Just got back from the gym, and they were playing retro, upbeat music. Do you think the whole of the (musical) eighties was just one long aerobics class? It's not about the funk, is it?

At Your Convenience
Just caught the beginning of a mad programme about how there aren't as many public toilets as there used to be.

About three jobs ago, the women's toilets in my office building were unbelievably bijoux. I used to make this - probably very annoying to my team members - joke about how surely there was a an EU Regulation governing the minimum size of toilets (we researched EU events), because there is one about the angle of the curve on bananas. Now, it turns out that the problem is that there isn't any Local Authority legal requirement to supply toilets, and that's part of the problem. You live and learn.

Cream and Sugar?
I realise this may be a minority interest, but have you ever wondered about the difference between sour cream and smetna and clobbered cream? Wonder no more. And, also, as an extra bonus, how to make your own sour cream.

And you may be interested in the etymology of smetna and other Yiddish-stylee words. Then again, maybe not.

Stupid Bus Shelter Update
To cap it all, I got home after an evening of mediocre-to-good comedy, to discover that the bus shelter one away from me, on Cricklewood Broadway has been removed, leaving just a bus stop. Sorry to harp on about this, but I know that Ken's BusPlus policy insists on, nay demands shelters as part of a quality intra-London journey, so what the hell is this about? There's a bus stop, no shelter, 50 metres from my house in both directions. Outside my house, is a shelter, no bus stop. Although they have managed to change the advertising four times since September. Although they haven't, as yet, answered any of my letters.

I'm so glad my taxes go to such slick, well-managed, strategically planned services.

And, on the firemen thing, Tony Blair is turning into Maggie. I maintain that the only reason Labour got into power in '97 was that the majority of their new voters were in their late 20's, and all they remembered about a Labour government was not going to school, candles, midnight feasts and community spirit. I suggest that Tony and John (who are probably no relation to Janet and John, but have a deeply unsophisticated neogitation technique) are just trying to recreate that fun, be-striked feel for us. And it's winter. The Winter of Our No-Content/No Policy.

Stuff: - meetings, meetings, meetings. Clients, clients, clients. Can't complain, really. In between, today, I had a high speed cup of tea with my Mum at Euston, and did something I'd never done before (no, not that). Unitl 4pm this afternoon, I was a nail extension virgin: I have had gels done. It's late, so I don't have time to tell you it takes an hour and a half, and includes four different processes: men don't even know they're born. Now, I feel like I have someone else's - someone more stylish, perhaps, more put-together - hands on. And also, slightly disabled: I couldn't get my contact lenses out, there's a faint, slightly secretarial tap as I type, and I can't dial on the telephone.

You have to suffer for your art, I know.

Whatever my art is.

Deconstructing Tony
Give that sub-editor a medal: great headline. Just for me: this great deconstruction of the Sopranos and the whole industry that's sprung up around it, fascinated me.

Coupla weeks back, the Guardian (who else?) had this great dyptitch of articles about where to buy designer clothes. One day.

So Bob Hirschfield is a cybersatirist? Aren't we all, honey? And he's trademarked the term?

A friend bought me one of those bamboo plant type things. You know, it's like a piece of bamboo that you just put in an inch of water and it looks stylish, uber-moderne and very Habitat. My old writing teacher had a few of them, and I went to her house every Thursday for nearly a year, and they looked attractive, minimal, and alive. I have had my two peices of twisted bamboo for less than a month, have changed the water once a week like the instructions said, but for some reason, it's dying. I can't even keep this alive. Bugger.

For the first time in a while, I have a lot of work, so sorry if I'm a bit quiet.

Judging Judaism By The Numbers: Douglas Rushkoff's NY Times op ed piece from Wednesday. As if by magic, as they used to say.

If you need a username/password, try sashablog/sashablog.

How Jewish Is Jewish?

So last night, I was at a friend's house, and the conversation turned to that age old question: how Jewish is Jewish? This should, theoretically, be said in the no-neck-position, where you lift your shoulders so high in a questioning stance that your neck disappears. Of course, sitting in any residential property with a north London postcode could possibly be the starting point for such a conversation. We talked briefly about our group - mostly Jewish - and it turned out that of the two "non-Jewish" people, one's grandfather was Jewish, and one is married to someone Jewish. And you say there is no Jewish conspiracy - or maybe you say there is.

Do you have to be a paid-up member of a shul (synagogue)? Is that what makes you Jewish? Even if you only join to get your burial rights, and think of it as the "shul you don't go to", does setting up the standing order make you Jewish? A bit like having your gym membership on direct debit automatically makes you healthy.

The food? Do you have a prediliction for fatty, dairy-laden food that cries out cholestrol! as you reach for seconds? Do you go heavy on the sour cream? Thing bagels, herring, chop-fried fish is cordon bleu? You're not just Jewish, you're Ashkenazi (of - broadly - eastern European origin). I was really surprised on a trip to Warsaw a couple of years ago that all the restaurants there make what feels like Jewish food. I felt right at home. Of course the food's not necessarily Jewish, it's just Polish/Lithuanian/Romanian/who even knows any more.

