Whoever sent me the Diesel messenger bag with about 20 vinyl records in it. Cheers. It came yesterday.

I don't have a record player though so am somewhat confused. Is this a message of sorts?

Frustrated chimp takes up smoking

"Sexual frustration has driven a mild-mannered chimpanzee to take up smoking and spitting, according to China's Xinhua news agency.
Feili, 13, has turned from a 'gentle girl' into a 'shrew', said Liu Bing, the director of her zoo in Zhengzhou, central Henan province.
Mr Liu said Feili's partner at the zoo was 28 years her senior, and was unable 'to meet her sexual demands'. "

Relaxing in Battery Park City lawn on Saturday and reading the Indypendent, I was interested to note that escort agencies in NY are expecting this week to be a boom period. Ah yes. Right wing clients are the best. They always want the kinky shit and will pay through the nose for it. Maybe I should sent this saggy arse out to work, I thought as I was flooded with memories of hot Cuban gigolos after biting into a delicious guava pastry from Pan Latino. Yep, Republican men know that business is business. They pay the cash and then get the fuck out. No questions about whether you enjoyed it, cloying conversations about your life choice or pathetic offers of a “better future”.

The Indypendent is not, as advertised, “a canvas on which newsreaders decide for themselves which stories to highlight, images to portray, videos to project and ultimately which conclusions to draw.” It is opinionated jargon. They do have a few good potential stories – practical problems for protesters with fencing on marches, the possibility of postponing the election and some good quotes from Bush:

“God told me to strike at al Qaeda and I struck them and then he instructed me to strike at Saddam , which I did and now I am determined to solve the problem in the Middle East. If you help me I will act, if not the elections will come and I will have to focus on them”

To Abu Mazen, Palestinian Authority Prime Minister when they met in Aqaba, as reported in Haaretz

They don’t take these any further. They don’t report. It is all biased projection. It is, however, extremely entertaining.

“10 things that Republicans believe:

2. A woman can’t be trusted with decisions about her own body, but multi-national corporations can make decisions affecting everyone without regulation.”

Ah hilarious. I am thinking about subscribing.

Also vist here for the latest updates on where to go and jeer at RNC attendees out on the town. Last night saw those capitalist peegs attending a lavish party at Bowlmoor Lanes. Whoo. High life.

Gold for GB sprint four


"Britain's Mark Lewis-Francis held off the USA's Maurice Greene on the last leg to win a stunning gold medal in the men's 4x100m relay."

Oh yes. Very nice. This is fabfuckingtastic.

ElizabethSpiers.com: The Republican Invasion Begins:

"And next week, I'll be covering the convention along with every other journalist in New York. And more importantly, the convention parties, starting with Mayor Bloomberg's 'welcome party' at the Time Warner center on Saturday and ending with John McCain's Wednesday soiree at Cipriani. Check back for updates."

Take me with you, E! I haven't shagged a celeb in ages (mmm like about 32 years). Also I am BORED. This is a dangerous state of mind for me to be in as it usually entails forced spiralling into melodrama. The highlight of my week so far was an incident of "crazy mouse" which seems to have cleared up quite nicely after I cleaned his ball.

Conversation over coworker J's birthday cake to entire office:

Me: So where are you going for dinner?
J: Casa Mano.
Me: Nice. Batali right?
J: Yep.
Me: Fab. I was at Babbo last night - it was wonderful.
J: Really what did you have?
Me: Lamb tongue salad.
Co-worker P: Yuck.
Me: No it was delicious.
P: Have you had it before?
Me: Yes I have had a lot of tongue.
[Silence]
Me: I'm sorry. It's this disease I have. You can't do anything about it though. I'm protected under the Disability Act. Just think of me as a circus freak midget.
Boss: Yes. We do.

Tory leader attacks 'PC culture'

"Tory examples of political correctness 'gone mad'
Nursery teachers warned against playing musical chairs
Schools advised to replace sports day with 'problem solving'
Firm told job advert calling for 'friendly person' could be discriminatory
School children told lunchboxes a health and safety risk
West Yorkshire school banned books about pigs lest they offend Muslim people
Women's Institute banned from making cakes for patients because of 'health risk'
Father told he could not take a photo of his son at a public swimming pool without getting other bathers' permission
Hot cross bun taken off school menu because they could offend "

I agree. Friendly is discriminatory. And hot cross buns? Those things have been fucking me off for ages.

