Just discovered Loretta Lux. Have you?

So it's a budget for pensioners (free bus travel), families, and first time buyers (doubling the stamp duty threshold). Gee, that's good for me, then.

Oh, but wait, I live as a member of society, and I'm just happy if other people are.

Shame I don't write crime. I could have entered LitIdol and been ritually abused by Simon Callow's brother.

You know how it is.

Last week, I was sitting around thinking, "gee, it's ages since I've watched Heathers, and I'd like to." What's a twentyfirst century girlie to do? I've not yet signed up for one of those armchair-online-DVD-rental doodars (you know, the ones that foretell the death of Ye Olde Video Shoppe), so I'm stuck.

Because I'm an instant gratification type, but with laziness thrown in, I order it from Play.com for £11.99. What's great is, it just gets delivered to your door. It's in stock, so no problemo.

Wrong.

When I get an email a couple of days later asking for address verification, I have a sense of deja vu - this is what they did last time I ordered something off them, about a year ago (The Breakfast Club, if you must know, as part of a John Hughes box set. You sense a teen-theme emerging, right?) I swore then that it was too much hassle to do business with them. This is because all my credit cards don't have my flat number, but for delivery, I often put it, especially if it won't fit through the letterbox. So my addresses don't match.

So I call up their stupid 0845 number that costs me 5p a minute - which I object to anway - and they say they will verify my address. I tell them my address again, I listen to their stupid music while they verify it, and they come back and say the bank has verified my address. Everything's hunkydory. It takes about ten minutes.

Yerthink?

Today, I'm paying my credit card bill online, and I see my remaining credit limit is different from the charge balance. So I call up and discover this: On Monday, play.com made three transactions on my card at the same time: a £10 transaction that was made and reversed (ie £0 cost) and a £10 transaction that was accepted. On Tuesday, they charged me £11.99.

On Wednesday, they send me email saying my goods are being despatched. Yay.

I call them again, for 5p a minute, to find out what the £10 charge is. I speak to Luke, who is charming, but tells me that's their procedure, and a long blurb about the problems they have with flat addresses for new accounts. I say that I'm not a new account, sadly I have done business with them before. He's terribly apologetic, but that's the system. He can get the £10 back to me today. I point out that my credit card statement is due today, so I will probably have to pay interest on the £10, because of how my statements fall. I get slightly ranty, and point out that they did this transaction without my permission, and he says someone more senior will call me back. He can't give me their head office number in Jersey (and if you call the number on their emails, it just routes you to the call centre), and he's not sure who the joint MDs are.

I call the credit card company again, and they say this is a pending transaction, but it will still affect my credit limit, and that other companies who do test transactions do them for 1p, not £10. I'm angry, but busy, and frankly it's only £10, whatever the principle.

Then Debbie, the "call centre manager" (how those words bring a chill to my ear) calls me back and goes on and on about their system again. I don't sodding care about their system. It reminds me of my marketing career guru, a fabulous woman called Marjorie, who always exhorted us on the copy front "don't tell me about your grass seed, tell me about my lawn". Like I'm the customer, I don't care about their sodding inefficienies.

I get annoyed again, and point out that (a) it's an unreasonable business practice, and (b) they used my card without my permission, and after a little interlude it becomes clear that they are an outsourced call centre for Play.com and she "doesn't feel it's appropriate to tell me the name of their company." After some argy bargy, she agrees to credit me back with the £11.99, but points out that if I, or any of my friends, use play.com, the address verification puts £10 on your credit card and then takes it off again.

You have been warned, folks.

Me, I'm going down to the HMV shop, to dance in the old-fashioned way. It's a krenk, already with this internet lark. Also, I should get out more.

Last night, went to an incredible evening at (one of the many) shuls (I regard as mine). A discussion on the BBC series Auschwitz: the Nazis and the Final Solution.

Laurence Rees, the series producer and writer talked about the making of the series with Professor David Cesarani, the series historical consultant. It was quite, quite mesmerising. David Cesarani knew exactly how to shape the evening, and handle people, and Laurence is a true master of his subject. It was a little odd to hear him talk to commercially about a subject that I am extremely careful around my language on (whoops, ugly sentence); history audiences skewing old, frontloading the money to the first four minutes of episode one, those kind of things. But an amazing behind-the-scenes look at the subject.

I'm also reading Deborah Lipstadt's History on Trial, and even though I know the punchline, it's truly un-put-downable.

It's holocaust week round my house. But then, in a way, it always is.

The world and his wife has a book out - No More Clutter, a book about how to keep your house tidy. I mean, really.

Went to the Nice Jewish Gurus panel at Jewish Book Week yesterday. Interesting (said with Viennese accent). Lynn Franks is your mum and a hippie and an unreconstructed feminist rolled into one. Carole Caplin thinks she "scrubs up good for forty three". Irma Kurtz is way cool. Carole Caplin is also not so bright; she kept waffling in a new age way that gave me a headache. Nice gillet though, although someone should tell her it's so last season.

The best thing, though, is the audience. From the people who don't even have the courtesy to put a question on the end of their personal rant, to the woman in front of me who "saved" the best aisle seat for 90 minutes. I formed a support group with the two women sitting next to me and we pointed and stared at her nail extensions and Stanmore ways. Eventually an usher asked her to move her coat, and she gave her a look that said "you are the scum of the earth, and also, you need a manicure. I wouldn't let my daughter perform this menial service task."

Short version: lots of Jews, lots of books.

So it's one in the eye for free speech in the blogosphere - Apple makes blogs reveal sources.

I'm in the British Library playing with my new Openzone account (£2 per month) and utterly, utterly inspired by all the books and knowledge. Sadly, I am researching the dullest (commercial) subject known to mankind.

I'm in the British Library playing with my new Openzone account (£2 per month) and utterly, utterly inspired by all the books and knowledge. Sadly, I am researching the dullest (commercial) subject known to mankind.

