The Value of Failure Symposium at the Tate. This, sounds right up my street. What with my consistent failures. I'd like to get some value out of them.

I know self-googling always comes to no good, but I had a legitimate reason.

Honest.

Turns out I came 1,578th out of 1,700-odd people in the Southend 10k race in 2003. I always knew I wasn't so good at sport.

The Women's Torah Project - the first sefer Torah scribed by a woman.

Anne Widdecombe and Esther Rantzen are talking about sex education and it's hysterical. Anne's position (the kids are having sex because it's "cool") is the voice of someone who lives at home with her mother and clearly never had the faintest inkling of teenage sex.

An abstinence campaign works well in "some areas of the States" because - I'm guessing - it's the bible belt, full of people with religious convictions. What Esther calls "the more authoritarian morality". While her phrase is laden with personal angles, I think it's true.

And I really think Anne Widdecombe sounds... frustrated? About something, clearly.

Urban Junkies made the Guardian on Monday.

Juggling a squillion and two projects, but took a couple of hours out this afternoon to go to the Netimperative Blogging Roundtable. Felt something of a fraud, because I was "just a blogger" and everyone else had a corporate/business model agenda: Six Apart, MSN, the BBC, Shiny Media, the ubiquitious blogging consultants and a couple of super switched on PR people.

In a very old-media way I probably need a bit of time to process the conversation instead of blogging straight out of my head. But there was interesting information about new platforms and technology, moblogging, RSS feeds to your phone, and great discussion about who's gonna read papers in the future (me, since you ask).

Even though I probably knew this already it became clear to me that there is a bunch of people making serious money out of weblogs. While that is not my agenda and I blog for fun rather than profit, I think I've started a process running in the back of my mind ("kill -9 moneymakingideas").

I also discovered Treonaut, Longtail, that people use the phrase "the blogosphere" not ironically, and that after all these years of saying NO-key-a, it turns out I should be saying no-KEY-a.

So I'm watching the news on London Tonight right now, and I want to know who's bright idea it was, for the London Eye story, to have the presenter standing in front of an image of the Eye, and put the text to the story in an arc over the Eye. Artistic, sure, but unreadable.

I am unspeakably delighted to hear that the OFT is finally onto the banks.

Here's what happens. I'm self employed, a good chunk of my client still - archaically - pay by cheque. Whole separate issue about how cheques never really clear and they can get the money back like a year later.

So let's say I invoice someone on 1st May, 14 days terms. They usually pay in three weeks or a month. Fine. Then they post me the cheque. It takes a few days. Then I generally wait till I'm next in town to go to the bank.

It takes "three working days" to "clear". So if I pay it in on Monday afternoon, it's not in my account till Thursday. Then, if it's over a not so huge amount, it takes four or five working days.

Because my work is project based, I tend to invoice for largeish sums, not that often. A couple of months ago, I paid in a chunky cheque, waited the three days, found out from my branch that it's five days if it's a largeish sum. Six days later, no money. I call my branch, they don't know where it is, "out there in the ether" is the phrase that - from memory - they used.

Eventually, it turned up. I worked out that the lost interest for the three missing days was around £4.10.

If there are 60 million people in the country, and this happens once a year (and it happens more often to me) to just 10% of them, that's £24.6m.

And banks make you pay charges.

Wot no Today programme? I was lying in bed thinking "Dizzy Gillespie's nice, and all, but surely there's some real news?" when I realise that people at the BBC are on strike. Power to the workers and all that, but I know people at the BBC. Surely someone would have told me? My day is all out-of-kilter now: I'm having to watch TV and I have to be at Aldgate to talk about project finance in Somewherestan at 8am and I've not even heard the news.

I'm a delicately balanced creative flower. Don't change anything without telling me, OK?

Somebody - looking out of my window, it looks like the people on the corner on Minster Road and Shoot-up Hill - is having the loudest party known to man. And I should know: from my bed, the bass beat is so loud, I thought it was my neighbours upstairs. They who woke me up this time last weekend. I just called Camden's weekend noise service, where the website says they're around till 4am. Turns out, they're around only till 3.30, because they do their last call then. "You should update your website" it what I said to the friendly - ozzie - Camden phone operative. Although not quite as politely.

You know how I've written a lot about encoded antisemitism (for a while, I was the only person on the internet who said it.)

Well, something happened the day after the election - a Friday - that had me thinking.