Or maybe you do Jewish things? What are Jewish things? Well, Hillel says.... If you go out to dinner with your friends, rather than for a drink, and spend the evening picking fault in your mutual acquaintances, does that make you Jewish? Or you like to shop in Brent Cross Marks & Spencers, knowing that you'll take everything back anyway, and make a day trip of it, and go to Marble Arch Marks & Spencers? Are you Jewish then? Do you read the Guardian, but moan about the anti-semitism? Or perhaps you don't read the Guardian any more, but let everyone know just how traumatised you are by making your moral point.

Or perhaps it's just a fashion thing. You're prone to over-accessorise. You have too many shoes. You ocassionally - OK, more than that - overdress in relation to the event.

Do you have a slightly over-exaggerated sense of family and community? Do you have many great Aunts (from the generation where people have 6-plus children) called things like Emmy and Essie and Effie? True story: few years back, the flat next door to me was sold, and the guy moving in, youngish, my kinda age, was showing his extended family round the garden. About four over-dressed generic Jewish grandma types, the sort who pinch your cheeks even if you're thirty - I knew at that moment he was Jewish.

Maybe you're just Jewish-Chronicle-Jewish? So Gwyneth Paltrovski's Jewish, and so's Edwina Currie (highly sexed, should have given it away), and... I'm sure we can six-degress anyone into being Jewish in an emergency.

So it's not all praying and hats and ethnic liturgical music. By the self-definition argument, anyone's Jewish - which makes Madonna Jewish, too - and while I'm not sure I'd go that far, I don't think it's an exam. You're as Jewish as you feel, I guess. Vague, badly thought out. That's my specialism.

Just had a wonderful breakfast: chopped banana and coconut icecream.

Cold update: I still feel a bit shit, but not too bad, thank you.

Whither Celebrity?
Here's something I don't understand - I'm not really a Big Brother watcher, but listen. Whilst all the entrants in BB1, 2 and I think there might even have been 3, but I don't care, weren't necessarily rocket scientists or Florence NIghtingale, they seemed kinda interesting. Attractive. Either interestingly-thick or interestingly machiavellian, but they caught our attention. And they had to lark about on video and get pot-lucked out of an entrance pool of thousands, I'm guessing.

Now, celebrity Big Brother. People who are so far down the alpha-beta-celebrity food chain, that they all look vaguely familiar, but aren't. Like, I know Les Dennis does something, I just don't know what it is. Or was. There'll like double-DD celebrities: soon the depth of their un-celebritidom will be higher than my bra cup size. Which I'm not telling you anyway. And I'm presuming that they've had to really cast around to get this motley crew; rumours abounded of someone else from Take That who I'd actually heard of, but no. Mark Owen sounds like a guy I used to get the 157 bus from school with, and is about as interesting. Less, possibly.

So here's the thing: there's an inverse proportional relationship between the level of your celebrity, and your interest-quotient. Because these people are damn. Dull. And the theory means that as more and more people crave celebrity, and consequently become less interesting because they have reached their fifteen-minute nirvana so stop reading newspapers/gossiping/being interesting, the world will become duller and duller till we all switch off our television sets and do something less boring. (Whoops, showing my age, there).

Gothic Breakfast Meets Downandout Film Star
Watched the Breakfast Club snuggled up in bed last night - arguably the best teen movie of the eighties. But then some people say it's Ferris Bueller's Day Off. But then those people are generally men. Either way, John Hughes, or early John Hughes at least, is a serious artform.

Remember Allison? The Ally Sheedy character? (True caseof Where Are They Now? - Ally is now 40 years old. She has been in fifty films, and you've never heard of most of them.) Anyway, she was very goth, remember? All black eyeliner and angst. Apparently, that whole goth-fashion thing is - dare I say it - the new black. Although, I suspect it's all goth, no satanism, which may be a good thing.

Sheepcull: I found myself curiously drawn in by this game (it has loud sound effects, if you're in an office). Perhaps I'm not a vegetarian after all. Brought to you by those wonderful folk who made the EggPrescott game.

Too Sick To Blog
Things have been kinda quiet the last few days, I know. I've got a cold: it's not life-threatening - if I had a job, I'd go into work and whinge, rather than stay home, but I feel crappy and bunged up and have a desperate urge for Heinz tomato soup (in terms of comfort food).

So I have done stuff - The Price, at The Tricycle, I saw Monday with my cousin, and it's fantastic. It's a great script (Arthur Miller, all his usual themes; brothers, families, the depression), and Warren Mitchell as Solomon is mind-blowingly funny. The audience was, in my humble estimation, 73% Jewish, and because of the free seating setup of the Tricycle theatre space, this caused a few little ruckuses. Ruckii? So everyone's "saving a seat" for their friend, much like they put towels on the best sunbed in the morning in Marbella, so you can't really sit anywhere. And then the people who didn't have the foresight to bagsy a place, arrive late and insist in guilt-stricken tones than everyone must move up and be squashed for them. Little them. Of course, they are not so little, because they've been eating Ashkenazi diary-laden, carb-loaded food their whole lives. I refused to play - there was genuinely no room - and the woman sitting next to me spent the whole performance sending guilt-rays in my direction, as her friend had to sit behind her and she wanted me to feel bad. I suspect she didn't enjoy the play.