Check this out - I get a call just now that sounds like an American woman and I soon realise she's an automated voice telling me I've "won" a vacation in Florida. I want to get off their list sooner than soon, so I press nine, and talk to an American guy. I ask him where they got my phone number from, and he says he's only here to sell me the holiday. I ask him the name of his company, and he asks me my name. I say I don't want to give it, as I don't know who he is and I want to know where they got my number from. He yells "you're rude, go away!" and hangs up on me.

Man, what's this about?

Heard Jonathan Freedland speak on Sunday about Jacob's Gift - his new book, currently sitting by my bed. He's so slick (in a good way): a seasoned public speaker, and a great thinker.

It was at Joseph's bookstore in Temple Fortune - I couldn't help feeling I Was in a mid-period Woody Allen film: lots of intellectual-type Jewish people sitting in a bookstore after hours. Or is that Crossing Delancey? Some film, anyhow.

You don't know how disturbed I am to find out there's a website for people who want to be on reality TV shows. Darling, why don't we go on Competitive Eating Champ, or Daddy Dearest? (You can tell they're in alphabetical order, and I couldn't bear reading past D.)

AskOxford... in case you, too, are a langauage-ophile (if that is a word).

I don't know if Sarah Hiorns has a blog, but she should have. Priceless: All The Hairdressers I Have Ever Been To.

Wish I'd written it. Except my list is way shorter because (a) I am overly precious about my Jewish/curly hair, and (b) could no more turn up in a hairdressers off the street than go iceskating or skydiving. This is a girl who commuted back to Manchester throughout the early nineties (from South East Asia, Europe and the US) to get my hair cut by Tim at New Wave (now called something poncey.) Scrap that - that's what I did till I took up with my new hairdresser in New York. Now there's a commute.

Once, when I lived in Madrid, I got my hair cut at Llongueras, the celebrity hairdresser. And for all their I'm-famous-shit, the haircut was nothing special, and I went back to Tim for repairs.

Bobbie Johnson takes a serious look blogging for money.. I guess off the back of Jason Kottke's news yesterday. Maybe I should be a microblogger with macroideas. Make microcontent for the mediim-sized bucks?

OK, thanks for feedback, version 1.2 (bugfixes only) is available here.

I love my George Carwardine anglepoise lamp.

What are your personal variables/daily running costs?

So, in the spirit of (a) reviewing my finances, and (b) just geeky, I tried to work out how much it costs me to exist each day.

What I'm talking about here are Personal Variable Costs - travel, newspapers, disposable contact lenses, drugs/coffee/chocolate habits.

I am not including fixed costs - things like rent/mortgage/utility bills etc. I know, this is pretty arbitary, but I'm making the rules here.

I have discovered that it costs me approximately £5.32 a day to exist. This includes lunch once a week when I'm in a client's office, and minimal commuting. Check it out:



And for your delight and delectation - you too can try it out here.

Basic info:
You only write in the grey boxes. You can have daily/weekly/monthly costs all at the same time - so I buy a newspaper for 60p a day, on weekdays, and £1.20 on a weekend.

Drugs/latte/chocolate habit - how much do you spend a day/week on clarityn/cocaine/coffee?

For haircare prodcuts and deodorant, you put in how much you spend, and how many days it lasts.

These are the assumptions I made:

Weekly counts only business days, ie 250. Not ideal, I know.

Annual counts 50 weeks, allowing for a two week holiday

"One off costs" are things like deodorant/shampoo - put in the cost and how many days it lasts for

I have assumed you change your toothbrush every six months

I have assumed your tube of toothpaste lasts for a little over two months

I have assumed your soap/shower gel lasts for a little less than two months

This is version 1.1 - think of yourself as betatesters. So I'm sure I haven't thought of everything, and I haven't allowed for your girl/boyfriend staying over and using your supplies. Roll-on version two.

Tell me what you think, please. And no, of course I'm not procrastinating. I made it outside of office hours (OK, OK, I should get out more) and it entertains me.

If I was a lawyer (I'd hammer in the morning... ) I'd definitely be thinking about this job as UK Counsel for Google..

Think of the options. Although it's only 3 years PQE they're looking for, so the options may not be, like, huge.

You read about the food dye Sudan I?

I heard something this morning about how the batch was dated 2002. 2002? So you might buy a ready meal with a sell-by date of 2007, but then the stuff in it could be five years old. Sheesh.

And I can't be the only person - in this overregulated world we populate - whose noticed the similarity (FSA) between the Food Standards Agency and the Financial Services Authority.

Just me then? I'll get back in my box.

Malcolm Gladwell speaking at the Commonwealth Club in the USA. I feel like he's in my study now. He has a great voice.

Apparently, there is a rumour that I have gone to live in New York. (I know because J told me that three people had mentioned it to her. Three people: it's a minhag). This is not true, although I would go back and get my hair cut, obviously.

Only in Amerikey. Turns out that Denzel Washington, Leonardo diCaprio and Beyoncee Knowles are Jewish. At least, they'll say they will to fight antisemitism.

It's not often you have contemporaneous notes of your conversations. I'm talking to a lot of people about this antisemitism (aside: don't you hate how word makes it into anti-Semitism?).

We're one step beyond the encoded antisemitism of last year: no it's out and proud. It seems to me, I'm supposed to say.

I mean, three times in as many weeks (Prince Harry, Labour pigs-might-fly campaign, and now Ken) - frankly, it's a minhag.

Like, Tuesday night, out with a friend who teaches in an East London school with a heavy Muslim population. He tells me that in a social studies class with 17 year olds, he's going round the groups who are discussing the media, and he gets to a group, and asks them where they're up to.

- we're talking about the Jewish conspiracy, they respond
- oh, how does that work?
- well, all the Jews get together and agree - IF ONLY! - who runs what and what they'll tell the world...

The conversation goes on: seems like it's mothers' milk to these kids, and when he tells them he's Jewish, one of them says that they don't hate him for it. Although it's not clear if they might hate him for something else.

So it might all be anecodotal evidence - I have twenty stories like that - but how many anecdotes does it take to change a lightbulb?