So I was sitting in Starbucks in Hampstead at 5pm, waiting to meet my cousin. (She is 17, and didn't want to be seen with me in Golders Green Starbuck. Let's face it: I'm not 17).

The place was heaving with kids. Really heaving: like two hundred young people aged twelve to fifteen or sixteen, I'd guess.

Why? Some famous North London B-lister (Cat Deely? They've all merged in my mind) was there, and they were all running around getting her to sign their exercise books while she drank her non-fat decaff coffee-free beverage. Because she is about two inches wide, I do not exaggerate. She clearly doesn't eat. Zaftig, she's not.

So the nice ozzie and kiwi women who work in Starbucks were tearing their hair about it, because the real customers were not having a nice time, and we pay like five earth pounds for a cup of coffee, so it should at least be calm, like the advertised third space.

The Starbucks people started moving the young people on, "time to go folks, nothing more to see here," and they were friendly and charming about it in the way that only antipodeans can be.

Eventually, there was one gaggle of three gangly boys, not drinking a Starbucks beverage. They looked to me like the kind of North London boys I see all the time: the kind of cocky swagger and radiccio that comes from a private school education. Some call it polish. I disagree.

She went up to them. "Time to go, boys," she smiled. "Why?" One of them retorted. "Cat Deeley's gone, and you're not drinking anything, so it's time to go."

One kid stands up, and shouts at her, "you're just being anti semitic."

I am open mouthed. The Starbucks worker is shocked and embarassed.

The kid continues: "it's because I'm Jewish," he says in no imitation at all of is-it-bicoz-I-is-black.

I'm not prepared to be a bystander, so I go up to this group, and say to the boy, "she didn't say anything anti semitic."

He thinks he can mess with me. "Yeah, she did. It's cos I'm Jewish."

I turn to the Starbucks worker and say I'm sorry, and that I didn't think she was being anti semitic.

Then I say to the kid: "people like you cause anti semitism. This woman hasn't said anything wrong and you should apologise to her."

He looks like he still wants to have a go.

"Look," I say to him, "you should learn to behave with more respect to people, and just leave before I ask you who you parents are."

He ran, with his mates.

And they looked to me like kids whose parents had never said to them, "you know, son, you might sometimes be wrong."

Oh, I wish I'd entered the Cooling The Tube competition. Handing out ice-lollies. Posters of snowmen. I'm sure I could have come up with something.

I love the internet.

This is why I love the internet.

I am number five for the google search "Jewish record Does that mean youre not coming."

And finding me, someone who was sitting around in their house saying "what was that record my parents used to listen to? You know, with that gag? Does that mean you're not coming."
And then they thought hey, I'll check out that interwebnet thing and now they know it's You Don't Have To Be Jewish.

QED.

This is great.

Art of sorts..

Image(261)
Originally uploaded by sashinka-uk.

I took this underneath the Trocadero by Haymarket: it's one in a series of adverts for Lillywhites (the sports store).

I'm loving the limitations of my camphone. Only a month ago I was moaning that I had a phone that thinks it's a camera (Nokia 7610) and now I feel like an intrepid photo-journalist.

A bit.

But, most fun you can have with your clothes on etc.

So you're dying to know which carrot cake recipe I used at the weekend, I know. In the end, I made Delia's Low-fat Moist Carrot Cake which was nice, but not overwhelming. I think I made a strategic error not making the High Fat/Ultimate Version, which I later discovered is the one B makes. And he's a guy who knows from recipes.

Did you watch Paul Abbot on the South bank show? You know, the Shameless guy?

I think - judging by the image of his house we saw - he lives in Didsbury.

Didsbury is the West Hampstead of Manchester, but with nicer houses.

I have become obsessed by Sudoku - even though I haven't finished one yet. But better, is Japanese-English: Let's go to WHSmith, clasping £2.75! Yes, let's.

I think it's good for my brain: I read somewhere that crosswords and the like can stave off Alzheimers, even though it's - probably/hopefully - a way off. So I'm still training on the Evening Standard easy crossword - it's basically just vocabulary - and I never get more than 75%. Call myself a wordsmith. But last night's ES sudoku, I couldn't even get started. I've been doing them here, and at least I can get started, but I can't finish those, either.

And I market myself as a completer-finisher. That could be a lie.

rainbow babe

rainbow babe
Originally uploaded by sashinka-uk.

