What are the TRACHTENBURG FAMILY SLIDESHOW PLAYERS about?

They kinda look like people in those bizarre seventies photos you find in your grandma's old cupboard. Anyway, they're at the Soho Theatre tomorrow and Thursday. Last chance to catch their weirdness in London before they go off and do whatever it is they do. Impersonate my old English teacher.

I'm kinda tempted, actually. Weird is my thing.

While I'm not a New Yorker (yet...), I'm very excited about seeing Modern Orthodox at Dodger Stages. It's a gal's dream come true: I know I'm showing my age if I say The Breakfast Club defined my early teenage fashion sense - listen to those pink bangles jangle - for this you get not one, but two celebrities-formerly-known-as: Molly Ringwald (every John Hughes movie ever) and Jason Biggs (American Pie) grapling with issues of faith and each other. Allegedly. They use Yiddish words, and everything. Only in New York, as they say. Or, as my grandma used to say, Merikey.

Tuesday, Two Weeks Back

The bad karma fairy has got my number.

I woke up with the residue of last night’s tears in my ears, turning my uncleaned earwax into a squelchy mess. Perhaps this is too much information, and you're not impressed. I was not impressed. But then sometimes when you’re upset, you are slightly unimpressive. A friend did something unspeakable to me, and I am humiliated, angry, and slightly shocked by my own bad judgement.

I imagine that the bad karma fairy wears broken purple wings, teamed with a purple tired shaggy seventies jacket that she picked up in a charity shop at the bottom of the Holloway Road.

My neighbour blocked my car in for the third time in as many weeks. Thoughtful is not her middle name. Also, her boyfriend practices being a DJ at 170 million decibels whenever I have a headache. I suspect he is psychic.

The bad karma fairy also has a tinselly glittery wand; a cast off from a kid who was bought it in Claire’s Accessories, but saw a better quality wand in John Lewis’s toy department.

I had so many plans to do good in the world, visit my friend’s grandma in hospital, bake a cake for a neighbour with a bad back, and also do some personal things like rewrite my list and see the Black British exhibition at the V&A, but the evil impulse reached right inside me, kneading my resolve into a demented laziness that spread over the day.

The bad karma fairy is kinda like a cross between Lucille Ball and Tabitha from Bewitched, but with technology: she has a lot of people’s numbers and she stores them in her aging mobile phone. She wishes she knew how to upgrade her contract. But then, mostly, she doesn’t call people, she just visits.

.... found this on my PC. It's kinda creative writing, kinda real. I feel better now, obviously.

Are you - Indeed - looking for a job? Then this could be the (US) place.

From staff writer to business guru in, ohhhh, just a few years? How did that happen?

Malcolm Gladwell, or, as Fast Company (and there's a name from the dotcom era you don't hear about much any more) call him The Accidental Guru.

My Unagi is at low ebb. Or at least, it was back in June. And I'm hoping the other guy's unagi doesn't pick it up.

Hello. Sorry I've not said anything all day. Been out and about; clients, friends, cooking, dinner, Baileys/butterscotch schnapps cocktails. You know how it is.

I went to Brent Cross by mistake on Friday lunchtime. It took two hours to leave. I forgot it was xmas. I could I forget? Search me.

How is it for you?

And it turns out Kimberly was also having an affair with Simon Hoggart. It's a wonder she had time to straighten her hair.

Blunkettgate

While this may or may not be good-for-the-Jews, I might as well add my twopennorth on Kimberly Solomon/Fortier/Quinn and the Blunkett Affair. Here's an outrageous piece from the Indepedent, slagging her off in a right royal way.

See, I've wondered since I first saw that clearly-straightened hair and her Monica-Lewinsky JAPPY looks. Then I find out she was a judge on The Jewish Quarterly's Wingate prize. Then I heard tell that she'd been involved in the JCC project. Then I saw a picture in today's Observer of her pre-straightened hair.

Let's face it. She's MOT/one of us/unzerer/however you say it.

Pushy/demanding Jewish women? Nah.

There is no place in the world where Chanukah rhymes with bazuka. Whatever beautiful music you make (weapon of mass affection) it just doesn't scan. OK?

You a flashmobber? Then be at London Pillow Fight Club on Monday.

Remember I told you a few weeks back about the 1920's diary that had been found in an Oxfam shop? Well, Oxfam have really got their act together, because a reprint/facsimile is out in time for Xmas: The Original Bridget Diary. £6.99 in shops (Oxfam only, as far as I can tell) or £9.99 incl P&P from the website.

Oh, hang on, I've read it properly now (oh, the internet age). It's a 2005 diary, with a facsmile of Ilene's original, as well as your diary.

They discovered it on November 24th. The world moves fast, now.

More cultural-Jew stuff: West London Synagogue runs a cinema club on Thursday nights.

Are you voting for the The Today Programme's Listeners' Lord? You've only got till the 23rd December.

What to do if you're a cultural Jew...

About three times in the last week, friends/acquaintances/people I meet at parties, have said varying versions of the same sentence: "I'm Jewish, but I don't like going to shul. I'm not religious. What can I do in London?"