And I went for a job interview where they said I was great, better than the internal candidate, but that's their policy. Yeah, that's fair.

So I'm going to finish my copy, put my washing on, make comfort food, watch a video, snuggle up in bed.

Oh, also, I wrote a short story. I'd be interested in feedback - particularly from people I don't know - providing you have a real (ie, not a hotmail-stylee) address; so mail me. I reserve the right to refuse, but it's unlikely.

And I'll post more when I feel more energetic, I promise.

Words And Phrases I Hate:
Hearts and minds, generally pronounced heartsunminds, and prefaced by the verb "winning". Just shouldn't be allowed - hearts and minds are not siamese twins, you can win one and not the other. And what do you do when you've won them, anyway?

Another one: memorialize. What's wrong with remember? Why do words need to be americanized? Don't play with the language, I say. Well, not too much.

Had a great evening last night with my cousin, who said she'd misread the poster for Rabbit-Proof Fence, and read it as RABBI Proof Fence. In light of the Jewish community's current obsession with all things leadership/rabinnical, it's apt.

Talk about partying like it's 1999: I'm apparently in a 1983 frame of mind. This Hazell Dean (er, who?) song has been in my head for like two weeks.

Saturday night, went to E's hen night, which was like, moderately frum/kosher, but an Ann Summers party, nonetheless. Quote: "you can never have too many shoes or vibrators." And that's not me saying that. I think you can have too many shoes. Although my friends do call me Imelda.

Today, got my legs waxed (and the beautician commended me on my eyebrows, which I'd done myself), did a forty minute run in the gym, at 150 again - also ran into J, who was being "reprogrammed" as he delighted in telling me. I wonder what it'll do to him: sounds rather 1984.

Saw a late afternoon movie - Rabbit Proof Fence - with S at the Tricycle: deeply thought provoking, although I then found this whole counter-claim type thing, and know I don't know what I think.

Now I'm just surfing the net doing high-speed research for a meeting tomorrow.

This is, sadly, not very exciting. Sorry. But then life is not always very exciting. Although, my personal trainer's daughter is in the band for Popstars the Rivals, so I'm one step away from someone who's one step away from fifteen minutes of fame.

Advice
Did an aerobics class this morning, which took my heart rate to a consistent 150 over an hour. God, I'm getting boring, sorry. Then, in a fit of pique/healthiness, decided I would try back on the old no wheat/dairy thing. Why? Because I felt enourmously healthy when I was doing it. So I went to Tesco, to buy fresh fruit and vegetables, and happened upon some rice bread which is wheat-, dairy-, yeast- and oil-free. Doesn't leave much, does it?

Anyway, I'm at the checkout, and looking down the line of checkout workers, realise that at that moment every single one of them is an Asian woman in her forties or fifties. Mine looks askance at my rice bread. "What's this?" she asks with a sneer. It's rice bread, I tell her. "Expensive, no? £2.29." Which, of course it true.

"Is just rice flour," she continues. "Big bag, 99p, many loaves. You know how to make bread?"

I'm kinda thinking that I've come to do some convenience shopping, and what she's suggesting is just, well, inconvenient. But I say yes, I do know how to make bread. But the truth is, I don't make regular bread, why should I make rice bread?

"Easy," she says, "same recipe, just use rice flour. Much cheaper."

I wonder if she's on some kind of un-commission?

Saw Harry Potter And The Chamber of Secrets last night. Camden, Odeon Town again. I won't do a whole review thing, because they're all over the shop, so why read mine? Let's just say it's a fun movie; very slightly too long for my liking, and rather twee in plot terms. Any fabulously imagined thing that gets introduced-with-benefits (a phoenix can cure things with its tears, and travel really fast... I think that was it), all the benefits get used at the end. So you kinda know what's going to happen. But great cameos from Kenneth Branagh as Gilderoy Lockhart, Miriam Margolyes as Professor Sprout, and John Cleese as the ghost Nearly Headless Nick.

I haven't read the books, but you can't help feeling that Ron is going to eventually get it together with Hermione (whose hair, I'm sure, is curlier in this second movie), and Harry'll end up with Ron's sister. But hey, what do I know?

Local Eccentrics: no 316 in a series
So I'm talking to Jonny Seitler (name finally in print), who lives about two streets away from me, and he's telling me that he's trained "his kid" - or as he says it, "ma kid" - not to use the K word. That's K for Kilburn. Why? It's two horrible, violet words stuck together - KILL and BURN. But we live in a horrible, violent world, I say to him. And it's in zone two. What can you expect? Anyway, he's "trained" his daughter to say Honeysuckle, on the basis of it being two nice, cuddly words randomly stuck together.