Apparently, my grandma made holishkes - a real labour of love - every week for my grandpa. Damily legend has it that after about twenty years, tucking into his supper one night he looked up and said, "you know Hilda, I don't really like holishkes."

N just reminded me about playplax. It was from Galts.

My childhood beckons...

And another thing. Every so often I get wonderful emails from people out there in the ether who say they enjoy reading what I write here. It kinda makes it all worthwhile: iterative process, interactive, twentyfirst century. All that. You know. Thank you.

Since Freecycle was on You and Yours this morning, I've had like 40 emails. While I think it would be great if everyone got my religion and gave stuff away, I might have to unsubscribe from the list if it get's that busy. You can do digest, but then I guess you miss stuff.

Listen again here, if you want.

I'm sorry, I've been a little out of commission.

Here's what I've been up to (as if you care, right?)

Saw Closer. Disappointed: it's a play on the screen. Then read a bunch of interviews with Patrick Marber where he says that in a film/play something doesn't have to happen to the people. Which is why I realised that I don't care about his characters because he doesn't. The difference between fiction and reality is that fiction has to make sense.

Invented a new soup: loosely based on my Mum's sweet potatoe soup, except this one's with Garam Masala, and to be recommended

Dined at the Zetter in Clerkenwell. Cooler than cool. Even the loos. To be recommended.

Ditto Quinlon in St James - the best Indian restaurant in the UK or something. Amazing mango curry. Was treated by a friend who owns a restaurant in Boston, and there's nothing like dining with professional foodies.

Hung out in Bloomsbury with a couple of writer-style friends: we tried to be all Virginia Woolf, but the bar was closed.

I think I may have made enough chilli to last a while. Although I'm very into taking my own lunch (if I have to go to someone's office. Which I'm kinda avoiding right now, more later)

I'm in total efficiency-commando mode: I've reviewed my mobile contract, my house insurance, life insurance, my security arrangements and my offsite-backup requirements (comments on last extremely welcome)

I went to a buddy's booklaunch, had one vodka cocktail too many (that's two in total), and dropped perhaps one-to-many hints to a certain newspaper columnist...

Wrote Urban Junkies a few times. Because I'm urban and a junkie. Not.

Chased some money, worried about work. Haven't written a word (creatively, daaahling)in a while. Sadly. Turned out I have more work than I thought. It's like buses.

Am part-way through a mass decluttering exercise.

Finished Malcolm Gladwell's Blink. I may be partially in love with him despite (a) him living in NY (no problem, as I get my hair cut there now), and (b) the fact he is probably taken. Genius genius genius.

Ages ago, went to that Intelligence Squared debate. I made copious notes, honest, but then I got a little bowled over by the flying pigs, our illustrious mayor, the fallout from Prince William's "japes" and sorta kinda feel like I'm numb to antisemitism (which I'm trying to spell right, Dan) for a while. Like I know it's out there, but for now, I can't process all this stuff. Ken is technically my neighbour, in an adjoining-postcodes kinda way, so maybe I'll just nip round for tea and give him the sharp edge of my sashinka-wit.

I'll do some links later, honest.

******

The other thing that's going on is that I'm slightly under-the-weather, and spent Sunday night in A&E at the Royal Free, and Monday morning queuing in my doctor's surgery constantly being told I don't have children so have to to the back of the queue. Always makes you feel good. Turns out I don't have a life threatening knee disease, but it is painful, and it's put me in a bad mood. Or the drugs have. Talking to my mum, she mentioned in passing that women in my family have been allergic to penicillin for three generations (if penicillin's been around that long), although I pointed out that I'd reached the ripe old age of 19 (I'm lying right, because I'm not publishing my age on the internet) before she's mentioned it to me. Anyway, I'm not going back to my GPs to be cattleherded (forgive holocaust-style imagery: unintentional) so maybe it's the drugs that are doing me in.

If I stop posting for longer than I week I may have gone to the other place. You know, where all the shoes are. Shoe heaven? Or maybe Selfridges or Harvey Nick's.

I've had a pretty crap week. So it can only get better. Or worse. And I just broke a nail. Shabbat Shalom.

Omigod, it's Rent-A-Jew day on the Today programme. Mike Whine from the CST (which they insisted in calling the Community Service - it's security - Trust), Henry Grunwald, President of the Board of Jews, and Jonathan Sacks, the Chief Rabbi.

Thank-whoever's-up-there for antisemtism, otherwise there'd be no news.

Did you hear that the Daily Mail devoted twenty one pages to Charles and Camilla's forthcoming nuptials? I couldn't be less interested.

Did I mention that I love Desparate Housewives? It's great, how it's not a SATC find a guy thing. It's not about women seeking completeness externally (men, shoes etc) but about women's inner journeys. And it's funny. I'm fascinated. Don't call me after 10pm (if you know me. If you don't know me, you shouldn't call me at all).

Red-top features writers sure don't get to work at 8.30 like me. I have, in case you were wondering, said no, and drawn their attention to my copyright notice (I knew it was good for something). I'm not interested in feeding the celebrity beast in any way at all. Privacy (or as much as you can get) is king. And while I don't have any secrets about Pete, if I did have any, that's what they'd stay.

In an entirely unrelated matter (no, really unrelated), pattern recognition abounds. It's not long now.

I don't get to my hotmail account very often, but today, tucked between the viagra and diet pills, I have two - and counting - requests from tabloids to dish the dirt on ol' Pete.

Waddya reckon?

And also, sideways-ly, wtf?

Fun and games with m$oft word. I'm getting a "The disk is full trying to write to drive" error message when trying to sav a document. But I have 80GB. And I can't save it to my usb key, either. The doc is just less than a megabyte... are there maximum document sizes? Any ideas at all? It's for a board presentation I need to make tomorrow. And I have period pain.

Page Turners - the new BBC book club.

If you came here for Pete Doherty news, there's only a day and a half left to buy his guitar on eBay.

I wrote Urban Junkies today. I had so much fun.