This is my list:

hang out at the Heeb Film Festival this weekend, at the Everyman in Hampstead. They're showing free shorts most of the time, and the sofas are velvet. Need I say more?

sign up for the YadArts mailing list. They're strapline is "radical diaspora culture in the present tense" and they do a range of club nights/gigs/art stuff that is edgy and cool and inherently Jewish, but not in a crass way

go to Jewish Book Week in February. This is the most Jewish-intellectual fun you can have with your clothes on. Two years ago I heard the most entertaining exchange between Melvyn Bragg and Will Self where Will kept calling Melvyn Lord Bragstein, and outed himself as a "deracinated Jew" and "only Jewish Quarterly". Last year Jaques Derrida was there (he was alive)

go to Limmud. Called "the Jewish Edinburgh Fringe", the biggest event is conference in Nottingham over the Xmas week, but there's also day events all over the country - I think about ten next year

sign up to the Joseph's Bookstore mailing list. They're in Temple Fortune (NW11) and do a whole range of events ranging from cultural to literary and back. Cafe Also is next door, I think they own it, and it's kinda like 1920's Vienna, but cooler

if you are of a holocaust/twentieth century Jewish history bent, then check out the events at the Wiener Library/Institute of Contemporary History. I've been to a couple of these, because I'm contractually bound to do all things Holocaust-related, and the other attendees are a mix of age ranges, and many of them speak with mittel European accents

get coffee in Hampstead on a Saturday or Sunday morning. The Coffee Cup is best

if you're interested in music, check out the Jewish Music Institute's website; they do a whole range of courses, and gigs and klezmer and all that kinda jazz

if you're of the evening class/short course bent, try the London Jewish Cultural Centre, the LJCC, which I think grew in some post-political way out of the Spiro Institute. I heard Andrew Davies talking about writing the screenplay for Daniel Deronda, it was fab. Go by tube; the few available parking spaces are grasped by people with bigger cars and more parking-nerve than you'll ever have

if you like writing, then do any creative writing course at The City Lit (creative writing is a subsection of humanities, in their world). While this is not a foolproof way to do Jewish stuff, everytime I've done a class, about three Jews have outed themselves to me, and become firm friends

likewise, the one time I went to Skyros, on the last day, the six people I'd hung out with all outed themselves to me as Jews. One was a South African woman whose great aunts were all called Essie and Effie and Emmie, like mine. One was a biker who lived on Cricklewood Broadway who told me that the day after his Barmitzvah at Lauderdale Road Synagogue, his entire family converted to Christianity. One was a guy from Manchester, covered in amazing dragon tattoos, who told me his Mum was from Broughton Park, but when she married out, her family disowned her. One was an angsty accountant from Stanmore who couldn't stop talking about his therapist. So if you're into a personal development shtick, this is for you. Dina, the woman who founded it, did once say to me, "I guess I did kinda base the whole concept on Ha-bow-nim Summer Camp." There's even toranut (washing up duty)

There was a kinda Jewish scene happening at Powers Bar in Kilburn on a Thursday night. Don't know if there still is

keep watching for the launch of the London JCC - it's gonna be funkier than you can imagine. In a Jewish way

This list is a work in progress, so I'd value any suggestions you have.

There are a lot more Jews in Africa than you think.

I have a favicon. I am complete.

I wrote a list on Monday of everything I wanted to blog. Sadly, I no longer know what the list means:

heels

oversheep

list

people on a train

As soon as I work it out, I'll tell you something.

Wednesday night, I had a bunch of friends coming round for an (informal) dinner. Went to Tescos sixish, did my shopping, came home, did some work, made chili. B and M turned up around 8.45, and we were just chatting and waiting for the others when I get a call from my gym.

I should say here that I (sadly) haven't been to the gym for months because of my ankle, so I was surprised to see The Gym flash up on my phone.

"Hello Sasha, it's The Gym. A guy just called us and said you've lost your wallet in Tescos. He's there now, this is his number."

So I call the guy, and he says he's there now, he found it in the car park, and do I want to come back and collect it? My sensible friend M is mouthing "why doesn't he just hand it in?" but I figure if he has my wallet five minutes away, I should just go and get it. Maybe he wants something for it, I ask my friends. B wants M to go with my because it sounds a weird situation. We talk about taking a bottle of wine, but I just jump in the car.

I call him when I get there, and he's walking out of Tesco, and gives me my wallet and says, with a rather thick Israeli accent that I didn't catch on the phone "check it's all there," and as his wife comes out with her head covered, and pregnant, I look at them in their Ner Yisroel (modern orthodox Hendon shul) get up and think gosh.

I say I'm sure I don't have to look inside, and thank him profusely. He says his wife lost her wallet a few weeks ago and he knows what hassle it is. I ask him if I can give him something, and he says of course not. I say he has good middos, and he smiles a didn't-think-you-were-Jewish smile.

My faith in human nature has been utterly, totally restored.

When I get home 10 minutes after I left, B says "lucky you didn't take the wine."

On Writing

I used to go to a writing class which was a show-and-tell. You know the deal. Everyone brings their work, and you have to sit through other people's 20 minutes of shame till it's your turn for the limelight. Not that everyone thinks like that. But in my old class there was a woman writing (badly) about her experiences with a Neasden drug baron and pimp, a woman writing about people on the tube. And a bloke with a lot of angst who used his slot to say how he couldn't write anything.

I'm not saying I didn't learn anything, just that it was unstructured and... slightly competitive, even. The teacher inadvertantly set up a teacher's pet type thing, and we were all vying for her love like some kind of dysfunctional writing family.

Then I randomly - through the joy of the internet - found Diane Samuels, award-winning playwright of Kindertransport (among many other things); you can read more about her here (although I suspect it's a little out of date).

She's opening up her class, which will be alternate Wednesday's in the new year, and there's also a one-off evening workshop on January 3rd.

I've been to a lot of writing classes in my time, and what I love about Diane's are: (1) she was a teacher before she was a writer, and it shows, (2) it's not a bring-and-share, but more of a creativity workout. I often come home buzzing with creative energy, and find it very inspiring, (3) other interesting people go.

If you want to know more, you can mail Diane directly.

I wrote Urban Junkies today (it's on there today, I think).

See you later?