I'm sure Kilburn must be named after some local historical fact. I know that Cheadle, the place of my birth, is named after St Chad, a little known ninth century northern saint, apparently. Chad's Hill. Cheadle. Geddit?

So, from now on: honeysuckle, folks. Do you ever find it's everyone else marching out of step?

Local Colour
Just phoned nespresso to order my brother-in-law's birthday gift, and when I started spelling my street name, the woman said, "oh, I know round there, I went to look at a flat in Kingscroft Road last night". We had a long chat about local eateries, transport, the merits of the Jubilee line, and I recommended all my favourite local hangouts. We talked about the rent (£100 a week, for a flatshare, no shared room); Amanda really wanted a shared space, but I said it's not that uncommon for the living room to be turned into a bedroom, as it makes someone, somewhere some money. She said I'd done a very good local marketing job, and she'd email me if she moved in.

Six Minutes And Counting
The firefighters' strike starts in six minutes. Check your smoke alarm. And - as if anyone ate this kind of food anymore - don't leave your chip-pans unattended. That's the advice from the police. Great.

For Art's Sake
A friend wanted to go and see Art with the League of Gentlemen. I said I'd already seen it about five years ago, although I would think about seeing it again. Who was in it? They asked? Oh, I said, actors. Remember, before celebrities/hollywood stars featured in plays, and you went to see it for the play, not the people? Not least because nearly every play I've seen with someone "famous" in it, hasn't been half as good as they are on screen. Because on screen, if you make a mistake, they just film it again. I imagine.

Moleskin is/are my favourite notebook/s.

Shamelessly link-pimped off LMG, but Monday's Guardian had a bunch of mobile phone pieces. Specifically, overhead conversations and a thoughtful piece on the impact of mobiles (I hate the phrase "moby") on our lives.

Personally, I'm one of those people who - however hard she tries - is often late. At least with mobile-to-mobile communication, I can call and say I'm running late. I may be a bad timekeeper, but I'm well brought up. As long as the other person has a mobile. I have a "friend" who doesn't: when I'm late, I feel much worse.

I know what I'm missing: lack of focus. I could pretend that I'm eclectic or renaissance-stylee, but in truth, I'm unboxable.

Which is mostly fine, but sometimes not. So when I register for weblog portals and the like, and you have to say what "kind" of weblog you are; I don't know. I'm just me. If I had to say in one sentence what it is I write here - apart from it being the stuff in my head - I don't think I could.

Then a friend suggested I use my flat for filming/photographic work, which seemed like a good idea. So I took a bunch of photos, put them online, and registered with a few location agencies. They all want to put you in a box: contemporary/minimalist. I'm a maximalist, really. In the end I settled on "...this eclectically decorated, architect designed flat has furnishings ranging from art deco through to ethnic and contemporary". Which means no-one will be abe to categorise me to enter me in a database, and hence I won't have film crews trooping through my house. Which, obviously, could be a good thing.

You know those days when you wake up and you think, I'm funny, I should write a sitcom? Then this is for you.

Last Night A DJ Stole My....
OK, not exactly a DJ. Went to Cambirdge with Jaq - the band's "artist in residence" or what you will, to see the Alabama 3. I've never had the experience of arriving at a venue and saying "we're with the band"; I had all that teenage-groupie feeling. The venue, The Junction, was plastered with signs saying "if you are in distress or require help please ask to speak to the duty manager." I was thinking of asking him to help me balance my cheque book.

The guys are real showmen: there are some musicians you see live and you think, "well, that's just like the album", but this is a totally different experience. Dry ice, lasers, full funky dress-up (although they think that the whole trilby/dark suit combo is slightly reminiscent of a mafia look, whereas I can't help feeling they look like very ordthodox Jews who daven at North Hendon Hadass), and fabulous between-numbers banter (D. Wayne on Northern Ireland: Orangemen are not the only fruit). It's an incredibly powerful experience, especially if you stand by a ten foot amplifier - the music goes right through you.

For the hardcore fans among you, this is how I remember the playlist: lord have mercy; too sick; heaven; power in the blood; ain't going to goa; bulletproof; reachin; wokeup; two heads; 2129; yellow rose; flag; don't dans 2 tekno; year zero; rehab; hypo full of love. And two encores I forgot, sorry.

The Alabama 3 (and no, they're not from Alabama, and there's like eight of them) are not exactly a boy band. They're really not pretty - Orlando, the keyboard player, looks like he needs to eat fresh fruit and vegetables for a year, and the rest all have a fairly lived-in look. That's Brixton for you, I guess. And their audience was a bizarre mixture of black-clad rocker types, really quite old people, and a lot of guys who had, like, their own dance. Most of the audience had evidently been listening to the band in the privacy of their own bedroom, and it showed in their moves. Big time. There's some dancing you only do in front of the mirror, and there's some you don't take out of your house. They couldn't tell.

