Whilst I remember... I really want one of these.

Had a mellow evening with E; dinner at Sabra's in Willesden, followed by mint tea in the bar formerly known as Dominiques in West Hampstead. We did more of the "no, not you as well" kinda thing, and she recommended Swingers to me as a cool movie to rent. I love having really good girlfriends you can say anything to, especially because I am generally very secretive (apparently it's the Scorpio in me. Except I don't really buy that horoscope shit. All I know is I've got Scorpio rising in the House of Fraser - retail therapy is my middle name). There are maybe five or six people in the whole world I've been deeply honest with, and not all about the same thing.

video–gamed to idiocy


I just read this phrase in a review of a review of book on how to write weblogs. Like, there's a book on this? But I love the prhase.


Said this, too:
"Readers crave your anecdotes and stories. They really do. So give ‘em the whole megillah. Instead of, “The party was a riot!” or “I’m depressed today,” carefully explain why. Elaborate. Parties and depression are perfectly good writing subjects. The Great Gatsby, for instance, has plenty of both."


I'm not convinced. How much of a blog is catharsis, personal interest, entertainment?. If I had the time/inclination/skills, I'd write a little script that gave you a C/P/E grading. I guess I'm 33/33/33... always pretty evenly balanced, me.

Health word of the day: diabesity. Can you believe that someone copyrighted (copyroghte?) that phrase?

Just came across this; it's Sex in the City meets Beverley Hills 90210. What is about the world now that we all expect a minimum of fifteen minutes of fame and frankly can't do most things without an audience? Me - probably - included.


This piece in the NY Times (ridiculously titled At Large in the Blogsphere... whatever THAT means), says something about the collective cultural blah blah blah. But AKMA deconstructs it so much better than I can.

I know it's ridiculously self-referrential to link to yourself - the ultimate narcissistic act - but now I've had four people surf in here looking for symantec yellow suit. Is this a meme? Or does no-one else get their advertising? Or are yellow suit marketing bods out there in full force?


And if someone could tell me how google works (and don't say "it's dynamic and logarithmic")... becuase now I don't turn up in the search, and at 0930 I did. Huh.

Got home early enough last night to watch V Graham Norton - can definitely see this getting to be a habit. Though tonight I'm out with E/just back from NY for a girl's-night-gossipycatch-up-with-vodka- thing (OK, we did it last week, too), so I might not get back in time. And Jilly Cooper is tonight's guest. I mean, what does the author of middle-class mild-porn for the gymkhana generation have in common with G? We should be told.

My friend A is a little bit London-Paris-New York (OK, Birmingham-London-Jersey), but now he's added me to his My Whereabouts weekly email, I can sleep easy at night.

I lived in Amsterdam during 1991-2, and I know the Netherlands to be a liberal, accepting, democratic place. So I can't really believe the news about Pim Fortuyn. I really feel for the Dutch people, and know that this murder must have shaken them to the core.

Just got back from This is Our Youth. It's a great play - written by Kenneth Lonergan, who I'm 76% sure is the writer of the forthcoming movie Gangs of New York (all star cast, financed by some London-made-good-bloke, delayed because of the similarities with 9/11). It was a good evening, but J, who saw it with the previous (not so famous) cast, agreed with me that Matt, Casey and Summer, whilst pretty to look at, were not great stage actors. Good, but not great.


There's a certain degree of life mirroring art; Casey and Summer are a real life couple playing a real life couple getting it together, against the back drop of the eighties New York drug scene. That would be a bit like the one that River Phoenix died in. And then Casey's character does a long monologue about a sibling dying.


It was the first night with the new cast, so there were loads of press people and naice girlies telling regular punters they couldn't have a complimentary glass of champagne, and overhead lots of people talking about the afterparty at Teatro.

Had fun talking to D last night; but then he told me that he had de-seeded some regular chillies, and his hands were throbbing like they were burned and how could he get his contact lenses out. We considered various options (but as we're not in the same city, not sure how practical it would be), many hingeing on D's lack of trust when it comes to his eyes and others hands. He texted me and 2230 to say all was well. Today he told me that he had chilli burns - I didn't even know they existed. Anyway, Jamie Oliver uses a knife, not his hands. So that must be the right way.

I just found out that two bloggers live, like, in the same street as me. And they say the world's a village. Whoever they are.

I'm really excited; I'm off to see This Is Our Youth tonight. I'm a huge Matt Damon fan, in a teen-kinda way. Very excited also about the prospect of Saffron Burrows in the Power Book at the new Lyttleton, and The Clearing at the Tricycle (my local).

My (new) friend J, sent me this Evening Standard piece by Simon Sebag Monefiore.