So I know that my first response to a news story shouldn't be about Jew spotting, but I couldn't help wondering, when reading this horrible story about honour killings' in the Asian community, about her Jewish boyfriend's name.

Temple Jazac. Is that, like, his porn star name?

A special last-night-of-Chanukah thing, here's My Menorah (if you're at work, turn the sound down).

In the spirit of those tochniot at machaneh where you spent an inordinate amount of time writing words about how great Bnei Akiva was to fit it with some eighties song, I give you the original lyrics: My Sharona.

Aside: I have just shared an amusing five minutes asking two friends for the Hebrew word for song-made-up-for-new-purpose-in-Jewish-youth-movement. I think I may have imagined that this word ever existed. L was a little nervous that I would write on my weblog that he didn't know the word and everyone would know. Which thought had never crossed my mind until he said it. Hello, L.

Second aside: had lengthy conversation with a friend who's an academic over lunch on Shabbat about if you italicize Yiddish/Hebrew words, which I generally have to point out they're not English. As if you didn't know already. She convinced me that it also indicates an otherness, and given that they're (a) not other to me, and (b) generally work-out-able from the context, I have entered a new era where I don't do it anymore.

See. That's just for emphasis. Which is OK. Apparently.

Remember when I sprained my ankle?

June 2003. That's eighteen months ago. And my GP told me to walk through the pain?

Turns out I've had a broken ankle for 18 months. Which will explain why I can't play netball or do aerobics. Just back to the Free to get another x-ray.

What's your Ecological Footprint (12 Simple Questions Assess Your Use of Nature). I need at least three planets. Or if everyone lived like me, we'd need three.

Interesting. Sadly, doesn't work in Mozilla. Tut tut.

To the person who rolled in here searching on Google Search: pey dalid terrible, I want you to know, that if you're into Jewish renewal/Carlebach music, they're not that bad. And they're nice blokes. Good middos.

I realise all my images have gone. I'm trying to find them. Looked behind the sofa and everything. Regular service will resume shortly.

I have just been patient with my Building Society for 27 minutes, while some woman with a fake soothing voice says she is doing everything she can to answer my call. I suspect not.

Let's just say I'd really like these Pleat Bow Court Shoe in the style of Scarlet Johannsen.

First of all, if you sent me email today, I might not get it for a while. Apart from a brief blip about an hour ago, our mail server is down. So don't think I'm rude - I'm usually rather immediate. As you know.

The Men Who Know (Brad, Yoz and Richard - I'm in a colo, did I say?) are working on it. Could be, er, anytime.

Also, I had my ankle scanned - remember I sprained it last June? - and it turns out that the bone might still be broken. Which is good, because it means I'm not mad that it still hurts, but bad because I might be in plaster for a little bit. Did I mention that I haven't played network or done aerobics for more than a year? Think of all that pent-up energy.

I made a huge batch of chilli for B, but the bag split a little in my car on the way over, and now my car smells like a Mexican bar.

There's only one thing for it. I'm going to N2.

Do I, or do I not want to read The Jane Austen Book Club? Is it good or bad that it's on the Richard and Judy shortlist?

Discuss.

I kinda want to be in a bookclub. And I kinda think they're like paramilitary organisations with crudities.

There's nothing like Brent Cross Tescos at 1130 on a Thursday night to confirm that there's a Jewish conspiracy.

I looked around, and it was 95% people in kippot and sheitels, or overdressed in the way that only frummers can be, and I thought, my my, everyone here is Jewish.

Then I ran into D. He said I was angry. I didn't feel angry, but then it became clear that he's been reading my blog.

Then I ran into the bloke I queued behind two weeks ago (old, frum, surprised I knew Yiddish) and we smiled at each other, and he didn't know how he knew me (apikorsus that I clearly look, in my trousers etc).

I think cashiers in BX Tescos on a Thursday night should wish people gut shabbes. I felt like saying this to the Asian woman on the till, and then I remembered that I'm always getting into little scrapes, and my new MO is to keep out of things, and not do any good deeds.

Sad, I know. But I feel I've been too nice/taken advantage of, and it's got to stop.

Like today, I was in the Starbucks on New Bond Street with C & M, and the guy in front of me, they wouldn't take his switch card for like £3,79, and then he went and got his friend's credit card, and that didn't work, and he didn't have any cash and he was flustered. I had to stop myself from buying his coffee as a seasonal gesture of goodwill to all men. People.

See, that's how bad things have got. I can't even perform a random act of kindness anymore.

But anyway, freilicher chanukah (tonight was day three). I went to a Chanukah party tonight and there were latkes, and sour cream and chocolate money. I was transported.

I've kinda had one of those weeks where the gods of retail therapy and parking shine down upon me.

So Tuesday, I was meeting a buddy for coffee, I was running a little late, and as I drove (I know, I know... call me environmental) to West Hampstead, I saw a parking spot right outside the coffee shop (independent, of course). What are the chances of that?

Had a fab time catching up, and then on the way home, stopped in a charity shop in West End Lane to look at the books, and discovered Bergdorff Blondes for £2. It was begging for me to buy it (not sure I would have spent £10). It's a like great, lazy gossip of a read. And it's clearly begging to be a movie, although it has the weakest of old-fashioned romance plots. But it's the journey, right?

Just what you've always wanted - the Twister duvet cover bed sheet in double king-size & single.

Set includes pillowcase & dice. Dice. Soft fluffy dice, the kind you hang from the rear view mirror of your Ford Cortina.

Brings a whole new meaning to bedtime games.

I know, I know, I could write their copy better than them.

I read this on heardsaid... about how there's a shop in Wavetree (Liverpool) that only sells printer cartridges. But there's never anyone in it.