After the gig, Jaq needed a bit of R&R after a couple of hours of non-stop drawing, and we were invited backstage to, er, hangout with the guys. I can't really do her sketches justice in words, here, so I won't try.

I could write so much about the after-gig, but I have to do some work in a minute. Backstage is really seedy. Seggs, one of the band members is very seriously into juicing - which, given their lifestyle makes a lot of sense - and they'd obviously asked for fresh vegetables to juice. And there they were, along with the beers and vodkas and junk food. Though I suspect that really good juicing does not require Tesco Value carrots. There were groupies - skinny, pissed girls saying "I am lovely, aren't I?", and hardcore fans - "I jush wanna shake your hand, Larry", and a lot of wired people talking a lot of crap. "There are rumours we're going to a bar, Zen?" "We'll find it, Cambridge is small". But in an interesting way.

There was one guy, Dan, who was dressed in the full Alabama 3 regalia - trilby, dark suit, pale-and-interesting look. He stood at the front the whole time doing his own special dance which required you to be double-jointed. Backstage, he wanted Larry to sign his Sopranos picture book, which he did - all the band are incredibly friendly to everyone, even the nutters - though I kinda imagine the world will get destroyed by nuclear war before his Larry-signed book finds its way onto the Antiques Roadshow.

Watch this space - coming soon; short story about an acid-house-country-rock-hip-hop-techno band, a serious groupie and his search for: whatever it is he's searching for.

Lest We Forget
Sometimes, the overwhelming desire to buy in bulk, shop wholesale, or to purchase fashion items that co-ordinate in a very serious way, remind me that I'm Jewish.

Yay. I'm going to see the Alabama 3 in Cambridge tonight with J - known to everyone at my party as The Alabama Three Girl. We have sought out vegetarian restaurants in Cambridge. We are ready.

I really want to see What The Night Is For at the Comedy Theatre. Which apparently asks the question "is the person you are with the right one? Or are they still out there, living another life?"

Donnie Darko
Apparently this movie has cult classic stamped all over it, and I couldn't agree more.

Met P in the Camden, Odeon Town (as I like to call it). I got there a few minutes late, and as he knows I'm often late, he'd gone to wander round. So I'm looking around expectantly, and there's a guy there, obviously going on a blind date, who looks at me expectantly. Is it me? I look at him as if to say "no, Cilla hasn't sent me." He looks like he feels very foolish when P turns up two minutes later. We went and got Thai food at Galangal on Parkway, although I'm not sure their Thai green curry is as good as mine.

Donnie Darko is for every kid who's ever thought they were an outsider. It's a teen movie, in the good ol' John Hughes tradition, and it's a horror-style movie. It's about time travel. It's cool. Although, what I always liked about teen-movies, is that they're kind of an adult free zone, which this film isn't, really. It's a film that makes you think and I haven't yet decided what it really means, so I'll get back to you on that.

IMDB ephemera: Patrick Swayze (yep, he of Dirty Dancing fame) plays Jim Cunningham, the ironic-cult leader. No dancing required.

Personal thoughts: See this movie, now. And then, again. Noah Wyle (ER fame) is the professor, so that's a good enough reason for any - woman - to see this movie. Although the eighties-ness was not as good as I would ideally have liked. And the sister, Elizabeth, is a bit of a cardboard character. And slinkies, in the eighties, were chrome, not plastic. I was there.

Wanna Laugh?
There's a frankly ridiculous piece about the Madonna shtick on the MSNC website, which I've cut-n-pasted below.


Swept away by a new controversy
MSNBC : Oct. 30 — Madonna may be a 44-year-old mother of two, but it looks like she still has what it takes to cause a religious controversy.

IN HER NEW video for the Bond theme song “Die Another Day,” Madonna appears with Hebrew words written on her and wearing a sacred Jewish prayer item, says a source.
The singer has become deeply involved in Kaballah, a Jewish form of mysticism, but the use of the sacred images is said to be “offending” and “outraging” Jewish leaders, according to various reports.

“The Hebrew tattoo she has means fight your pridefulness, your ego,” one source said. But apparently one of the items she wears, a tefillin, is only worn by men.

The source says Madonna might be trying to have an encore of her “Like A Prayer” controversy that outraged some Catholic leaders.

Madonna’s spokeswoman says that’s not the case. She says that Madonna had everything in the video approved in advance by Kaballah leaders.

“She feels there is nothing offensive” in the video, the spokeswoman tells The Scoop.


Spot the mistakes:
1 Don't know who the Source is, but I don't think the tattoo means "fight your pridefulness/ego"
2 I have no idea who "Kaballah leaders" are
3 She wears tefillin - phylacteries - plural. It's just not a singular noun

Who writes this stuff? Don't they have fact checkers?