That's me; well, my shadow. Great weekend: people over for lunch (must write more about my recipes, I know), mellow watching-TV kinda evening on Saturday, great walk to Hampstead and the Camden Arts Centre, winding out way through West Hampstead and ending up at Yo Sushi. Summer was made for this.

You know, they offered me a slot on the Canne judging panel, but I was washing my hair. In a kabbalistic fashion, of course, Esther. Sheesh.

Perhaps I'm showing my age, but I liked the old BBC weather symbols.

purple chocolate flan

purple chocolate flan
Originally uploaded by sashinka-uk.

Let's just say: I'm discovering my creative side.

Here is what I have surmised about my neighbour from this brief interlude:

She is going on holiday with her brother, even though (a) she is an adult woman with a partner, (b) he is wearing a trilby at 5am

They are going abroad, or at least somewhere that involves an airport. Because there is no reason on god's earth to get a taxi at 4.45 if you are not

Also, it is the airport, because he has that irrational panic people have when they think they are going to miss a plane. "Where's Lucy! The taxi's here!"

It's very possible her brother has Asbergers, or some other form of low-functioning autism, because the only way I could get him to stop was to go downstairs and talk to him through the glass door. I clearly told him what flat she lived in, and then he rang someone else.

Or, he's eccentric. Hat, that early in the morning. Even I don't do that.

She doesn't read her emails, because we are in the middle of buying our freehold, and if she's gone somewhere that involves airport travel, she won't be coming to our leaseholders meeting on Monday.

She has gone on this holiday - if it is one - with her brother, leaving her partner at home to play loud music and invite girls round. I have seen these girls: they have flat stomachs, pierced belly buttons and wear hoodies. If this was Bluewater, we'd have to arrest them.

I know, I should stop my brain working and go back to bed. And I also know that when I tell my friends with children this story, attempting to elicit sympathy, but not in a passive-agressive way, they'll just - perhaps a little competitively - say, "that's nothing, I haven't slept for 2/3/5 years."

D, on the other hand, has slept through most of this. I'm glad it wasn't the Nazis.

On the other hand, this time of the morning is quite nice. The light is pink and hazy and the city is strangely quiet. There's a stillness, even in zone two, that's eery. Like I'm in some kind of Doctor Who eposide where the time warp has taken everone away. Even the buses.

There's a top lip of frost of my neighbour's roof, and the only noise I can hear is the whirring of my hard disk. The reviews at the time said it was noisy, but I never knew, until now.

Someone rang my front doorbell at quarter to five in the morning. On a weekend. And then they were rude to me.

It's my neighbours brother. He's wearing a strange hat. He has the air of international travel about him. He doesn't appear to know which flat she lives in. After I told him which flat, I heard him ring someone else.

People are strange, in the words of the song.

Someone googled on "tall Jewish men" and found this post in my archives.

Man, that feels like such a long time ago. Obviously I've not heard from H for aeons, or even had him cross my mind. Last I heard he'd sold his flat, dropped out of the city and was living off the capital, earning his crust through a combination of property-get-rich-quick schemes and offering his services as a counsellor. Hearsay: that might all be fifth hand.

But through the power of the internet I know exactly what he's doing at the Irish Institute of What The F*ck.

Hugh Hands volunteers two days of his time a week, counselling clients on a one-to-one basis and facilitating group psychotherapy and healing sessions. "I have regular clinical supervisions with the lead therapist or project director, and after each group there is a lengthy debriefing where we share information about what has surfaced and they check in with me around how I'm feeling around what has come up," he said.

Glad to see his still talking cr*p, then.

Turns out I'm not the only person who thinks Mork had Aspergers.

I heard that Jennifer Willbanks is toast.

Richard the Lionheart

Richard the Lionheart
Originally uploaded by sashinka-uk.

Yesterday. On my mobile phone (Nokia 6710) and played around with it in micro$oft paint. I am happy. I can make things.

I can't believe I'm already getting Flickr spam. Anyone for Nichiren Shoshu?

Recent stuff:

The Vagina Monologues with S: fun, but like being at a very large hen party for a former work colleague where you're a little surprised she included you

Hitchhiker's movie: good, yeah, and while it's unfair to say "you know all the jokes" you kinda do. Worst thing: half the people have inexplicable american accents, and it's turned into a love story. P-u-leese.

Turner Whistler Monet yesterday at the Tate Britain: enjoyable, but really really overcrowded.

very into my flickr/phonecam combo: I mean, so far, I haven't had to pay for anything (though I'm getting near my free limit), I'm a truly crap photographer, but I'm really enjoying accessing my visual creativity. Even if it is largely in closeup.