Personally, I think it's a cult. There's a lot of these shops about, and there always empty: clearly a cover for something more ominous.

Like on East End Road, in East Finchley, there's one of those next door to a shop me and my buddies have wondered about for a long time: Barbados Only Barbados. It's a travel agent.

- Hello, I'd like to go to Marbella.
- I'm sorry, we only arrange trips to Barbados.

They're kinda empty, too.

I think that stretch of East End Road is dedicated to shops of the one-trick pony, cover for something else. There's another one, I just can't remember the unitary thing it does.

I have just discovered the A40 Western Avenue site at Derelict London.

While it sounds like it could be dull - unless you're a transport geek - it's fascinating. The destruction, the ironic planning permission, the beautiful villas.

And look, there's even a book. Leadville - a biography of the A40.

When I write a biography of the A5 (aka Maida Vale/Edgware Road/Kilburn High Road) I'll be sure to ensure my bus stop gets its own chapter.

This is a great story - the diary of a woman living in Bristol in the 1920s was found in an Oxfam shop.

It's such a great insight into past, everyday lives. Although I gather that "making love" is 1920s for "having a snog" in case you're worried.

Kinda reminds me of Simon Garfield's book - Hidden Lives - about everyday people's lives during the war.

My neighbours started drilling at 8am this morning. Anyone I have spoken to today has asked me about it.

I'm really sorry I'm not more upbeat. I'm just sick of everything.

OK, I've officially had enough of my neighbours.

Let me preface this by saying they are really nice people. I like them. But they have been renovating their flat for about four weeks now. Twice they've told me they're "finished" but then they've started drilling pretty damn early both the last weekends, and while I've been at home sick, potentially communing with the silence, they've been drilling away in the background.

I've had a headache since a week last Monday.

And now, it's past midnight, and they're dragging things around in their living room, which is right over my bedroom, and I can't sleep.

I'm tired, emotional, and frankly not to be argued with.

Worried about getting RSI? Jamie Zawinski has covered pretty much everything in My wrists and welcome to them. Read and learn.

OK, that's it. I'm going back to bed.

I can't help thinking that Aubrey de Grey is a certified nutter.

So people will live to 1,000 (yep, you read it right, that number of noughts). Forget our current pensions crisis. Has Aubrey given any thought to the social impact of people living - effectively - forever? Housing? Pensions? Healthcare.

Trim your beard, Aubrey, and do some useful science.

So I do feel marginally better today (which is good, because after I heard a story on the Today programme this morning about TB, I thought if I got any worse, maybe I'd get it checked out, but then I am a hypochondriac, as is my heritage). But I still feel less than regular.

Question is: was really looking forward to staying with some friends in N2 and going out for dinner and everything. Part of me still wants to go; part of me feels like I just want to stay in my own bed and do nothing; part of me doesn't want to let people down; part of me doesn't want to cough over people, although I don't think I'm particularly infectious anymore. I am a woman of many parts.

Waddya reckon?

I realise this is an utterly facile reading of world changing political events, and I'm proving myself to be just the airhead you thought I was. But do all the political goings on in the Ukraine mean that Mike and his compatriots won't make it to Eurovision 2005 in Kiev?

Let's face it, I've not really been out for a week, and I'm feeling pretty shit. It started off as a cold, now I have blocked sinuses, a sore throat, a hacking cough, blocked ears, and a slight inability to breathe.

Luckily, I don't have any work. But the worst thing is the TV. I mean, what else am I supposed to do? But I think I'm turning into one long property show, replete with charming regionally accented presenters, ocassionally interspersed with two middle class people sitting on a sofa talking about celebrities. They always go "and now for something completely different" before moving onto property.

Maybe the Lemsip's addled my brain: I'm living in a purple fantasy land where you can't trust a French roofer, holiday homes in southern Spain are destined to crack at the corners, people with a lot of money like plastic windows, auctions are only for property and the kind of chatchkes that your grandma wouldn't have in the house, and that all TV programmes are about guessing. How much do you think this house is worth? This georgian wash basin? This French gite. It's all about the money. And the forfeits. And the stupid voiceovers about whether they'll get the house at auction/save £1000 for the wedding dress/find the roofer who knicked the windows of the French farmhouse. Like I care.

I don't care.

Daytime TV is crap. And that's before I talk about the gardening shows. I'm not surprised that people who stay home all day get weird values, bad taste and need a voiceover just to make a (ready steady) meal.

I'm having deja vu. Countdown is on again. Have I been watching TV for 12 hours?

Somehow, I can't help felling that a LaCie Data Bank will make me feel all better. Because they have medicinal properties, apparently.

Who knew that if you wake up at 5am because you feel crap and can't sleep, you can watch Countdown.

Frankly, not exactly taking my mind off it, lexicography. What I need is The House of Eliott (although, sadly, they've still only ever put series one of three out on video/DVD. What am I to do? And don't say call the BBC; I have. I know the guy and everything. It doesn't make any difference.

We're, er, real. The word blog gets into the Merriam-Webster dictionary. And this time, someone managed to write a whole article about weblogs without mentioning Belle de Jour. Think she's back in town?

I think the world is divided into Cillit Bang people and Viakal people.

Which are you?

Yet, again, I have invented a new word.

Yesterday, in a bid to feel less cold-struck and better about the world in general, I had an eyebrowicure. And believe me, good eyebrows are the key to grooming.

Turns out, there's a gezillion websites praying at the altar of eyebrow perfectitude.

The Heeb Magazine inaugaral UK Jewish Film Festival is at the Everyman Cinema (Hampstead, baby) from next Thursday.

My spies tell me that (a) tickets are selling thick and fast, and (b) a small gaggle of uber-funky New Yorkers of the Heeb variety will be in town to see it happen, including editor Josh Neuman (I'm guessing).