Cue Song...
I heard it on the grapevine - because I haven't read a paper today yet - that this site was mentioned in passing today in an article my friend Julian wrote in the Jewish Chronicle about the whole Madonna thing I've been rabbiting on about for weeks. And I'm still in the top ten on google for any combination of Madonna/hebrew/tattoo.


So if you're here from the JC, welcome. This is the Madonna stuff you might want to read.

And while you're here, check out this - a piece I wrote once about the ultimate Jewish question: Is She or Isn't She?

Don't you hate it when you call someone (a business call, obviously), and their secretary/receptionist asks "will they know what it's regarding?". Answer: I don't know. They may be psychic, or they may not. How should I know?

Possession: Two Love Stories for the Price of One
Was utterly possessed by this for 102 minutes at the Tricycle last night with S. Tricycle still empty - twelve people in a three hundred seat cinema: I just don't get it. I'm sure Staples Corner and the 02 centre were heaving, and this is a nicer cinema, with famous people hanging about in the bar.

I've never read an AS Byatt novel - nor, for that matter, a Margaret Drabble (her feuding half-sister) either - and I really want to now. It's a girl movie, for sure, and although P informs me that Neil LaBute is interested in misogyny - which is certainly a themette to the movie - it has a balanced approach to representing gender and exploring human relationships. It's the tale of two contemporary literary academics sleuthing their way into a long lost love affair, and is utterly laden with coincidence. Which I guess has to happen, otherwise, stories go on forever, right?

Anyway, I'd certainly recommend it, if you want a double love story, sharp script and beautiful English countryside. Although the contemporary couple get really, really angst ridden, and there's not enough backstory to make it believable, and even though Gwyneth is an academic on a presumably meagre salary, she manages to have an amazingly stylish flat, with a Victorian roll-top bath, and expensive bathroom-bubbly stuff. As well as only one set of pyjamas. And while we're at it, I don't think she would drive an old Saab, I think she's more beaten up mini or MGB. And whilst we're picking holes, Aaron goes up north for an afternoon with a small book bag, ends up going on like a weeklong trip, without even taking a toothbrush or change of clothes. And then when Gwynnie drops him at the station, he's "grown" an overnight bag. Also, when Jeremy and Jennifer are having very stylish Victorian sex, her nightgown is arranged in such a way that he couldn't possibly get his bits, er, in. I know, I should be in continuity.

IMDB ephemera: the music is by Gabriel Yared, who did the mesmerising score to Betty Blue in 1986. So there.

Just got rather disturbed that my Christmas Cactus is flowering in November, but have discovered that apparently you're not supposed to water them at all in October. Starvation diets have never been my style.

Is It Me, Or...
... is the Paul Burrell case a right royal waste of time and money? So it's Regina v Burrell and it's all over the media and it costs millions of pounds of taxpayers' money, and then the day is saved at the nth hour, by... regina? Just doesn't really make sense, does it?

And the the uber-loyal royal servant, whose committment to the memory of Diana was such that he wouldn't even press the point until it looked like he'd be incacerated for something he hasn't done, has a personality transplant.

I mean, the bloke who wouldn't even speak after the trial was adjourned, had a statement read by his counsel, to which he wisely, silently, loyally nodded, that's the bloke who has sold his story to the Mirror. What is the world comming to?

I caught the tail-end of a Radio 4 programme on my way out last night, where a panel of talking heads were discussing the "ulrika-isation" of the media world, and the prevailing view seemed to be that obviously people - celebrities - shouldn't overshare, but obviously if there's money involved, needs must. I mean. Duh?

Oh, I've got to go out in a minute, and I've got so much to say. Late night Tuedsay night, as drove up to Birmingham with P and the nameless one for A's inaugaural lecture (Making Judges Accountable), and we didn't get back till about 1am. We hired a Vauxhall Astra as P's car was in the shop (I am so transatlantic) and P (bloke) was mightily impressed that I knew the Astra had won the British Touring Car Championships three times since 1989 (I just wrote an Astra ad; am thus replete with Top Gear type information. I also happen to know that the M25 is 117 miles long.)

It was such a great evening; we were all dead proud of A, even though we're not related, and it was great to meet his extended family, and even his English teacher from school, who shlepped a lot of naches even though she doesn't, probably, speak Yiddish, and all his former and current colleagues. Fab little reception after the lecture, lots of smart people talking about the law, and then of to A's for what was billed as a buffet, but was a wonderful home-cooked style meal, with wine and conversation flowing like the proverbial.

A is evidently a bright young thing whose star is on the ascendent and all that, and it made me think of this.

I Have A (Transport Infrastructure) Dream
I had a dream where I imagined the corporate advertising on my own personal bus shelter changed every day, and then yesterday I discovered it has changed for the third time, and still no bus stop.

Because I've done a huge amount of reading/research on Ken's BusPlus strategy, which is a £200m "flagship" (their quotes, not mine: I suspect it means "not really flagship") project in the Mayor's Transport Strategy, which aims to deliver fast, reliable and comfortable bus services, making bus travel an attractive option for Londoners.

I'd like that, too.

