So I think I read too many blogs. Not that I do, anymore. I think I have blog inertia: I've got a spare ten minutes, I want to find out what's happening in the world and the internal world of people I know and I don't, and I surf because I'm hungry, and I just get an overload of "yays" and "cool" and kvetvhing and I realise I don't care about these people, and the little minutiae of their days any more than you probably care about mine.

Ennui. That's it. Blog ennui. Blogennui.

There really is too much information out there, and I can't remember what my friends said to me on Saturday night that I wanted to write here, because it's all mixed up with crap I read about some girl in San Francisco's argument with her boyfriend, and stuff about heebz and zeeks and modern day come-hither yiddishists and I don't even know what I think anymore.

Discerning, that's my word for 2004. I will blog-read discerningly. Frankly, the only blog I ever read with any excitement (OK, I exaggerate for effect but you get the drift) was Mike at Troubled Diva and he's gone. Perhaps sensibly, but I want to know what's happening in his life. Maybe I'll call him. See, you can get beyond the virtual.

Zeek magazine.

Culture wars in Brooklyn. Who knew?

I imagine a proto-(Jewish)science fictionesque future where the world is divided into Black Hatters and the CST. Turns out it's The Chasidim and The Artists. You couldn't make it up.

British campaign furniture and colonial nostalgia. I mean, who knew? That there even was such a thing?

Here's a word about Oyster cards: I've used mine three times on a bus, and it doesn't charge your card. So, it's like, free. Yay.

Wild salmon is safer than farmed salmon?

He points out that salmon in US farms are also fed recycled fat from slaughtered agricultural animals such as cows. By feeding the salmon material from the top of the food chain - which may already have high PCB levels - the problem can be exacerbated.

And me, a fish-eating vegetarian.

And what's the difference between PCB and dioxins?

That's the second post that Blogger's eaten in as many days...

So the new iPod is overpriced. At least I can get something from the ironic iPod t-shirt store.

Well, hello Toba. Whoever you are. And thanks for completely ripping off my design, without (a) asking or (b) crediting me. And twice; once for your English blog, once for your arabic one. Naughty, naughty, naughty. Not the way of the web.

Not least because, you've even had the gall to nick my painstakingly-drawn/scanned handscript images. It's my handwriting, OK. And you've nicked my code, which I borrowed, with agreement and credit, from Dan and Tom. Just stop.

Of course there's a multicultural irony in quite how popular I've become among arabic blogs. But I still don't like it.

Americans run the interwebnethang. Imagine, if you will, that thing of which we get too many every day being called epost. Exactly.

The Sheitgeist Index

Capturing the Sheitgeist: a beat-the-bullshit no-holds-barred deconstruction of stupid twenty-first century habits. Described in that stupid third-millennia language-is-our-prisoner, buzzword-bingo way.


1. Arrangement fatigue
Everyone’s so damn busy, and you spend so long trying to meet up with four old friends that at least half the potential group lose interest anyway.

2. Choice inertia
You can’t decide between tea-tree washing-up liquid with added air quality enhancer or hand-soothing lemon freshness, so you do nothing.

3. Party arbitrage
Sounds like a great party, but you might get a better offer, and you’d like to decide at the very last moment. Later, even. Goes hand-in-hand with late-onset arrogance.

4. Trophy husbandry
Female high-fliers seeking out a buff/bright/ballsy stay-at-home guy as their trailing spouse.

5. Subscription addiction
Convinced your life would be immeasurably improved if you could speed-read the Economist, Elle Deco and the Spectator, you take out multiple-subscriptions but are, of course, far too busy to read them.

6. Wish-list envy
Too time-poor to develop your own wishlist on Amazon.com, you surf someone else’s and nick their obscure interests in, say, the work of Kilburn artist Robert Lenkiewicz.

7. Life-force sappery
Those friends who suck your energy and want to meet up all the time but you don’t have any oomph left to tell them the friendship’s over.

8. Furry fandom
Your neighbour has a kitten. Your Mum has a kitten. Everyone in your office has a kitten. It’s like it’s gonna make them feel better, or something.

9. Post-penetration generation
Everyone you know is so kinky that they don’t even have old-fashioned sex anymore.

URBAN KVETCH - Two
Here's what I hate about Christmas - no-one at work returns your call after 10th December because they're out stuffing their face with a client they hate anyway. YOu get cards from people you don't eve know, and there's a faux seasonal spirit for about a fortnight (let me open that door? can I help you?) which just proves how crap people in the city are to each other the rest of the year. If your boiler breaks down chol-ha-moed Christmas, you won't see an engineer till well past the twelfth day, no matter how many stars on your maintenance contract. And the queues in Waitrose, the panic, the planning, you'd think people can't even cook.

URBAN KVETCH - One
Who does Vanessa Feltz think she is? She's moving so low down the celebrity foodchain that she's practically desert - although she shouldn't be eating any of that. With her "more is more" philosophy, in-your-face pink Batmitzva-ot, loud divorce and still basking in her failed £2m TV deal, she does my head in.

Out and loud Jews? Fine. Professional dieters with big hair, bad taste and truth-economics on the dress size? Pass me the chocolate fudge cake.

So this is where we all went wrong - on the weight loss front, anyhow - we didn't have weekly therapy sessions. Of course. I'm reading Therapy Culture (Frank Furedi) right now, and my mind has been melded into a temporary hatred of the vulnerable self. On yer bike, right.

If I didn't have such a cold, I'd be at the Spitz tonight, to see Charming Hostess. Hung out with them, some, at Limmud, they are funky cool types, as is their music. And, like, they were commissioned by John Zorn.

Sunday, walked across the Heath with G and A, to Highgate, and had a wonderful Hungarian-stylee lunch (although we were trying hard to low-carb) at Cafe Mozart. I discovered my new hot-drink of choice: cinamon stick in hot water. I have added honey for seasonal cold-diffusing properties.

On the way back, we played intergalactic Jewish Geography with some people who just looked familiar. Turned out G had been at Sunday School with one of them in a past life, but they just looked like we knew them. Two points and a joker on the JG, though.

I have a stinking cold - I could do with all the tea and sympathy I can get.

Fashion News From the Shores of Brooklyn (or thereabouts)
N tipped me off to these great t-shirt sites: Rabbi's Daughters and JewishFashionConspiracy.com. I have my Yo Semite t-shirt on order, although I have no idea at all who Derek Jeter is, and frankly, no desire even to google. Sometimes, there's stuff you just know you don't need to know, especially if it's to do with an overseas sport you probably don't even get the rules of.

And there's more... Jew Lo, JewishJeans and the Jewish News of Greater Phoenix even has an article on Jewish t-shirts. Only in Amerikey, as they say.

And I heard it from the horse's cousin's mouth that we'll hear about the new mini-iPod tomorrow, 6pm GMT. £65? If it's true, I'm there. If it's not, there's a bunch of people up against the firing squad, I'm guessing.

I'm back
Just like Arnie, I'm back, only with less of a germanic accent, and a lot less of a vengeance. In fact, with something of a head cold. There's a lot to cover; formalities first: Happy (goyishe) New Year (and a word about the word goyim:it has something of the connotation of "that other 99.5% of the world that's not Jewish", to it. So I tend to say non-Jews, which may be worse. Or I could just say "the world", because, let's face it, that's the way it is).

Next; Limmud. Urban Kvetch. Jewish Hair. My tax return. New Year. New T-Shirts. New Conservatives and a word about their typography. And some other stuff. I'll paragraphise/postise, it'll be easier on the eye. Want to let you back in gently, right?