Thanks to A Reader (hello, D, didn't know how you felt about me using your name, but anyway, everyone I know is called D) for pointing out Julie Burchill's piece in the Times on her first trip to Israel.

I love the but where she describes her and her companion as "we philistines".

I've probably said this before - I worked with Julie on the Modern Review in the early nineties, and she was a wholesale philosemite: I introduced her to my friend M, and she fell in love with him and kept sending him lillies. He was a bloke from North London who didn't quite know how to respond. Anway. Enjoy.

I can't believe I just said enjoy. It must be my cold.

It's like Friendster. But with kishkes. Chosennet.

Despite everything Yoz said about audio blogging, podcasting has really taken off. I know this because I just watched the Culture Show on BBC2, and saw self-styled Podcast Guru Adam Curry talking about how he thought up the whole thing.

Just then, a mate called to say have you seen the podcasting thing on TV right now? So I missed what the bloked who looked like (read - is) the web guy at the last magazine I worked on. He's a leading UK podcaster. Who knew?

Main question - should I get back to audio blogging?

Ze Frank knows just how I feel. I've been too nice for too long.

So, as it turns out, people in Cricklewood can sleep easily now.

In the States, I think they call them duvet days. Oh, hang on, I think that's calling in sick when you're not.

So - if I had a real job - this would be a legitimate day off. But having mainlined on Heinz tomato soup (the comfort food of my youth; sadly my freezer didn't have any fish fingers, which would have completed it), and watched more TV than is good for you, I know one thing.

Duvets and crap TV doesn't make you feel better. Lemsip and other proper drugs do. So I've watched food porn (just made me feel more ill), house porn (our dream home in Marbella is falling down), and that bizarre Channel 4 ad about what everyone's first job was. I don't understand how TV can be so bad. And I can kinda see why the stay-home generation can't finish a sentence or form an opinion. Do you think having a cold is giving me right wing views on education?

I'm considering seeking out some zinc lozenges.

I have the mother of all colds - perhaps as a result of all the stress - and I haven't been out since Friday, which includes missing two great parties, and lots of fun things I wanted to do yesterday.

Luckily I don't have any work today, but I am feeling a combination of sick and tired and in need of tea (herbal) and sympathy.

In other news, I've been considering whether I'm a Jewish blogger, or a Jewish blog.

This is what blogging is about. A blog from inside the Ukrainian revolution.

My neighbours have been renovating their flat for.... some weeks, I think. And obviously once in a whenever, people do that, and it's unreasonable of me to complain, so I haven't. It's just been bad luck that I've been mostly at home daytimes, due to loss of work, and whereas I'd like to commune with the (zone two) silence, it's kinda noisy.

And now, they've been banging and drilling since about 1030. When I met my neighbour when I went down to get the post, and intimated that it's a weekend, please, he didn't even apologise. In fact, he said "they've only just started."

I've had better days/weeks/months.

Bugger. I forgot to buy everything yesterday so I could buy nothing today (Buy Nothing Day - November 27th 2004). What should I do? Starve? Or buy something. Some choice, huh?

I'm clearly in the wrong job. If I - like Ed Black - was an employee of the CCIA, I might allegedly have received between $2m and $10m. Sheesh.

Oh, I really wish I'd seen Waits live on Tuesday.

Last Wednesday
I neither savoured the day nor collected my dry cleaning. But I saw a woman at the bus stop (that's my personal bus stop) who was pretty, but definitely had a little beard.

Seeing her reminded me that I hadn't plucked my eyebrows, or changed the world in any way, although I had fine-tuned my To Do list. Personal grooming and organisation is vital.

Staring at her beard, trying not to stare, mesmerised. Ripe raindrops fell from the sky at an angle perpendicular to the bus shelter, and hit me in the nose. I got my iPod out, to take my mind off it.

There was a heavy police presence at Kilburn station last week, and a police officer offered me a Minder Personal Alarm. For my keyring.

Do I look like I need protection?

And while I'm on a (Jewish) roll, (rolls? give me an egg cream please), thanks to M for sending me this link.

Maybe because I watched David Baddiel's search for his family last night, in the BBC family history series, partly lost in the Warsaw Ghetto, and partly interred as resident aliens on the Isle of Mann, I'm thinking about my family tree, too. I spent a lot of time doing my geneological research: I've been working on it for ten years, on and off.

I'm lucky that I didn't really lose any family in the holocaust, but this new database from Yad Vashem is an incredible resource for people who did (although I suspect it might be in beta, I just did some generic searches, and it came back blank).

But anyway, check it out: The Central Database of Shoah Victims' Names

Four o'clock in the morning, I should make you an egg creme? Give me an egg creme please was last week's password. Two cents plain is ten cents now.

See, I am a veritable hub of the renaissance in Jewish culture. Thanks to everyone who sent me the Yiddish with Dick and Jane link.

It's fabulous, although in the interest of education, I should tell you there is - of course - a word for gradfather, zaide.

Likewise, turn your speakers down if you're at work and you don't want your coworkers to think that you've crossed the shtetl with some kinda hothousing lingusitics programme.

Thanks to Emma for sening me this, er, musical interlude at jew-heyya. Because Oy is just Yo backwards. Apparently.

I am a veritable hub for all kitschy Jewish stuff, especially if it has a rap/hip hop angle.

(If you're at work, turn your speakers down before you click).

Let's just say the bad karma fairy has my number.

In a big way.

It's obviously Tuesdays, this kinda time - remember last week when I was all over-dramatic (although some say revealing)?