To the woman on Kilburn station this morning wearing a mini-skirt, cowboy boots, and with over-worked calves: don't. The cowboy boots look is about them not being flush, tight to your calves, but about them being loose, implying an Amelie-like waifness that does not accord with three games of women's rugby on a weekend.

To the woman on Baker Street Jubilee line platform with the interesting patterned tights: they've got a hole in.

To the woman in the Picadilly bound train who kneed me in the groin, and when I gave her a dirty look said "some people" to the collective audience: take your bad day out one someone else.

To the bloke who read yesterday's Sunday Times business section over my shoulder: get your own paper.

Bad day? Moi? Naah.

Talking about tattoos.

Once, I was at a party, fancy dress, and this guy was wearing just leather trousers, and on his back he had a tattoo in traditional hebrew script, that said "tohu vavohu" (roughly chaos/darkness and void, although it's all up for debate in a big way, and I'm sure a bundle of people'll come in here and correct me).

I asked him about it. He said do you read Hebrew. I said clearly. Then his girlfriend took off her shirt, and she had the same. They'd had them done at the sameish time to seal their relationship.

Turned out they weren't Jewish, but they were goth-types with a slightly chaso/magickal edge. I was relieved they'd got the vowels right. Takes all sorts.

Hello Ben, if you ever read this.

Y'know how it is: a lot of people look like other people.

Like both my Mum and the bloke in my/our local curry house (she also lives in West Hampsteadish) think I'm the spitting image of Tracey-Anne Oberman. And when I was in NY, I saw (clearly the doppleganger) of a friend of my parents, standing outside a downtown building, smoking with coworkers. I mean, it wasn't her. But it could have been. But then she's too busy getting her hair done in Cheadle, even with the time-travel.

So I've seen pictures of Pete Doherty from the Libertines on and off for a couple of years, and he's looked vaguely familiar. In the way that people do.

Let's face it: I know a lot of people. So sometimes people look familiar, and I can't place them. Like last week I was on a no 24 bus on Tottenham Court Road, and a black woman with braids came bounding up to me, all friendly. Hi Sasha. I thought I knew her: couldn't remember where from. Turns out, she used to go to my synagogue (three shuls ago), and her and her two (remarkably cool sons, as I remember them) came over for lunch a couple of times. We exchanged email addresses.

My point is, that in a Gladwell-like connector way, stuff happens to me, people are mostly nice, and you know. I've forgotten the point, actually.

So Pete's been in the papers a lot the last couple of weeks; trouble with Kate. The drugs. And I said to a friend, "y'know, when I had a lunch delivery service, a bloke called Pete worked for me, and he looked exactly like him."

Pete's a common name, though. But this guy was in a band, and made a little cash as a model (he was in some Pizza Express retro seventies press ad while he was working for me), and was a poet. Aren't we all.

Most of my delivery people were friends-of-each-other: people would hook up their mates with this fairly well-paid (I paid £5/hour even back in 1999)job, and I had a series of artistic types, many of whom went to music festivals in the summer and never came back on a Monday morning.

Today, I got out my archive box, and found pay slips and check book stubs with his name on.

Here's what I remember about Pete: he was employee number 16. He lived vaguely locally (Kilburn, I think), and he was the only person to (allegedly) ever steal money off me - £20 to be precise. He featured in a couple of ads. He was rather vague about his permanent address. He was mostly unreliable, and I think only lasted a little while. He appeared to have some kind of habit - or a permanent eye infection - but could mostly keep it in under control. He was a nice bloke, who was used to charming people. Basically immature and irresponsible. Also, in that business, women do a lot better than men, and I suspect he thought the job slightly below him.

So: the evidence. A cheque stub for his pay, and his pay slip. You will notice that while I'm happy to dish the relatively-unintersting dirt about a A/B-list celebrity, I have whited-out his National Insurance number. Because it's one thing telling entertaining stories, and quite another messing with someone's privacy. The "temp deduct" for "-£20" is the money he allegedly stole.

Hello, Pete.

So it might not exactly be a blog-scoop, but it's coming in a minute.

While I don't really care about celebrity worship, I feel I should tell you that I have some interesting news/gossip about someone currently in the papers. I am scanning some documents. Come back soon.

Don't you love how the web works? Just a few days after never having heard of Devachan salon, I'm in the top ten on google.

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

... or secular Jew. Or just Jewish.

Saturday 5th Feb 8pm - 2am

DJ’s Max Reinhardt and Lemez Lovas plus Live over da beats: Tigran Aleksanyan on Armenian clarinet / duduk / zurna / flutes

Future World Funk - Eastern Bloc Party @ Notting Hill Arts Club

Notting Hill Arts Club, 21 Notting Hill Gate, London W12

£6 before 10pm. £8 thereafter or email info@yadarts.com for a £3 guest list before 9.30pm

Future World Funk rocks into the New Year with DJs Max Reinhardt (The Shrine/various radio nationwide) and Lemez Lovas (Oi Va Voi / YaD) for a Balkan Gypsy Afro Caribbean roadblock guaranteed to blow the roof off... funky africanisms meet trumpet fanfares as Lagos collides with Ljubljana in a cascade of shimmering broken beats. And wailing loud and clear over the beats, virtuoso Tigran Aleksanyan on duduk, bringing the house down with the most sublime wood wind instrument on this earth, which like Tigran comes from Armenia. Born in the Ararat Mountains ...the man lives only for his music and his duduk.

Sunday 20th March 4pm – 1am

Oi Va Voi present special guests…

Sunday Socialism @ Notting Hill Arts Club

Notting Hill Arts Club, 21 Notting Hill Gate, London W12

£6 before 10pm. £8 thereafter. £3 guest list before 9.30pm with this email

Proudly presenting an all new Gypsy Balkan Russian Klezmer shakedown at the NHAC. Special guest live musicians, classic movies in the Kinorama, frozen vodka, rakiya galore and resident Djs Lemez Lovas, Max Reinhardt & Starets sweating it out in the Gypsy Diskoteka. Feed your soul early evening with borscht 'n' pelmeni in the Soviet kitschen, face off over the chess boards and don't forget to bring your balalaikas for the Soviet era silent films...

