be using the wrong photos of us. Let me put her right:

Last Friday night. K has had a bit of a day, shall we say. (This included rushing one of his employees to hospital - hope you're feeling better, M.) Oenological therapy has been applied: readily, steadily, heavily. We have reached something of a state of grace. The good telly has finished for the evening. I'm staring at a Stones biography, and K is staring at the Philip Pullman novel that was lent to him by the 11 year old over the road. I look over at him.

"So, how are you getting on with your book?"

"It's actually very good - but I'm not enjoying it."

I flash him a teasing look. "That could almost be your motto for life."

He smiles back, ruefully. "I know, I know. Typical, isn't it?" Pause.

"Whereas I guess my motto would be: I'm enjoying it - but it's not actually very good."

"I guess that really sums up the difference between us, doesn't it?"

At this realisation, we simultaneously burst into extended fits of increasingly hysterical laughter.

"Oh God, that's perfect!"

"I'm so blogging that tomorrow."

"You must! You must! It's hilarious!"

The following morning.

"Do you remember what we were talking about last night, just before going to sleep?"

"Oh. Er...I remember being in hysterics about something, but I can't remember what it was now."

I remind him. "We thought it was hilarious, didn't we?"

"Yeah." Pause. "It's not really that funny though, is it?"

"No, guess not."

But it does sum up one of the big differences between us. Perfectly.

With a deadline reached two days ahead of schedule, I was planning to use the ensuing lull for some much-needed content catch-up. (Because you're still waiting to read about those adolescent drinking games, and that play I'm in - right?)

But then I started reading the much-vaunted Baghdad Burning, starting from the very first entry (made less than a month ago), and working my way up. I ended up reading every word - horror-struck, saddened, angered, impressed, utterly transfixed -and ultimately so emotionally overwhelmed that I even found myself contemplating rushing upstairs to the bogs for a quick blub in one of the cubicles. For Baghdad Burning is simply the most powerful piece of writing (I was going to say "in any medium", but I think that the fact that it's a personal weblog actually makes the writing even more powerful) I have read in, God, who knows how long?

This also had the effect of leaving me almost totally incapable of stringing words together in any coherent form. In fact, I'm still struggling right now. Tell you what: I'm nipping out to get my hair cut in a minute - always a calming and therapeutic experience. When I get back, I'll tell you the Philip Pullman story. Well, it's more of a vignette than a story. And not really much to do with Philip Pullman at all. Oh, you'll see soon enough.

Update: "Saddened." "Impressed." Yeesh - what puny, inadequate words they can be.

Over at My Boyfriend Is A Twat, Zoe has inaugurated a weekly "Which Is The Best Blogger?" poll. For the first week, she is pitting father-of-five (approximately) Nigel Graber (from Audi Olympics) against ... er ... me, actually. Yes, it's arch-breeder versus arch bender!

Now, of course, entirely arbitrary and woefully misleading terms such as "best" are utterly inappropriate to such a deeply personal and essentially non-heirarchical medium as ... well, sod that for a game of soldiers. At the time of writing, Graber is leading by a humiliating 21 votes to 12. So, please, I urge you, VOTE TROUBLED DIVA!

Which is it to be? Small Ad Man, or Gratuitous Adverb Man? The choice is yours, readers...

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The text of this poem can be found in the comments.

Yes, comments. For YACCS is back at long last. Hurrah!
Many thanks to Gert for letting me comment squat over the past 6 days.

There's a wonderful online music store in New Zealand called smokecds, which provides decent quality MP3 samples of most of its recent stock. The accompanying reviews aren't too bad, either. So, if you'd like to listen to some of the stuff that I've been raving on about...

Kraftwerk - Tour De France Soundtracks (the first MP3 doesn't work, but the rest are OK)
Ibrahim Ferrer - Buenos Hermanos
Steely Dan - Everything Must Go
Goldfrapp - Black Cherry
Super Furry Animals - Phantom Power
Dizzee Rascal - Boy In Da Corner
Radiohead - Hail To The Thief
Audio Bullys - Ego Wars
Fabric Series - Fabric 11 (Swayzak)
Kings Of Leon - Youth & Young Manhood
Red Hot Chili Peppers - By The Way
Grandaddy - Sumday
Fabriclive Series - Fabriclive 11 (Bent)
Gotan Project - La Revancha Del Tango

(Temporary comments box, courtesy of Gert.)

The one in the pink hooded thing: was he the boyfriend, do we think? Or were K and I just "projecting", as usual?

Anyway, it was awfully nice to see a couple of split-second shots of the area around the Royal Vauxhall Tavern. (Apparently, Blaine was out and about on the "grassy" knoll about four Sundays ago, turning tricks for the wide-eyed queens in attendance.)

There's something fundamentally crass and vaguely offensive about all of this, isn't there? Or am I just being a prim and prissy Guardian reader?

And while we're doing celebrities: over the last few days, I've been getting a steady stream of search requests for Jeremy Clarkson and Annie Lennox - together, not separately. Can anyone offer an explanation as to why this might be? Because I can't think of one solitary thing which links them.

(Temporary comments box, courtesy of Gert.)

(...or is she 12 already? They grow up so fast these days...)

- When I get a bit older, I want to be a Goth. I'm going to wear loads of black ... black nails, black lipstick ... and I'm going to call myself ... Tammy.

- Tammy? That's not a very Gothic name, is it?

- (somewhat taken aback) But the singer in Evanescence is called Tammy!

- [suddenly feels very old indeed]

- I really like Evanescence. I've even got one of those ... oh, what do you call those things where you only get three tracks, and they're all the same song anyway? Oh yeah ... (witheringly, dismissively) ... singles.

- So you're not into singles, then? What about the Top 40 - do you follow that?

- (with authority) I think the Top 40 is really silly. Because there are only about 2 or 3 people in our class who buy singles, and they're all the same sort of person anyway. What's that CD you're playing? Can I take a look?

[picks up Yes CD ("Fragile") and examines booklet]

- Eurgh! They're all really ugly! (amused) Did you really listen to that stuff when you were young? Do you still like it now?

- Yeah ... I mean, we don't listen to it all that often, but when we do ... yeah, it still sounds good.

- (firmly) I'll always like Evanescence, and I'll always like Good Charlotte.

- Well, just you wait then. In thirty years time, you could be sitting around the dinner table with your daughter, and she might take a look at your Evanescence and Good Charlotte CDs, and she might say: "Oh, mum! Did you really like this lot? They look really stupid, and they sound awful!"

- [dumbfounded look - she hasn't thought of this before]

- [thinks: ha! gotcha, little girl!]

(Temporary comments box, courtesy of Gert.)