So I'm in the hairdresser - in Manchester. I know, I've been away longer than I ever lived here, but he's a great hairdresser, if a little tardy - and I point out to him one of his assistants who's wearing hip-slung combatesque trousers that are about two sizes too tight, and a short red t-shirt that shows about three inches flesh-gap, and it's hanging over the edge.

We laugh. Quietly.

"That's the third boob," he says to me. Makes me think of a line in a Woody Allen routine, "the the third rail is underfoot" but no amount of googling will it bring it to me.

So, like, don't mess with my brand, friend. I love this Telstar story.

I don't want to be too the-end-is-night, but it's reports like this one (potential water shortage?) that make me think lousy transport infrastructure, power cuts, water shortages... it's millennial, no?

Makes me damn glad I have 30 litres of water and a mule stashed away in my bathroom.

Courtesy of Vaughn, I can now relive all manner of childhood fantasies, via this history of BBC logos. Fab.

My hosting collective are rightly pissed off with me, because in an attempt at outrageous efficiency, when my mailbox.pst file was too big for a floppy, I thought I'd ftp it to my server. Smart move. I managed to overwrite my IMAP mailbox. Sheesh. They were nice to me, though. Luckily. I really am trying not to be a high-maintenance collective member, honest. A little bit of knowledge is a dangerous thing.

So I'm trying to invite someone, someone quite senior, from AOL, to give a keynote at a conference I'm organising. One - the gopher won't tell me her name. Two - they don't accept incoming email. Fax only. Sheesh.

It's really great news about the rugby, proud to be British, blah blah blah. But seeing the triumphalist picture on the front of the Evening Standard last night, I couldn't help noticing something.

There's clearly a neck shortage. Because some of the members of the England rugby squad have two necks: or necks so wide regular shirts just aren't going to fit. Which means, for every rugby-esque (male equivalent of rubenesque?) bloke, there must be someone out there with no neck. As I have said before. Because there can't, statistically, be more necks than people, it just wouldn't make sense.

Sunday morning, I had people coming over for tea, so went out to Carmellis in Golders Green to get bagels. That's the north landan thang.

I parked precariously - one always does, although many people have the custom of double-parking, but that's not my minhag - just in front of a disabled space.

As I'm in the bakery, I hear the dulcet tones of what sounds like klezmer music being played through an ice-cream van. As I come out, I see the Lubavitch Mitzvah Tank coming towards me, music blaring. And it parks in the disabled space behind me. I'm just getting into my car to drive away, and I say to the be-bearded bloke just dismounting, "have you got a disabled sticker". He assures me they have, or they're just moving, or anything to make me go away.

I look in my rear view mirror as I drive off: they're still there. Parking in a disabled bay? Not a mitzvah, in my book.

I'm here, I'm here. I've just been on hold to the Microsh@ft helpline for about a week. Recent highlights in my life:

Another cousin's barmitzvah

My family visiting

Spellbound - did I mention that?

a little tea party I made yesterday, including moroccan chick-pea flatbread, pistachio cookies et al

buggered email

broken car

hole in roof

rain

I've been somewhere between out-of-sorts and busy. Sorry.

Fab weekend: cousin's barmitzvah. Great to be related to people you'd want to hang out with anyway.

What to do if your Mom finds out about your blog.

Yay. I am the first person in the googlesphere to say "encoded anti-semitism". It's a googlewhack, or sorts, but with quotes.

That could be the title of my second (dully but worthy) book - Encoded Antisemitism in Europe in The Third Millennium. A best-seller, no?

The Magic of Richard Curtis - and guide to his little England. Classic.

In case I ever need to remember: I'm an ENTP, apparently.

Julie Burchill's leaving the Guardian. Saturdays just won't be the same...

Buddhist Punk. Jewish Monk. Anglican Spunk. Meditative Funk. Clunk. Clunk Click. Every Trip. Trip? Moi? Nah.

Writing stuff.

Things That Wind Me Up: no 365
People - OK, women - who wear too-small bras, hence making it look like they have four breasts, instead of the standard-issue two.