Co-Produced by Adrian Philpott/ Oi Va Voi / Taskovski Films / YaD Arts / Ziggurat

Sunday 10th April 7pm – 11pm

David Baddiel, Catherine Yass, Jonathan Freedland, Natasha Walter, Henry Goodman, Oi Va Voi, Oliver Heath and more….

SPIEL @ the ICA

Institute of Contemporary Art, London, SW1

Price: £18 /£17 concessions /£16 ICA members. Book tickets on 020 7930 3647

The launch of a new series of lounge shows with performance and banter, along the lines of The Word and Newsnight Review. At SPIEL, four guests will chew the fat over contemporary cultural events with Jewish content, surrounded by sneak live previews of new albums, plays, performance and books by visiting bands, actors and contemporary dancers.

www.ica.org.uk & www.jewishcommunitycentre.org.uk

... these are all from the YaD Arts mailing list, and the ICA one will sell out pretty quick, so get to it. Sadly (and happily, of course) I'm going to a wedding that day.

Call me an anti-cynic and someone who cares about love, but have you seen eBay's Valentines Day promotion?

Look at the right hand bar. If you only want a kiss, a jacket's good enough. To move in, you need an iPod, and to get engaged, you need to give a laptop.

Forgive me, but I'm sure this whole offering to the gods of commercial tit-tat is allegedly about love, not about "what do you want out of it."

Or maybe that's where I've been going wrong.

So I've been coming into a client's office, on and off, for three years. Maybe twice a week. Sometimes more, sometimes less.

The same two security staff have been working the downstairs desk for all that time. I don't think they've ever asked to see my card (it's not a swipe thing); I just nod and look like I belong, and they say nothing. I mean, I have a card.

So this morning, when I'm running late, I'm waiting for the lift, and one of the security guards comes up to me and asks to see my pass. I know it's in my wallet somewhere, but you know how it is when you're looking for something and can't find it? Three lifts come and go.

I find it. I show it to him. He nods. I'm late.

The day can only improve.

Saw Closer last night. The Patrick Marber play that's now a film? (sorry about my uptalk). It should be called Further Away.

In an interview in the Independent Patrick had the gall to say:

"European people perceive Closer as a hot-blooded passionate play, whereas American audiences and critics perceived it as misanthropic, cynical, cold-blooded. Those who didn't like the play just don't like the play, which is fair enough... Most mainstream American films are about redemption: the hero goes on a journey, and becomes a better person as a result of their suffering or experience.

I never felt like Closer ever had a particular message. I'm not that kind of writer. I was just telling a story that I hoped would hold the audience's attention for a couple of hours. No one improves, there aren't great moral lessons to be learnt. The people who don't like it perceive it as a slab of nihilism."

He's just telling a story ... nothing happens. I'm in shock. Stories are precious, and I spend ages, months working out who the people are and why and all those things. He just lets some dialogue fall out of his head and it's a play. Sheesh.

And he's working on Zoe Heller's Notes On A Scandal. I bet he can strip all the soul out of that, too.

Busy weekend?

Wednesday night, I made a pilgrimage to the Apple Shop on Regent Street.

It's a hymn to hip design, and it's full of people seemingly getting a wireless connection, or checking their mail on the hundreds of sample machines. There's the Guru Bar (or whatever it's called). There's a glass staircase going up the centre of the shop, seemingly haning from the air. Everything is sleek, hip and well-designed, as any Apple thing should be.

Frankly, it was a bit like being in a cult.

But I noticed one thing: nestled away on the interior of the glass stairs was a bottle of Loctite.



Maybe the whole thing'll come crashing down?

Today is Holocaust Memorial Day.

I wish I had time to write something more thoughtful - this is more of a bizarre linkog of related stuff that's been in my head recently. Please regard it as first-draft: I try and be more thoughtful than a brain-dump for serious topics.

Provisos over.

So Mark Levene in the Independent thinks Holocaust Day is misused - we've forgotten about refugees, which is what it's really about, apparently.

I went to the Intelligence Sqaured debate on Zionism Tuesday night - I made pages and pages of notes, but briefly, it was the best secular Jew-spotting there is. I was surprised how people identified themselves as "Jews" rather than Jewish (or Jew-ish), but apparently that's very twentyfirst century. While I don't in any way think there are some debates Jews should have behind closed doors, in case "they" hear us, there was something more than disturbing about hearing Amira Hass say "inshallah" with such venom. I don't think the debate itself was antisemitic - it was interesting. But the framing of the debate now, at this time: makes me wonder.

And now this: in Tuesday's FT, a frankly disturbing piece about how Russian MPs are trying to ban Jewish groups:

"Let us assure you, Mr Prosecutor-General, that there are a large number of well-established facts which lead to the indisputable conclusion: the negative assessment by Russian patriots of typical Jewish qualities and [their] actions against non-Jews are based on true facts and what is more these actions are not accidental, but prescribed by Judaism and have been practised over the past 2000 years," the letter said. "Therefore, statements and publications against Jews are self-defence, which may not be stylistically correct, but justified in its essence."

Typical Jewish qualities? P-ulease. And Judaism's quite a bit older than 2,000 years.

I carry the cultural heritage of people who expect the worst. (At the weekend over lunch, we had a lengthy conversation about how we all inherently expect Something Bad To Happen, which is why I had 30 litres of water and a mule in my bathroom in case of the war). And I know that the war is over, and I want to think that the suffering helped create a better world. But what I see is encoded antisemitism regularly: a subtle or not-so desire to other us, to notice us, to comment.

Sixty years on, what have we learned?

Deborah Lipstadt is on a private plane with five other US representatives, visiting Poland for the 60th anniversary (sounds a little partyish, I know) of the "liberation" from Auschwitz. When I was in NY, I made her a weblog, and forced her to blog - she's written a very interesting first-hand account - Greetings from Krakow. And I'll put the photos up tonight. Promise.