Part of the strategy is apparently to put bus stops closer together, so it's always a shorter walk to one. Sounds like a good idea. Except that, with more bus stops, and more people using the enhanced services, journeys take longer. So there are now five bus stops between my house and Kilburn tube, instead of the former two, and it now takes longer to travel there on the bus than it does to walk.

In town yesterday, I saw a Transport for London sticker on a bus that said something like "faster journeys, quicker at every stop" ( I knew should have written the exact wording down), and I though, "that's marketing bollocks". It sounds fabulous, but it's patently undeliverable, unless you get rid of the passengers. Now that would make it faster at every stop.

This, coupled with having to travel through London like I'm an extra in some proto-Orwellian film, replete with all those stupid "Secure Beneath The Watchful Eyes" posters, makes me feel that Big Brother is watching me, just not in a good way. I live in a city that purports to consult with me as a citizen, but then clearly states that my views will not be taken into account (more whingeing about the bus shelter, must stop, sorry), and where millions is spent on what appear to be faux-joke posters, marketing a service that doesn't work and is badly thought out.

Perhaps I'll leave the country.

And I may have a dream, but it's evidently a fantasy.

Just what I've always wanted: a doll dressed as an orthodox Jew/Polish nobleman, that dances an annoying Jewish dance when you wind it up. Least with this one, you can take the batteries out. Thanks to Luke for keeping me informed.

Hello, Ms Frizz
So this afternoon, I'm in the West End, having been treated to lunch at Arthur's restaurant in Liberty's by R (wonderful ambience, but the slowest service I've seen in a while), rushing off to a meeting/interview type thing.

As you know, I've been having a week long good-hair-day, and it's been fabulous. All down to my new product. As I'm rushing down Oxford Street, a youngish, hippish guy stops me, "hey, darling, where d'you get your hair cut?" I'm so shocked I answer. We fall into an easy, scripted conversation about haircare. He's an Aussie hairdresser, Alex, just arrived five days ago, they're opening a new salon round the corner in Poland Street, would I like a year's worth of haircuts for £50? He's doing really well, until he says, "I know it's raining, so your hair's frizzy, but tell me, what products do you usually use?"

I don't want to punch him in the face, but I just don't like being told I've got frizzy hair. Even by hairdressers. Even cool Aussie ones. I smile and say I'm (a) in a hurry, (b) committed to my current hairdresser, and (c) can I think about it? He says no, it's a sign-up now deal. He starts rabbiting on about the salon and how he can show it to me, and it's a handover-the-money-now deal. Do I really look like someone who'd do that? Maybe I do. He starts talking about how hard it is to handle curly hair, and how often do I straighten it? (never) and do I want to feel his arm muscles to show how good he is at straightening hair? Then he starts telling me he's gay so.... I stop listening. He acknowledges that he's rabitting, lost me, and should move on. We part. I look in a shop window and really don't think my hair looks frizzy. Men, huh? Even gay-hairdresser-ones.

It's Off To Work We Go
First, you've got to understand that I've had a lot of experience in the conference business. It's one of the few things where I really understand everything about how it works. Last week, I was in a meeting where a guy said, "the first most important thing is the database. And the second most important thing is the database." Which is kinda true, except that it's also a people business: I'd say 50/50 people and database: no database, no marketing. No people, no ideas.

Today, I was in a meeting where the guy said, "the most important thing is the people.". I said "what about about the database?" He said, "I'm happy to go into markets where we have no market-share, presence or product knowledge."

I can't help wondering if everyone else is marching out of step (as my brother is so fond of telling me), or whether it's a guy thing.

For those of you that asked, my washer/dryer is a Zanussi 1250 Jetstream. My old one was a 1050 or possibly an 1150.

Remember, Remember The Fifth of November...
Oh, but I do.

Three years ago today, I was lying in bed, late at night. You know that wintry weather that smells cold? I could hear fireworks, and smell the smoke from bonfires, and I fell asleep.

Suddenly, I woke up to the sharp piercing noise of the smoke alarm in the living room. Half-asleep, I open my bedroom door, and the whole hall is filled with a kind of dirty brown smoke that chokes me. Panicking, I run and wake up my flatmate. I open the flat's front door and my downstairs neighbour is there (she sleeps just below my smoke alarm) - everything OK? This all happens in about one millisecond. We go to the kitchen, and through the smoke can see that the washing machine is on fire. Actually, it's not even a very big fire, it's just the plastic burning creates an evil smoke that feels like it'll kill you.

Now, of course, I know about electrical fires, but I don't at 1am in the morning in a panic, so I filled a bucket of water, and threw it on the fire. Never do that, kiddies. The fire seemed to go out, and so did everything in the whole house, as I'd fused all the electrics. I was calm-and-panicky at the same time, and didn't really know what to do. I decided to call the fire brigade because I didn't know if the fire was out: they arrived in about two minutes (but then the fire station is at the end of Mill Lane, but still, it was bonfire night). They made sure the fire was out, gave us oxygen, and said "another one of those Zanussi washer-dryers bursting into flame?" They also told me never to throw water on an electric fire.