And tonight I did a back-to-back aerobics class and pilates class. Only because my car's in the shop and I couldn't get where I really wanted to be.

And I forgot to say that I saw Michael Moore on Sunday night. Dead smart, irreverent, casually dressed: if only politicians were thus.

Thanks to my secret agent for sending me the text to the Jackie Mason piece in Friday's Standard - you can read it here.

I can't find it anywhere online, but Jackie Mason had a piece in Friday's Evening Standard entitle What sort of job is this for a nice Jewish boy?.

Now I don't know what sort of cartoon Jewish universe the editorial board of the Evening Standard live in - but I can guess.

- We want to say something about Howard, right? He's, like, an immigrant.

- Yeah, shopkeeper-stylee. It's sensitive if we do it. Let's get someone else... [drops voice] Jewish to do it for us.

- Know any Jews?

- Nigella? The Saatchis?

- They've got to know about politics.

- Freedland, on the Guardian? He's a bright boy. Star on the ascendant, and all that.

- Nah, he'll never go for it.

- What about that comic? What's his name? The New York guy with with racist material and the gag-a-minute delivery?

- Jeez, Brian, you're a genuis. Jackie Mason. Someone call Jackie Mason. He's got it all: know's nothing about UK politics, isn't a writer, and responds to all questions by just doing his material at you. Inspired choice. Total puppet.

I'm off out now (this is me speaking, not the Standard editorial board), so I haven't got time to tell you that Jackie Mason (with Raoul Felder, which I think means Raoul just called him up on the phone and fed him a few straight lines) makes me sick. Some of his material is right on the money, but he talks about other ethnic groups with a vehemence that I can't handle. And, in this case, just uses all his usual Polac material to talk about Romanians.

It's 800 words of racism, court-Jew-baiting, lawyer-slagging, caricatured Jewish mothers, and an ignorance of British political history that makes me want to...

Tribe of Doris.

Michael Howard? There's something of the right about him.

The morning after the night before...
Had my party last night (I wrote this in draft on Sunday morning, and then forgot about it) - (and still got up pretty early from all the excitement). At about 9pm, when there were ten geeks sitting in my front room, and we were drolling over a great piece of kit F had brought over for me to admire, and someone asked me if I'd invited any girls, I was wondering what kind of party it would be. We blew up a hundred or so purple balloons, and then, all of a sudden, a whole party of people descended.

Great evening (even if I say so myself) - a heady mixture of NW2/6ers, barbe-folk, bloggers (well, some), refugees from Limmudistan, collleagues from various workplaces past and present, and nice people I'd met at some parties recently.

The felafel was an hour and a half late, but the band - Jonny Berliner and the imaginatively named Jonny Berliner Band - were truly fantastic. Watch this guy - when he's made it, you'll be able to say you heard him in my living room on the night of the eclipse.

Last night, a (non-Jewish) friend asked me if Limmud was Yiddish for Christmas.

You (a) male or female (writer)? Check this - the gender genie. Rest assured, I'm all woman.

The Register on google-washing your smalls in public.

I love those guys at the Register: they've really got it going on. Here's a fabulouse p*ss-take of the blogosphere.

Am I Oversensitive? This Time It's Personal
So today's ES magazine day. I feel good, but not in a James Brown way. It's also Ham & High, Economist and JC day: what could be better.

S'just recently, I've been a little worried about the Evening Standard. It's not just that they employ Norman Lebrecht (I've just gone on a little hiatus where I went back to Norman's previous articles that I'd linked, but due to a combination of site redesign and new payment model at thisislondon, it's no dice on the proof front, sorry) to regularly say what he doesn't like about Jews; too Jewish at the Israel rally last summer, that kind of thing.

It's a shame about the Evening Standard, and especially ES magazine, because it has that Ham & High feel to it: over-acheiving North Londoners shouting to the world about their success. I like that. Well, part of me does.