Sorry - up against a deadline. Got to get something out on Friday. I'm still here, honest.

Did I mention that I'm going to the Intelligence Squared Zionism debate, tonight?

I'll keep you informed.

For the kid who has everything: Fantasy Dressup. Counrtesy of Z.

Rob Lowe's a Doctor Who fan? Who knew?

Great piece in yesterday's Guardian about What friends are fo by Jenni Russell.

I'm figuring it's not this Jenni Russell, because, although she's a writer, she (a) lives in the US, and (b) can't spell opportunity.

Are friends the new family? I suspect not. I think friends are friends, and family are family - you do, to some degree, choose your friends.

I have a story to tell about friends and friendships ending, but I got up at 7am to go to a client's early, so it'll have to wait. Sorry.

This is my new mobile phone. And they price-matched the Three tariff. I did the telecoms pricing manouvre I wrote about two years ago, although the Money Saving Expert has similar advice.

Total saving: £480 on my tariff, and a free £100 phone. Nearly £600. Must make sure not to spend it.

People sometimes say I'm a coincidence magnet, or some Lois-Weisberg-come-lately. How about this: I was moaning to a friend about how I had to sort out my gym membership being on hold, and get my money back from them because my ankle isn't better and I need to talk to the general manager at Holmes Place. I mention his name, and J says to me, "Rob L*******? I was at sixthform college with him."

Actually, we were at a party, and it was loud, and I thought she said she was at Sitcom College with him, and I didn't know what it was.

Anyway, I just talked to him. He was nice.

It's really snowing. Do you think it'll stay like this till tax return day?

Good Curl Definition

While I know my friend J is sick of me being the kinda girl who talks about her hair, I just have to tell you that since I got back from NY, where I got my haircut on the last morning at Devachan Salon my curl definition has been commented on by everyone I've met. Clients, friends, strangers (the woman standing next o me in the loo at a restaurant on Thursday) have all said some variation of "gee your hair looks great" only not iwth an American accent.

In the spirit of cultish following of new products, I have cleared out my bathroom cupboard, taken all those thought-they-would-help past it products to a charity shop, and am entering a new era where I only use one product, and have less stuff in my life.

I can't recommend these guys enough. In fact, I think I'm going to email them and suggest I'm their UK agent - can you believe you can only buy it in the US?

Anyone know anything about Theatre 0?

The Six Degrees of Lois Weisberg goes blog. Well, haddock.

So the reviews of Limmud NY roll in: this from the Forward (you may need to register):

"Limmud is a postmodern shtetl," said Nigel Savage, an environmental activist and British Limmud veteran who helped initiate the program's New York incarnation. "For the first time since before the French Revolution, we have put three generations and a wide range of denominations to live and celebrate together."

I know that Nigel's my buddy, but postmodern shtetl? P-u-lease.

There's a couple of innacuracies, like that Limmud UK doesn't hold conference over Shabbat, thus negating the possibility of creating a multi-denominational sabbath space (don't I just sound so American?). We do, and we did.

What's interesting, to me, anyhow, is that every Limmud is bound to reflect the community it happens in. And this is the way it should be. So this article places a heavy emphasis on the debates and arguments that took place in order to make the event happen: maybe that's what US Jewry is about. In any group, there's bound to be differences of opinion, but creating a Limmud, and enabling the transformative impact it can have on both participants and the wider community, is about moving past or round those difficulties. While I had a great time - and I really did, I'll be back next year - I can't help wondering if Limmud NY happened despite the differences.

Jon Ronson has had a weapon named after him by one of his inteviewees. That's what comes of hanging out with, er, radicals. Good blog, though.

Did I mention that while I was in New York, I made a weblog for Deborah Lipstadt? It's at History On Trial, go check it out, as she's just off to Poland for the sixitieth anniversary commemoration of the Holocaust, and is one of six people representing the US government - you'll get the real inside track.

With mainstream news coverage like this, let's face it. It's only a matter of time before Belle de Jour's identity is rumbled. Me? I'm keeping shtum. And no - for the nth time - it's not me.

Just a reminder: I still love wordsmith.org's A Word A Day (awad) mailing.

My New York correspondent tells me the two best places to pick up black and white cookies are William Greenberg Desserts (Madison Avenue between 82nd and 83rd Streets), and Artie's Deli (Broadway between 82nd and 83rd Streets).

Sadly I didn't get there, because I got a cancellation with Keith at Devachan, and while I really wanted to go to the new MOMA building, I was transported to curly-hair heaven... it's a whole salon of people who have curly hair. They cut your hair dry. They understand. They are cool. My new best-friend Sharon told me about them, and she's right.

I'm home. I've put two loads of washing on, checked my mail, and even done some work.

[wrote this on Monday afternoon, but it's been hanging out in the ether...]

OK (so, as all Americans start sentences) I'm sitting in the closing gala of the Limmud NY inaugaural conference. As you know, I've had a great time, but let's face it, there's been a lot of swaying and quite a lot of sharing.

That said, there's something ineffably exciting about passing on the baton: I feel honoured to have been here. The Limmud the NYers created reflects US Jewry and the US community, and that's the way it should be. Some journalist whose name I've forgotten, said about Limmud a couple of years ago, "in every country where there are Jews, there should be a Limmud."

We're lighting candles now, btw.

What's been interesting for me, is the emphasis on different Limmud principles. So for me, before I came, the emphasis was on voluteerism, and that was what I talked to people here about. Now I've been here, I think the work for the NY Limmud community is about creating a truly multi-denominational community, while letting go of some of the strong desires for existing "turf". Pluralism is a word that has a genuine meaning here in the US, and I think it gets in the way.

We've just been asked to turn to the person next to us, and say what we've gifted ourselves with. New friends, a new hairdresser, the study of Torah, writing connections. Not necessarily in that order.

I'll definitely be back next year. Not least because I'll need new contact lenses.