Email received from friend in London after I forwarded my flight confirmation

"Awww; is this your sweet, personal way of telling your men that you are coming over to see us ? A three way battle looms, and I have to fancy my chances given the competition (being the High Noon Cowboy and Zorba's bastard dwarf brother), don't you think ? I am being mean; stop it.

Sweetheart, your ticket says "coach". At first, I thought that it must be a mistake, but then I remembered that the 777s flown by AA NY-Lond boast an extra 4 inches of leg room in coach and also have 12 inch seat back, control your own choice of 30 movies entertainment consoles (I fleww AA to Jamaica via Miami last Xmas), and so only a nincompoop would pay to fly business on the $73.70. You couldn't get to Macclesfield from London for that price !.



Looking forward to seeing you, as ever.

xxx"

Sometimes the speed of life outstrips my ability to keep all informed of current events.

LondonPal: So we’re in town this weekend and I hoped we could all get together at some point.
Me: Fab. That would be excellent.
LondonPal: What’s your boyfriend’s name again?
Me: [Trying to figure out to whom he was referring] Oh, that would be Ex.
LondonPal: [In an about as unsurprised manner as possible] Really?
Me: Yep.
LondonPal: So the legend lives on….
Me: I wouldn’t say legend. I would say the train wreck that is my personal life. Someone greased the tracks recently.

Melodramatic tales of loss in New York

Found on a post-it note:

You treated my heart as Mr Dufresne would a kumamoto.

Mexican drugs legend arrested

"However according to the US drug tsar so far this has had little impact on the quantity of drugs flowing into the United States. "

Who is the US drug tsar?

Le Cocktail du Jour

GRAND PASSION







2 ounces gin
1 ounce passion fruit nectar
Dash Angostura bitters
3 or 4 ice cubes

Combine all ingredients in a mixing glass and stir well. Strain into a cocktail glass.



Serves 1.

Yes indeed. It only ever serves 1.

“If you are attached to nothing then you can lose nothing”
Lao-Tzu

Very true. However, in my experience, once lost, it is always better to lose something completely, for it to be ever absent from your life than to have some vestigial remains silently lurking and ever eager to retwist the dagger.

Take, for example, the loss of one Blahnik. So much better to lose the pair than to leave the other in your closet (as one could never throw it away) as a monument to the halcyon days when life was beautiful. So holds the same true with diamond earrings and exotic lovers. However, since the single earring has a decent resale value, never make the melodramatic mistake of ever flinging back anything you can pawn.

If you want to be melodramatic, and let’s face it, who doesn’t, the answer is simple: Cry a single tear, down a moonlit left cheekbone – never brush this away yourself. You will always sleep peacefully in the knowledge that it would have fucking rocked in a black and white movie. And that is all that matters. Believe me.

L'anniversaire hier de sac left me feeling aged so I nipped down to the local day spa and shed $200 on a 2 and a half hour collagen facial. I struggled through the 45 minutes of extraction - "How long since you have had this?" "Mmmm a long time" "your face is really dirty - look at this" yuck. Don't really want to see the results of the agony you inflict on me with your orange sticcks displayed in that light. One worm was a half a centimetre long. She told me that I had to have extraction every month for the next 3 and then I could whittle it down to one every 6 weeks and then one every 8. Right now though my face is too dirty.

I might also try Salon de Shoyo as recommended by the fabulous Lady Mathmetician, who knows the fabulous Regina Spektor whom I once saw at the ARS Nova Center and bought her cd which is ace. Say hi to Regina for me please, Fabulous Lady Mathematician.

Anyway, despite the fact that I am not allowed to wash my face or wear make-up for 24 hours (now just about over thank god) my skin feels totally fucking remarkably drop dead gorgeous. And yes, I have a marked decrease in the crows feet around my eyes.