I told them that my favourite piece of no-longer-in-production SecretSupportTM underwear was locked in the mangled remains of the washer, and they extracted it for me. I had a half awareness that I used to work with someone who had a real thing about firemen and I had like four in my house. If you're wondering where my flatmate was, she'd gone round to her boyfriends (previous flatmate, I should say), so there I was, in my still semi-smoke-filled house, no electricity, lights &c, wondering what to do. The damage was minimal: couple of burned cupboards, but the granite work tops seemed to have stopped the fire spreading too far.

In the end, at around 2am I called an electrician, who fixed everyything for some huge middle-of-the-night call-out charge. As I was writing him a cheque he said to me, "ever wanted to change your life? I'm involved in a slef-improvement scheme that - ". I stopped him there: I don't want to be sold into a pyramid selling scheme at the best of times, but never when my house has narrowly escaped from burning down.

Went back to bed. Couldn't sleep. All the might-haves floating through my mind: what if I didn't have a smoke alarm? What if I didn't wake up? What if -

My insurance company insisted that they replace the machine with the exact same one. Zanussi refused to admit any kind of responsibility. For a few days, no-one would take away the old machine. The insurance company sent professional cleaners in, but for months later, everytime I opened a cupboard bits of black smoke-stuff fell out.

The moral of the story? (1) Avoid buying a Zanussi washer-dryer at all costs (a few months later, I met a bloke at a party whose whole house had burned down. Same model). (2) Never leave the dryer on when you go to bed/go out. (3) Always check the batteries in your smoke alarm.

Can't believe that I just updated my anti-virus software, and now this happens. I just want there to be one, fixed, reliable thing in the world that I can trust. Please.

Have I Got Tickets For You
I don't think Angus Deayton is any kind of virtuous paragon, but I really don't want to see Anne Robinson treat everyone like shit. Apparently 6.6 million people tunedin on Friday, for Paul Merton's stand-in show, highest ever and all that.

I don't really understand. During Angus' first set of "misdemeanours" in the summer, it was all a bit of a laugh, no crime implied, but now suddenly Hat Trick are moral arbiters who say and nay-say what's allowed. He's probably not doing anything different than most men in the country, just that he happens to have enough of a degree of celebrity for it to make the papers. When a bloke from my parents' community set up another household, with another wife and children, it wasn't exactly all over the front of the Sun. See.

The question is, does fame mean you have to be more virtuous? There may be an argument that you're an example to the kids and all that, but so was John Major. There are no virtuous people left, that's the truth. Just people who haven't been found out yet.

Side-issue: I have four tickets to see HIGNFY recorded (as it's abbreviated to - pronounced higg-nuf-fie - I once read a whole interview with Paul Merton without realising that HIGNFY stood for something) on Thursday 19 December. I'll probably use two of them... I'm considering throwing the other two open to whoever x2 writes what I deem to be the most entertaining comment here.

Or I may not.

Off to stay with my cousins in the holy N2 postcode for Shabbat. Now the hour's changed, it gets dark really early. Back tomorrow afternoonish, but I've promised myself that I will go to the gym on the way back. And then I'm out on the town. I may be gone for some time, as they say.

Just glanced at the class timetable at my gym, and squeezed between iyengar yoga and cardio kickbox, was this one: MARITAL ARTS. Of course, it doesn't really say that. Just a frame of mind, I guess.

Last night, went out with F for my favourite dinner-in-London experience - Lebanese at the bottom of the Edgware Road. My birthday seems to be going on forever, which is cool, and we went to the Maroush on Seymour Street.

My optimal meal always includes humous, and ocassionally includes felafel, and we had a veritable feast of middle-eastern dippy things; baba ganoush, fouls medames, tabbouleh. Fabulous. And of course, mint tea and sticky cakey things.

I used to have a job round there, in a truly English place where they thought I was ethnic because of my curly hair. Which I guess I was. And also because of my pushy personality. I mean friendly. So because Lebanese restaurants are full of the kind of people you see in Israel: overweight men and shouty people, I always feel very at home, and the menu is food I understand. When I used to take my work colleagues there, they were terribly impressed that (a) I knew enough arabic to order (and that's only because it's pretty much like Ivrit), (b) I wasn't fazed by the shoutiness, and (c) the bottom of the Edgware Road is a parallel universe where women like me - zaftig, buxom, womanly - are looked upon adoringly. So I always get fabulous service, baklawa on the house, and lots of admiring looks.

Was weird being back there: the whole area has a feel of being on holiday somewhere Mediterraneanish. And also reminded me never to talk myself into a job that requires me to straighten my hair. Which I did, but that's another story.

Tech Question
Anyone know why my clients don't seem to be able to open my word attachments in my Outlook (not express) email?

I know, it sounds like that horrid faux-dotcom TV show, Attachments. Sorry.