High-speed Limmud Ny update: Nessa Rappaport on writing Jewish memiors; JJ Goldberg from the Forward on news media; panel debate on Shabbat in a multi-denomination envinronment; Frank London (from the Klezmatics) and So-Called (hip hop DJ)jamming; Yisroel Campbell on Jewish 12 step programmes. Or should that be programs?

I'm having a great time. It's kinda nice to be a regular punter: I don't know anything, I can just do my thing. Also, there's a lot of Jewish hair. A lot. One of my new friends is trying to persuade me to get my hair cut at the Curly Hair book woman's salon downtown on Tuesday. I'm trying to get to the MOMA new building, so it's a tough choice.

THere's been a lot of sharing, but then that's America for you.

Like this guy: "because, y'know, I was in regular analysis, but the therapist, he was, y'know, atheistic, and I was looking for something more... spiritual. So, I found a Jungian - you know from Jung? - analystic, and he understood my spiritual search. I wanted to welcome synagogue into my life. I'm an interior decorator: the space here is making me nauseous."

We just stood together in the coffee place.

It's great though: I love the immediacy, and the openess, and the energy. I love how warm people are, and how I have new friends to go out and play with tomorrow. I love that lots of nice people have lent me their wireless connection even though they don't know me.

Today, I'm thinking maybe I'm a New Yorker: I like black and whites (cookies) and onion baigels, and short attention spans and oversharing. I love the upper west side and downtown. I love wild hair and pushy women, and balding guys who wear round glasses. I love deep intellectual conversation with people I hardly know.

Enough already. Let's just say I'm having a good time. Hello, Louis.

I forgot to say, today is my three-year blogiversary.

This is surreal. I'm sitting in a faded borscht-belt hotel, that's seen better days, sitting with Deborah Lipstadt and Rebbetzin Hadassah Gross, chewing the cud about Martin Luther King, sparkly clothes, Auschwitz and Kaballah.

No, really. Amichau Levy Lau is a performance artist whose alter-ego is Hadassah (a Rebbetzin Jungreis lookey-likey). My shaynah punim t-shirt has gone down a treat.

Being in New York means I'm not spending hours poring over the Guardian online but I've heard tell that Aaron Barschak is the Commentator du Jour on the Prince Harry Nazi-gate Story.

You can imagine some Guardian Editor running around the office saying "That bloke in a dress, the one who tried to break into the Palace - let's get him." Even nutters get their 15 minutes of fame. Sometimes twice.

In other-other news, I did fry my US cellphone charger by plugging it into a UK 240 volt plug. That'll learn me. Bought another one. It's still cheaper than roaming on a UK provider.

Briefly - it's late, I'm on dial-up - I saw Modern Orthodox with Molly Ringwald and Jason Biggs at the Dodgers Stages tonight. It's fab. A great script, excellent acting (especially from film actors who sometimes aren't so great on stage), Molly looks about the same as she did in the Breakfast Club (no, really) and me and J were rolling in the aisles.

Sure, there's caricatures, but there's something about watching a play with intensely Jewish, almost Yeshivish content, in an environment where everyone is laughing at the jokes (sample: there's no word in Yiddish for thin). Even the black couple sitting behind us. Because this is New York. In London, we'd be looking over our shoulder to spot the other person laughing a big theatre. Here: everyone gets it. I'm still working out what it means. If anything. Not the play, the collective experience.

In other news, I have bought some black Chelsea boots. Only in New York.

I had to come all the way to New York to find out this?

It's tough getting knee-length boots if you have well-defined calves. I've heard. Now, here's a company that's already thought of that.

It's a global village, sweetie.

So I heard the news this morning, with pics already, just like you did, about how Prince Harry is a Nazi. Allegedly. And I heard about some BA flight that got turned back to London thre hours into its New York-bound flight because it turned out they thought they had a possible terrorist on board, but only discovered after the flight had left, as it turned out they were working from an outdated checklist. Right. You know how that happens.

I am in New York! I feel I should use a (rare) exclamation mark to represent the exuberance of the city.

Sitting in M's lobby of her upper east side apartment building last night, waiting for her to get home from work (I was early, can you believe), it was like theatre. People running backwards and fro, hair straightened, furs, careful doormen, New York winter.

- Happy Noo Year, Martha
- Happy and healthy. Did you meet my new daughter in law?
- Welcome to the family. What a family

Italian food, long cup-of-tea-and-sitdown with M, and now all set for meeting friends, museums, shopping.

My house (in London) is tidier than it's ever been. Doubt it'll last long: I left P house-sitting and she's hardly the tidiest. (Sorry, P. There's food in the fridge. No tomatoes, mind).

Talk later, daahling.

I am reading an (advance) copy of Blink (I think it's out in February).

I love how Malcolm incubates ideas for ages: I read a piece in the New Yorker back in 2000 about job interviews, and how interviewers basically make snap decisions. I was a headhunter at the time, so we all thought it was very interesting. Now Malcolm's developed his idea even further. It's smart, easy to read, and exciting. Which for non-fiction, is amazing. To me, anyhow. Like I'm sitting at my desk thinking I'd rather be on my sofa finding out what (intellectually) happens next. But I am finding out everything there is to know about retail investment. Such is life.

Turns out that Itchy Feet (I progressed to travel shops after electronics retailers) on Wardour Street stock them. But I should "be aware" (AKA know) that it doesn't convert the voltage from 220 to 120, so my phone could blow up. He said.

Waddya reckon? Likely or not?

Oh, how annoying is this. I've just realised that I don't have a universal adaptor, so I can't charge my US phone before I leave. I've called John Lewis, Currys, Dixons. No-one sells them. Gah.

Never Mind The Goldbergs - I wish I'd thought of spelling my name Matthue. If it was Matthew, of course.

Whenever people ask me how I spell my name, I always say with a silent Q. Like in the Young Ones? Remember?

This is the weather for Kerhonkson, New York. Snow. Except it's not snowing in Manhattan. So now I have to take two wardrobes, and I'm trying to travel light.