The gentleman I am stalking left The Mark Morris Group's Mostly Mozart performace at the interval on Thursday night. I know what he means. I had no idea what "A Lake" was all about. I turned to my companion and embarressingly admitted that "This is fucking BORING. Away Mark. You are so much better than this." I had raved non-stop about Mark Morris and so my companion was somewhat bemused as to what the fuss was all about. There was also an obvious last minute replacement for one of the female dancers.

Shame that the Teachster left when he did as the second half was infinitely better. "I Don't Want to Love" contained Morris' usual comedy and "Jesu, Meine Freude" was truly beautiful. I was interested, on closer inspection of the brochure, to note that all pieces were choreographed from 1985 to 1996. Compared with his current work, such as the Violet Cavern which left me shivering it was so good, his older material is dated. Not dated in the way that Martha Graham's work now is and by which I mean so obviously 70's, but just in it's less daring, less powerful style. Mark you have come a long way and you are now so much better than this older stuff. It is only dated if you know that it is his. Still for the cover price of the ticket you got a good two hours of dance, almost double his usual performances.

Of all the dancers in his group, time and time again I am enthralled by Julie Worden and Lauren Grant, the latter I jealously noted is engaged to the hotness that is David Leventhal who was interviewed in this week's Time Out. Sounds like Mark Morris is more than a few degrees of arsehole to work for and has a stifling managerial style. Ah, never work for a genius, it's so much better to pay for the ticket and go and watch.

Ensconced at the Mercer for the week, I have managed to stalk the following celebrities: Big Phat Zero. This is not good. This might mean I have to give all that cash back to the Post. Somehow I don’t think the 6 bottles of Mercer body lotion I have nabbed so far will console them and I daren’t risk stealing Frette sheets again. I must either try harder or just make shit up. Being unfamiliar with the former, the latter wins. As usual.

Help me, peoples. Give me something to work with.

Half way to a rendez-vous last night, I realized that my shoes were just bloody wrong. They made me 5’9 (that’s another 5 inches due to the platformage on the sole) which was an entirely inappropriate height for the event and they were bloody killing me as the elevation level from toe to heel was setting off my arthritis, or gout, depends on whether you are consulting a doctor or a reflexologist. I need to stop being a lazy cow and get my Sadie Frost jeans shortened, since I am short, and relegate these shoes to dancing around my apartment to Incognito’s “I hear your name”.

The ennui has set in like athletes foot. Where shall I go for dinner/drinks tonight?

[sigh]

It's such a piece of shit that I must have dated it once

My office computer can't play cds and support any microsoft application at the same time, so that's it. No more fucking work for me today. I am just going to sit here, smell the flowers and listen to David L.K. Murphy. You should too. He rocks.

Drenched in Chinatown. Like absofuckinglutely fucking drenched. Like down to my knickers. What fucked me off the most was that there was zero amount of umbrella sellers around. None. In Chinatown. Ah the cruel irony. Not that I remotely blame them though – why the fuck would you hang around in that downpour? Actually I do blame them though, the fuckers, just because of the “I’m coming” look which shone through the years of self abuse on Eurotrash’s face last night when I showed up for dinner. Hmmmumpf. Die little umbrella sellers, die. Still I will love les enfants terribles eternally for their sage installment of blow dryers in the bathrooms.

Conversation last night, somewhat further into our cups.

[Background: We both have tickets for a function this evening. I am grunt class, ET is VIP. ET is uncertain of her ability to attend. Function having sold out we mooted the possibility of another friend taking ET’s ticket.]

Me: Hang on though. I want to be you. I want to be you so that I can get into the VIP section and snog that John Wesley Anderson guy.
ET: Ok then you be me.
Me: OK then I will be you and C can be me.
ET: OK.
Me: But I really like being me though. I have loads of fun being me all the time.

ET exits rapidly to reposition her eyeballs which are now in the back of her head. And to go and make new friends outside and leave me all alone in the bar for like at least 30 minutes so that I look like a sad, lonely tosser. Yeah, I haven’t forgotten, neither.