But two weeks ago, takes the biscuit. Thanks to T & L for giving me the nod (and the cutting). You know A Londoner's Diary? At the front of the ES magazine? Two weeks ago, it was Martin Bell, be-white-suited, wittering on about his London, football, and charity muggers. It's a multi-paragraph stream-of-consciousness endevour. Then, ends with this:

"Like many Londoners, I am an incomer. The city has grown on me. I am almost as fond of it now as my native Suffolk. There is only one part of it to which I will never be reconciled - the wailing wall which is the ticket office of Golders Green Underground station..."

Here's a few random disconnected thoughts: Just because you say you are an incomer, doesn't give you licence to talk about me. Are Jews perceived to be such a majority that it's OK to say this? Wailing Wall is a phrase that I don't think Jews have said since 1967, not least because it has a derogatory sense to it. Coupled with the Golders Green reference - I read somewhere that Golders Green has the largest Jewish community in Europe, but where's a web reference when you need one? - makes me think that Martin has something to say to me. Something negative.

So while you rarely hear Jews being told to "go back where you came from" because we look like everyone else - although the older versions are prone to the wearing of sparkly clothes, as we discussed earlier - and also because not everyone is exactly sure where we came from, it feels like a little subtle Jew-baiting is suddenly OK. I'm sure Martin Bell is a very nice guy and some of his best friends blah blah blah but if he'd said "Wembley stinks of curry" or some other such subtlety, surely some editor would have taken an (electronic, doubtless) red pen to the sentence?

There are less than 300,000 Jews in the UK. Less than half a percent of the population. And we can't find most of them. There isn't a Jewish conspiracy. Although our largely immigrant antecedents mean that we're as driven and ambitious as any other "incomer" group, that's generally to the benefit of the wider society.

I'm occassionally accused of being over-sensitive about all manner of matter. Like the other day, about Michael Howard? Maybe my racism-dar and anti-semitism-dar is working overtime, but then my great-grandparents left der heim over a hundred years ago, and if they hadn't had the foresight, probably I wouldn't be here. See, I'm prone to exaggeration, or at least overstating an argument.

So watch what you say. Careful of what you write. And please stop saying there's something of the night about us.

Things That Wind Me Up: no 746
People who say peter bread, not pitta bread.

Two great movies this week: Undying Love and Finding Nemo.

Undying Love I saw because I'm contractually bound to see/read all Holocaust related stuff. Part of the Jewish Film Festival at the Phoenix in East Finchley. Though this was different: instead of coming out of the cinema overwhelmed by the evil in the world (standard post-Holocaust feeling), this is a remarkably upbeat documentary about the power of love over evil. It's basically about xx couples or people (now on their own) who found their bashert before/during the war, and managed to find them again later. I was in tears, but not of sadness, but of respect and awe of how much in love these couples still are.

Finding Nemo is also about family. Great animation, and almost mythological in structure, and brilliantly, brilliantly written. I won't ruin it, but some of the gags are priceless.

If I was a dog, I'd have permanent psychosis by now: I'm moving into my third day of non-stop fireworks (at night, OK) it seems. Halloween, Diwali, Guy Fawkes. I refused to open the door to my neighbours trick-or-treating kids last week, and I'm just not into this whole commercial Falloween doo-dar.

Microsoft wants Google? Don't we all.

I'm a British-born Jew and proud of it. There is, quite frankly, something of the night about almost everyone I know, and given that my antecedents are also Romanian, Michael and I are practically landsleit.

Could be my oversensitivity - but then five thousand years of Jewish history isn't always wrong - but all this "shopkeeper" "immigrant" talk - we know what they really mean. A rose by any other name and all that. And the demonisation of Howard? He may hold reprehensible political views, but why is it always the Jews who get the devil-by-night treatment?

I'm angry and slightly incoherent. Tune in tomorrow for my - hopefully more considered - views on the Evening Standard's recent faux pas, and why every newspaper I read seems to comment on Mrs Howard (senior)'s big hair, sparkly clothes and little gold slippers. Fashion anti-semitism - you read it here first.