And, in the scheme of things, life isn't so bad. I have a couple of good friends right now who are coping with family illness, or "battling" disease (how I hate that word, battling, I mean, in that context) and my tsores, taken in contextual perspective is nothing. Really. If you don't laugh you'll cry.

I have a (non Jewish) friend who teases me about my desire to overstock my cupboards with "supplies" "because of the war." And it's true: both that I buy canned food and Body Shop tea tree body wash in bulk, and that my collective history colours my actions. I'm a glass smashed rather than a glass half-empty person.

I don't want to be. But I am how I am, and I have to accept myself. So the upside/downside of genetic type A personality (disorder) is that I'm immediate. Faster. Some people read it as agressive, some see it as can-do-ness in the extreme and love it. Clients adore it because they get everything done yesterday. Sometimes, sooner.

Speaking of clients, part of my current hassles are a client who has pissed me around for coming up to six weeks about a particularly large, complex piece of work. And my immediateness means I want it all contracts-exchanged yesterday, and he's vague in the way most people are. But it riled me. A lot. Anyway, longstoryshort, I took other work and it's fine. But it's left a bitter taste. I don't like being taken for granted (they were always "owing me one" for my extensive goodwill, but that's turned a little sour now.) And they owe me 2,500 of your earth bananas, but that's a whole separate fruit salad.

And there was the thing I shouldn't mention that I mentioned last week, Tuesday. I still feel residually riled about that.

And there was another thing. In the summer.

Let's just say all this angst is both my inevitable heritage and bad for my skin.

I remember once, about 107 jobs ago sitting next to a lovely English woman - Belinda - who never got annoyed when the MD kept changing the business strategy while we were at lunch, thus negating all our work. She was just, OK, fine, I'll do it again. I was all, you're so crap, wouldn't the company be much better if I was running it.

This is all an extremely long winded way of saying.... what, exactly?

That I'm having teenage angst, as opposed to teenage kicks, about who I am and why I do what I do and if anyone cares. Or anything. And this time, I didn't even have any Baileys.

* * *

Also. Let's just say there's a lot going on on the home front. I am not thinking of being a TV show, but there's all kinda UPVC window shit happening, and friendlyish debates about parking five cars when only four fit, and buying our freehold and stuff. Stuff. Stuff. There's a lot of it out there.

* * *

In other news, I bought my parents the You Don't Have to Be Jewish record on CD, and I have discovered that their entire repertoire of jokes and passing comments (who's dying? in the front closet? does that mean you're not coming? hello, Louis) are culled from this - some say - seminal spoken word/shtick (there's a genre that's not yet on your iPod) coupla records from the 1960s. Go figure.

* * *

So - in long - let's just say things have not really improved since last Tuesday.

My work could be better - but then it could always be worse - my house is not exactly my castle right now (I get upset every time I come home and see the windows), some of my personal relationships have caused me a good deal of upset (see last Tuesday for details), all the stress has forced me to eat white Kit Kats on an almost moment by moment basis, resulting in bad skin and a rather sluggish feel to my whole body. I think my last cleaner stole my brown and black M&S lace camisole, and they don't sell it anymore, my freezer is very probably on her last legs (they're always female, dontya know), as is my kettle, I suspect, cashflow could be better, and I haven't written a word in my novel for two months because of all the above. And. And. And.

Am I boring you?

Don't read it, then.

The main thing to remember is, I'm a writer.

That is all.

For everyone who loves shoes: shoewawa. Like last night, S came over, and as she was leaving she spied my new Stuart Weitzman shoes (the ones that when I wore them round to a friends house on Friday night, his mother said "how can you walk in those?") and all coversation halted while we cooed like they were a baby.

I'm having one of those ought-to-do-more days; you know. I've got a fair amount to do and can't quite light the pilot light.

And I shouldn't admit that I've put the washing on and I'm watching Trisha . It's like junk food - you know it's bad for you, but you kinda find yourself doing it anyway.

I feel like some kind of social voyeur. It's the adverts, and I might have to go in a minute. Trisha is about to reunite Patricia with her brother Graham, who she's not seen for 25 years. Pauline's crying like a baby: I shouldn't be watching this.

They've just welcomed Graham and she's bawling again. Which is her complete right, but we shouldn't be watching. And now Patricia's told Graham that their mum died two months ago. He's crying.

I'm crying now. Now they're bringing on Wendy , her sister who she's not seen for 45 years. The whole audience is crying.

This is wrong. It's private. Just like I don't want to see Ken Bigley or Margaret Hassan begging for their lives, I don't want to see this. There's a level of emotion that's for families and close friends, it's not for national TV ratings or selling newspapers.

Maybe deep down we need these deep-emotion hits. It's like watching a car crash. The adrenaline reminds us we're alive in an increasingly numb world. But it's still wrong.

But I did watch it to the end.

Must take my washing out now.

And do some work. Maybe.

I've just read the new Habitat catalogue - the one with Very Important Products in it - and on page 268 it tells me to "treat my bedroom as your own personal stage set."

So I've got the lights on order, and the makeup woman is coming over at 11am. I'm learning the script, but I'm nervous of the stage directions.

And I - ocassionally - write copy like that. Oh dear.

Did you know the Economist has an online business encyclopedia?

I must do some shopping before Buy Nothing Day, on Friday.