How to be creative. Must try harder (me, that is).

Did I mention I'm off to Limmud New York later this week? And that I've basically financed the trip by buying a year's contact lenses? Of course some say I should have learned from last time: and I did. I ordered them two weeks ago, and they're already there. See.

And with the pound at nearly $2 I feel the urge to shop. But I must contain it, as I've cleared out my house in a de-cluttering/moving house kinda way, and I like having less stuff. So the last thing I want is to come back from NY with more stuff. But a pair of trainers, right, that would be OK?

Columbia Road Flower Market on Sunday; it's very different in the winter. Not quite as heaving, and more evergreen/shrub-like. Bought some fabulous ornamental cabbages and heather for my window box.

Reminds me: a good few years ago I was at a friend's wedding in New York; very funky. She had a Yohji Yamamoto dress, and the table decorations were all modernistesque. Cabbages, rather than posies. You know the style.

All the "older people" were saying things like "you'd think she'd have ironed her wedding dress" and "are those table decorations the salad."

Saw Vera Drake last night at Kilburn's very own Tricycle cinema.

Well kept secret of North London: when a new film is sold out in the whole of London, the Tricycle always has seats and they are comfy. I gather it's because they're Arts Council funded rather than commercial, so they don't actually do any marketing. Keep it to yourself.

I ran into 17 people I know. Not including me. It was very nice, very sociable. One person said to me "you can never go to the Tricycle on a Saturday night without your makeup on." I don't know if that was a veiled reference to my flawless skin even in a no-makeup scenario, or what.

As I sat down, the person in front of me whispered to their cinema companion: the place is crawling with Jews. Because she was someone who looked vaguely familiar in a you're-Jewish-too way, I didn't get the sawn-off shotgun out of my handbag.

Vera Drake is a great movie, if a little long. (Here be spoilers, be warned). From 1949 to 1951, North London was just a linked series of cups of tea. Dear. No, really. I think from now on I will refer to a cuppatea in faux rhyming slang as a Vera Drake. I realise that people will probably think I mean a piece of cake or piece of hake, but needs must.

Followed by toffeeappletinis at Brondesage, the loudest local hangout there is. Whodathought I'd be sitting outside on the Kilburn High Road in January. NW6 is where it's at. The Kilburn Rivieria, if you will.

Could just be my current frame of mind (house moving), but just discovered House Price Crash which doesn't make me feel great. And NetHousePrices.com and MyHousePrice.com.

Both of the last two do the same: take the basic land registry information and put the database online. MyHousePrice charges you £2 a go, and NetHousePrices has 500 free searches if you sign up in beta now (they got a bit overwhelmed, so it may not be open yet), and then charges (I think) £4,95 for 48 hours. Perfect if you're buying and want to check out recent prices.

Of course there's another thing: two friends I told who I knew would have an addictive desire to check out the price of the house of everyone they know were immediately frustrated by the no-new-registrations thing. "Quick, quick, tell me how much 12 Any Street went for. God, it's like drugs."

What I've discovered is that the house I'm thinking of buying is overpriced, and that my nieghbours sold the almost identical flat to mine in the summer for 15% more than I'm even asking.

Belle de Jour's book is out today. Bizarrely, Amazon have twinned it with a fascinating book from the Vietnam frontline.

M mailed me to tell me (apropos of my Year of the Volunteer post) that it's also the year of the Comma Separated Value as well as the Make Poverty History campaign.

I guess, glued to the TV like everyone else who was around on boxing day, I've been thinking about the Tsunami. A lot.

I mean, there's not a lot that I can say that hasn't already been said. I'm just wondering what it would be like to be sitting having breakfast with my family, like the brother of someone in my parents' shul, and then a wave comes and washes your wife away, leaving you and your two teenage children.

Or like the hundreds of other stories I've read and heard. The enormity of destruction, coupled with the fact that I've spent a lot of time in Indonesia, and in Sumatra especially, is overwhelming. I'm finding myself getting quite tearful everytime I read something new, and I'm getting to the stage where I can't follow it any more.

Makes me feel like the only thing that counts in the world is how we treat other people: whether it's about aid, or volunteering, or just being there for your friends and family.

We live in uncertain times. Oh, and happy new year.

Discussion on the Guardian's letters page on the place of god and religion during the recent tsunami. Richard Dawkins gives it all hes got: "There, in one sentence, we have the religious mind displayed before us in all its absurdity."

New year, new stupid trends: life caching is the latest.

Yeah, right. Filing, that's what it is. Good old-fashioned filing.

Good morning, good morning.

Yes, I'm still here. Just was relaxing and having a little rest.

In a completely unrelated (or it was when I found it but I've forgotten why now), here's a great website on the The Search for Noah's Ark in present day Turkey.

How was your break?

Haven't made any new year resolutions, but then in a way it feels more like a series of loosely connected bank holidays than a new era.

Been out and about, relaxing, a fair about of being-and-nothingness.

Friday night, at a dinner party, A said "once you're past customs in the airport, locked in waiting an hour for your flight to board. Who buys the five piece luggage sets? And do theyfit as hand baggage?"

Indeed.

I know, I know, it's xmas eve. I know this because when I went into a client's office yesterday, I was nearly attacked by an eightfoot tree. I'm like the only person I know who's taken on three new pieces of work in the last week.

So for those who do: season's greetings. And for those who don't: have a bit of multicultural good cheer, whydontcha.

Did you know 2005 is Year of the Volunteer?

Saw the real Toby Young in How to Win Friends last night, at the Arts Theatre. Without a weblog I'd never remember that it was March last year when I saw the play at the Soho Theatre. Surreal and moderately self-indulgent as it clearly is to see someone playing themselves in a play they wrote about their own lives, Toby was great. Better than Jack Davenport, if that's possible. And they play's better: tighter, leaner, and almost brought a tear to my eye when he talked about his Dad.

I don't even remeber the whys and wherefores of how I was even looking for this. But anyway: Jewish Communities of Eighteenth-Century London.