Howard stands down as Tory leader. They'll probably live off Sandra's advance (apparently, she's a romantic fiction writer.)

Originally uploaded by sashinka.

Showing my age, clearly, but today, we're going through the ARCHED window.

One of those days: late night/early morning with the election. That, coupled with the most evil PMT is conspiring to put me in a head-down/hide-in-the-corner mood.

I guess one of the good things about being self-employed is that when you have a bad hair day/just a bad day, you can "take a day off".

I've got loads to do (three new clients in as many weeks, so can't complain), and I've churned through some stuff this morning after my 8am start, and had an OKish week, work-wise, so maybe I'll just: you know.

Do people still read this? I had a lot of stats-spam this week, and it was kinda hard to tell who was real and who was some kinda bot.

I feel delicate.

Humour me.

What's it all for?

local graffiti
Originally uploaded by sashinka.

Picture says it all, really. On the way to the polling station opposite Kilburn tube.

Obviously I'm not always up at 6am, but I found myself half watching the election results all night.

So Labour have an historic third term. Let's hope Tony's got enough of a shock to listen to the electorate; yes to new green strategies; yes to pensions reform and filling the savings gap; no to council tax reform; no to more stupid piblic sector bean-counting style jobs. And no to war: apologise for all those lives you lost for some kind of oil-related jingostic presidential kick.

A president you're not. On the way home last night I saw a sticker that at first glace said Blair, but on closer inspection said BLIAR. Let's hope Tony learns some humility and honesty, stops sweating guiltily, and does something to earn my trust back. Let's hope "govern responsibly" isn't more spin. 'Cos frankly, Tony, I can see right through you.

I go on about this all the time, but I just think that things are less... accurate than they were in the old days. You know, the eighties. Nineties, even.

More typos. In books, even. Often in newspapers and increasingly frequently, bad grammar/punctuation in adverts.

So check out this Transport for London red route PCN Payment site. It asks for your PCN (penalty charge notice) number and your VRM (vehicle registration number). That should be VRN, right?

Sheesh. And we're just about to vote in Labour for an unprecedented third term. Not that it's relevant. But they have created loads more public sector jobs, and there should be a Director of Spelling and Accuracy at TFL, for sure.

So The Apprentice is over. Gripping TV. Although, if you really wanted a job like that you'd network one, you wouldn't go on TV, so they're all flawed in some way.

Not least, Sebastian Schrimpff, a Cambridge-educated investment banker who set up Heritage Capital Partners but can't spell independent. Call me a pedant, if you must.

Kinda weird news of the day: Jewish comedy favourite in German 'Oscars'.

Don't get me wrong - I love Desperate Housewives with a passion not seen since the second series of ER, but there's one thing that does my head in.

Can you guess?

I love the characters, and the dialogue, and I'm totally enthralled by the plot (who knew Dana was a boy's name?), but I just can't bear the Jerry Springer moralising voice-over at the end of each episode.

I'm not dumb. Writers: you never heard the "show don't tell" mantra of every single writing course I've ever been on? Leave something to my imagination/brain, don't dot all the i's and cross all the t's.

Unless... it's not designed for a British audience?

I'm not saying you're not bright. Just that stating the obvious is often the middle name of our friends across the pond.

Watching a BBC4 thing on BBC2 about Russell T. Davies. He's got a great accent. He lives in Manchester (judging by the exterior shot of his house, in a thirties semi in Didsbury/Chorlton). He's buddies with Christopher Eccleston. He's the (new) Dr Who writer. He used to do Why Don't You... I've learned a lot, tonight.

i love shoes
Originally uploaded by sashinka-uk.

Absolutely true. Did I mentioned I have a flickr?

the weeeman

the weeeman
Originally uploaded by sashinka-uk.

Bank holiday Monday, D and I made a trip to the southbank, and checked out the weeeman, the You Are Exhibition at the Design Museum and wandered along the river with the hordes of other people who couldn't believe how nice the weather was.

I don't even know what NNDB stands for, or whether the Data Protection Act approves of keeping people's religion (sensitive data) in a public database, but it turns out Patrick Marber's Jewish.

Who knew?

Guess what? I just got a personal, hand-delivered and hand-signed letter from Glenda Jackson begging for my vote ("a vote for any party other than Labour is a vote for the Conservatives").