Sasha’s Middle Eastern Flatbreads *

Ingredients
21g dried yeast or 30g/1 oz fresh
30g/1 oz honey
625ml tepid water
1kg/just over 2lb strong bread flour
30g/1oz salt
2 tblsp whole coriander seeds
2 tblsp whole cumin seeds
extra flour for dusting

For topping
olive oil
unspecified amount of za’atar **


Method
1. Dissolve the yeast and honey in half the tepid water. Leave it for a few minutes - it should bubble up slightly
2. Dry fry the cumin and coriander till the aromas are released – a few minutes. You don’t want them to burn
3. Crack the cumin and coriander a little in a pestle and mortar
4. Put the flour in a large bowl, add the salt and the toasted cracked cumin and coriander seeds
5. Make a well in the middle of the flour and seed mixture, and pour in the dissolved yeast mixture
6. Incorporate the flour and yeast mixture with circular movements with your fingers. Add the rest of the tepid water, till the dough is slightly moist, but hangs together
7. Different flours are different, so don’t worry if you have to add a little more flour/water
8. Knead for five minutes or so. This is both relaxing and good for the dough. Fold it into one final roundish shape, ready for proving
9. Leave the dough to prove – there are two options. One is to put it on a baking tray or bread board and leave it (covered in a clean tea towel). The other is to lightly oil your mixing bowl (don’t worry if it’s a little floury) and put the dough back in there, covered in a tea towel
10. Leave the dough for 40 minutes or so in a warm place – it should double in size
11. This is an ideal time to prepare the other parts of your meal (as if you needed me to tell you that)
12. Knock the air out of the dough with your hands, and then divide up into…. A lot of pieces. I usually make 30 or so, but it depends
13. Roll each piece into a ½ cm thick piece, use a pasty brush to brush with a little olive oil, and sprinkle some za’atar on top
14. Cook a batch at a time, directly on the bars of your preheated oven at 230C/450F – they take about 5 or 6 minutes. They also make your oven completely covered in flour
15. Fabulous served warm from the oven with good quality olive oil, humous, or roasted red pepper dip

* this recipe is based in a Jamie Oliver recipe, although it is now neither Moroccan or with chick peas
** Za’atar is a sumac-based middle eastern herb mixture that you can buy from Seasoned Pioneers, or a in a Lebanese shop, if you live in Kilburn. Don’t just buy sumac, it’s the blend that makes the difference

Saw Benjamin Zephaniah at the new Arts Depot in Finchley last night.

I am inspired.

But before I talk about that, let me just say that the Arts Depot is tucked away in a pedestrian precinct behind M&S, and their logo is a large, rounded, green arrow. I went there a couple of weeks ago for Limmud Live, and I was driving round and round this roundabout, looking for it, and only seeing M&S. Now, of course, I know different. So I could get straight there, but a client called me at 7.30 on my home phone, and I ended up talking with him about something that's been sitting on his desk for four weeks. I was running a little late, but then that's the story of my life.

The audience was a heady mix of serious Zephaniah fans, and Jewish people who live in Finchley, who turned to each other in the interval and said things like "wonderful rythmn," and "excellent use of language." Benjamin established that there were a lot of teachers in the audience, and they were all sitting near us.

He makes it look utterly effortless, and I know it isn't. But I left on a huge buzz - a heady mix of great poetry, a relaxed sense of humour (when people arrived late, he said "I'll be late when I come round to your house"), wonderful stories, and the sense that Benjamin is the kind of guy you'd like to have round to your house for dinner.

I ran into M, whose party I'm going to on Saturday night, and Y, with his Mum, who turned out to be someone who goes to my synagogue. This was odd, because I just wrote something in my writing class about coincidence and serendipity. Or you could say I just live in an extremely small world that only extends as far north as N12.

The buzz and inspiration are good, because after the conversation I had with my client last night, it's clear that the project I was supposed to start on two weeks ago might not happen. Because he's told me the contract's in the post every day for three weeks, and now he's starting negotiating some new terms and I'm feeling messed around. And, as you know, the new me doesn't take any shit.

So - like every freelancer out there - I'm constantly revising my schedule. So les of the big f-off project, and more of lots of small projects. And some writing. That, I like. I need to make more space.

The Heeb Film Festival at the Everyman. Because you don't want to leave North London when you go out, the Everyman has nice squashy velvet sofas, some of which are velvet and even purple. And you're edgy. Aren't you?

Where is the edge? "Don't touch me cos I'm close to the edge..." Words of the song? At a client's office so can't legitimately google around to remember.

By the way, the Opening Gala is apparently already sold out. Just so you know.

So I know I've been a little quiet.

Part of this is busy-ness: friend staying from Jersey, movies (Finding Neverland and The Corporation), friends over for dinner, new batch of Thai green curry paste, work-work-work, writing, Limmud stuff, catching up on my sleep. Doing a few CVs for people (one of my many sidelines) You know the kind of thing.

But part of this is that I've been thinking about why I blog. People often ask me, why do you spend so much time on it (answer: I don't), what's it for (answer: I like writing), why (answer: because I can) in general.

But I guess there's another reason.

I like the open-sourceness of blogging. I like it that I'm the number one search for people who want to find out about pointless British Gas three star contracts. I like it that if you have a Goodman's DVD and want the region one hack, you can find it here. I like it that if you are interested in Lady Windemere's Syndrome you come here, even if I don't know what it is either, I just once reviewed Lady Windemere's Fan.

While I like to say that I write for no-one but me, clearly that's not 100% accurate. Let's face it: like most bloggers (people?) I like an audience. The iterative nature of the conversation, the comments, the emails, the nutters who get in touch. It's all part of a dialogue that I'm excited, and to some degree honoured, to be part of.

So maybe this is the deal: I talk, you listen. I write, you respond. But it's predicated on my having the mental space and energy to want to keep doing it, and in January I'll have been doing it for three years, and I've written about 500,000 words.

I know, if it was a book, I'd be on the Prisoner of Azkaban.

And I think part of the reason I like doing it is some kind of generosity of spirit, or something like that. So I like finding interesting links that make people come back, and writing about things that engage people, as much as I like doing the stuff for myself.