This piece by the BBC is way more positive than Norman Lebrecht's views in the Evening Standard. And the bloke pictured in the BBC article, a fitness instructor from Hendon? I had a mad crush on him when I was fifteen. And Norman Lebrecht is wrong when he says the ultra orthodox didn't show: they didn't show in their full numbers, true, but I saw the full spectrum of Jewish hair care represented, from peyot (orthodox side curls) and black hats to Stanmore highlights and associated manicures.

Melanie Phillips says good stuff too.

All this because yesterday reminded me of how strongly I feel: it was the most powerful expression - for me, anyhow - of the strange state of being an Anglo Jew. And we truly walked in the middle of the road. My friend S was standing on a white line.

I made a decision, when I started to blog, that some parts of my life are separate. I don't think I've ever been a "hello I'm Jewish" kinda gal, but my Jewish identity is a big part of who I am. And despite the fact that I'm third generation, I often feel that I'm passing through, that I'm not quite connected with being English/British/whatever. Like the time during the World Cup in 98 when one of the guys in my team hung what looked to me like a very large white tablecloth with a red stripe through it over his cubicle divider, and I didn't recognise it. And he couldn't believe that I didn't know what the flag of St George looked like.


In recent months, I've felt increasigly less able to be upfront about my identity; I feel as though I'm living in an increasingly anti-semitic Europe. Attacks on synagogues. Le Pen in France. The whole Spectator debacle. It's always been my contention that my parent's generation's "don't rock the boat", "be careful" "we're visitors" approach to dealing with the wider community was an anachronistic, post-War, out of date perspective in these multi-cultural times. I laughed at people who were obsessed with security.


I spent yesterday with 55,000 Jews and other supporters of Israel in Trafalgar Square. For some reason, all the press reported it as 30,000, when the organisers announced a number of times that the Police had confirmed 55,000.


Was it perfect? Of course not. Did I agree with everything that was said? No. But I passionately believe in the right of Israel to exist, and am excrutiatingly aware of media bias. Which I can't even get into here, because it upsets me too much. But in a country where being Jewish is largely characterised by walking in the middle of the road, for the first time in my life, I felt proud to be an Anglo-Jew.


Oh, and my Dad pointed out in article in the Times which says (nearly) everything I want to say, but typically, much better.

Had a late lunch at Giraffe in Hampstead with S. Apparently, S's friend used to rent a room off one of the guys who started the chain. Nice food, a few too many child-accessorised Hampstead mummies for my liking. Ran into F and friend in Giraffe, and G in Jane & Dada - a boutiquey clothes store - which S described as riffling through someone else's wardrobe.

I feel that being behind the times is my USP... so the fact that I read this fascinating article on the popcorn business on Wednesday should be no surpise to you. Popocorn has a 10,000% markup, as opposed to coffee's mere 4,000%. Oh, and the arm's industry. There's a silly supposedly-full-circle reference to Faith Popocorn - America's foremost trend predictor - which I think is tenuous, to say the least. And did you know that "sunglass have become cars for the face"? I mean, really.

It's a bit of a nothing-to-report weekend. Just seeing friends, hanging out. Doing nothing. Doing nothing is much overated. Having lunch with S, and then hooking up with Z&D for some more hanging out this afternoon. Been emailing with J this morning, who says that she's going to do her PhD as a critical analysis of my diary. I'm, er, flattered, but don't think there's much to say. Except, of course, that she knows too much about me and can spot the gaps ;)

More about my evening with T: we went to Walnut in West Hampstead; it's been open for a year or so, and seems mostly closed when you drive by. I've been meaning to go there for months, as I wanted to sample it before it went the way of all other great restaurants on that site (Cafe des Arts, the Billboard, some generic Italian restaurant and the second branch of that purple bar in Crouch End) and disppeared to the land of failed eateries on high. Fab food, and we were delightedly entertained by the couple on the next table who seemed to be on their second date and snogged over desert. T nearly fell off his chair when she stood up and was heard to exclaim: "that's not a skirt, it's a bandage."

When I got back from my mini-vacation (I know, I'm sooo transatlantic), I was shocked to find I had been the victim of theft. I had a six-foot, framed tour poster of Guru's Jazzamatazz in the hall to my building. It wasn't expensive, but difficult to replace, and the frame-shop had had to deliver it in their van, as it didn't fit my car.

I talked to my neighbour V, who said it had definitely been there when she left for work Wednesday morning. My neighbours M&R said the flat opposite me had just been sold, and people had been moving in/out yesterday, with a Portobello van hire van. I called the estate agents , spoke to the guy dealing with the sale, and expained that someone had obviously taken my worthless piece of contemporary art by mistake when they'd been in the flat today, and could they perhaps return it. He called me back in five minutes, and told me that B's removal guys had taken it in error, and would return in.

When I got back from an evening with T last night it was back. Crime solved. They don't call me MI5 for nothing, you know. But then, they don't call me MI5 at all. Mostly becuase it just sounds like an obscure motorway, but largely becuase my immigrant antecedents would probably preclude me from service.