But something happened to me recently that has made me review my general approach to life. My general approach can be summed up as "everyone is my friend." So I know a lot of people, and people often say to me "god, you know everyone," and I never know if it's a good thing.

And whereas some people find large circles of friends and acquaintanceship difficult, I thrive on it. Loose ties, sociologists call it. I like being connected to a vague web of people from vastly different backgrounds, and ocassionally even hooking up people who would never meet. I like it that a few hundred people came to my party, and I didn't even know some of them. Let's face it: I like it that people say I throw good parties.

But the downside of being broadly good-natured and generous, coupled with having a large circle of acquaintances, is that sometimes people can take the piss. And it's a numbers game: I know more people, more people take the piss.

So I'm not going to write up the details here, as (a) I don't particularly want to think about it, denial therapy being my modus operandi here, and (b) it wouldn't be particularly fair, but something happened that made me think that I had done something basically on a favour basis to help someone out, and it ended up backfiring on me in a really nasty way.

And I'm left feeling that I give a lot, and I'm not sure I always get stuff back. Not that everything is a trade. I mean, clearly it's not. But my trust in the benign reality of the world has been broken. Let's face it: not everyone is your friend. The world is not always nice. Shit happens. A lot, to some people. You don't always want what you get or get what you want.

I think this is a very long winded way of saying I may or may not want to take a break from this for a while. Because I need to feel a little appreciated, and sometimes blogging feels like giving and giving and you don't get anything back. Although sometimes it's just nice to write whatever you want.

And of course I reserve the right to change my mind about all of this in the morning. I should never have had that fourteenth Baileys.

So after quite a bit of googling around about courier flights to NY - and even discovering the The International Association of Air Travel Couriers which looks remarkably like a business to me - I discover this. US visa requirements post 9/11 means that no-one does courier flights to the US anymore. BA have some left till the end of the year, but only because they've sold the flights, and anyway, there's a chance most of their flights will get cancelled. Mmmmm.

Karl Lagerfeld's new range for H&M. Whatever next? Chanel at Tesco? Christian Dior at Iceland?

I have discovered the 460 bus. It goes from not-that-far-from-my-house to Finchley. It probably takes two hours, but it might mean that I finally divest myself of my car.

Gives Me A Happy
The world may be about to reach energy meltdown; there might be global warming at greater speeds than we've ever known; the chances of riots/explosions in the Middle East are far greater since the announcement of Arafat's death this morning; some of the people I know are not as genuine as they might be; shit might happen on a regular basis, but there's one thing that keeps me smiling.

(Aside: I actually typed slimming there. Freudian or what?)

Freecycle. Freecycle is about giving stuff away for no reason. I love it. I'm on the London mailing list, and I get a dozen or so mails a day of people saying "I have car to give away", "I have a computer to give a way". It's fabulous. It's the way the world should be. It makes me realise things are never as bad as you think.

I like Small Beautiful Things.

The thought of the day at Oval tube station. Perhaps they'll do an existential training course across the underground network and then I can get them at Kilburn.

While the parallel is unhelpful, I can't help likening the Yasser Arafat situation with matters arising when the Rebbe (Menachem Mendel Shchneerson, deceased leader of Chabad), was dying.

Remember? He was in a "coma" for weeks, as there was great concern about what would happen to his followers when they found out their leader was dead. As I remember it, a couple of factions set up camp either side of his hospital room, both claiming to be the "true leaders." There was lots of apparently cloak-and-dagger action, misinformation and press coverage. Sound familiar?

I've been meaning to read David Berger's book about the inside track on Chabad for a while. Maybe now's a good time.

And before anyone get's an apoplectic fit thinking I'm comparing the two people, I'm not. I'm comparing the circumstances, and what happens in groups when leaders die. That's all.

The specially weird prize this week goes to an Orthodox Chabad transvestite who murdered his landlord.

A new Malcolm Gladwell piece in this week's New Yorker.

Even Douglas Rushkoff has switched.

I am angrier than I have been for a long time. That is all.

This is exactly how I feel. Stayed up, dozing on and off, till threeish, then woke to the Today programme telling me it's all over bar the wailing. OK, I'm not American, but while we have a superpower, then their political leadership has an impact on us all. This is the complete oposite of how I felt in 1997 when Labour got in (elated, almost tearful), but then that was before I found out Tony's Maggie in drag.

The road to transformation runs parallel to the road less travelled, and it's a toll road, so you get a better class of passenger. More transformative, more transformation-enabled. The road to transformation is paved with purple bricks and a thick green line with an arrow like the arrows on the floor of a hospital. The alley cats stroll along the bus lane, conscious of their imability to connect on an ongoing basis.

I have a dinner guest (OK friend) coming over next weekend who doesn't eat garlic. At all. Not even disguised in a dish. Any ideas?

I want one of these. For no other reason than it's small, cute and well designed. Like my new mini iPod (pink, of course).

See, I knew I was doing something wrong. All this burning the candle at both ends - IKEA and Demos have a new report on the "sleepless society" (and if it's from IKEA, those leaders in social research, it must be good) which points out everything we're doing wrong.

Because, let's face it, everything we do is wrong.

Sometimes, you can't cancel your AOL account, even if you're dead. Not much chance for me, then.

Courtesy of bitful, the Coffee Table. No, not a coffee table, a Coffee Table. Never again will I resist the urge to tabulate stuff in excel for your delectation. This is just how I like to see any kind of information - thanks.

It's election day. Most of my friends won't go out tonight because they're staying up all night. But then some of them are US citizens. Do you think it's bad if I ask people what they're voting?

I'm always confusing Officer Krupke with Officer Dibble.

OK, hands up, who's staying up for the election tomorrow night?