Further conversation last night, both well into our cups at this stage.
ET: Do you have a blog then?
ET's fabulous new gay friend: Yes I have 2.
ET: 2!
ETFNGF: Yes. One is a long term relationship, like my boyfriend really.....
ET: What?
ETFNGF: Yes and the other one is more casual.
ET: A blog?
ETFNGF: What is a blog?
ET: It's a personal website kind of thing.
ETFNGF: Oooohhhh I though you said bloke.

[Further empirical knowledge that non-bloggers have more fun]

Telegraph | Money | Citigroup faces bankers' wrath over bond coup

"A group of the City's leading investment banks met in Soho last night to formulate sanctions against Citigroup over a bond trading coup that enabled it to make an estimated $25m in four minutes.


About 10 of the banks met at an undisclosed location to discuss Citigroup's trading, which occurred on Monday of last week.
Citigroup is understood to have sold $11 billion of paper into the eurozone bond market during morning trading, primarily using the MTS trading platform"

Does that make Citigroup a bigger bastard than everyone else or just a smarter one?

My favourite quote:

"One trader said: "Citigroup made money on the trades which means other people lost money. It cannot be allowed to get away with this."

Oh really? You mean that's not how the markets work? Anyway dearie, my heart bleeds.

I have been invited to a pig roast party. In Maryland. Is that usual for Ameriky?

I like it when.....

the arsehole who fired me over two years ago calls and asks me for restaurant recommendations.

More than I should, probably.

What the fuck is up with me today? I am wearing PINK. Yuck. Maybe it was all the peach and strawberry smoothies I made myself yesterday. Anyway this is not a good look on me as it seems to highlight my bags and wrinkles which my usual black uniform goes a long way to explaining – along the lines of “Back off. Don’t even ask. I am more than acquainted with Loss.” (Actually I think Loss would be an excellent name for a perfume.)

Still today feels like a good one so maybe I am celebrating something by looking like a fucking cupcake.

This weekend I checked out 3 of the Brandenburg Concertos as performed by the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment. Amazingly exuberant performance. I have never seen a harpsichord player get down before but by god did he. I then quickly nipped down to the Joyce to check out Boccatango. The Times review highlighted:

“But Ms. Stekelman is an imaginative choreographic eclectic. There was a perky solo for Cecilia Figaredo, in which her twitches to flute music seemed bodily twitterings. Duets for her and Mr. Bocca grew increasingly sultry as she stripped to her undies and joined him in serpentine entwinings.”

Umm yep. Never seen anything like it, nor the physical perfection of her body – as my companion pointed out “That’s 20 years of dedication to her art on display there.”

I dragged my cellulite to the gym yesterday. My limbs are now frozen and I will have to do some yoga tonight or I am not going to be able to walk tomorrow.

Prozac 'found in drinking water'

Wow I thought people seemed unusually happy and friendly the last time I was back.

"Traces of the antidepressant Prozac can be found in the nation's drinking water, it has been revealed.
An Environment Agency report suggests so many people are taking the drug nowadays it is building up in rivers and groundwater. "

Whoa, there I was watching Six Feet Under all bored when I saw Vanessa smack ten tonnes of shit out of the stripper who slept with Rico. Holy crap that was good. The best bit of course being when Vanessa takes a baseball bat to her car, an act which is satisfying for a minute tops then she realizes she needs to go and pick up the kids from school. Also, lady, it’s his car you need to be pounding and not hers. It’s already a shit heap so where’s the fun in that? And poor Claire, she wants so much to be a lesbian – the whole episode everyone is getting off except her.

My favorite line is a toss up between these -

“Do you have a deafness problem? Tune in. I need to be someplace else.”

“What’s wrong with you men. Always turning your back on the good things and sniffing around for something new.”

“Hey you’ve had three boyfriends since Mr F died and that doesn’t include the affair with the hairdresser.”

Nate, get a messenger bag for god’s sake. That shoulder bag is just wrong.

La plume de ma tante: A Lesson in French

Ne t'inquiete pas = From now on, baby, Daddy's gonna make sure you never have to turn right onto a plane again.

Potential hitch for Google float

"Search engine Google has admitted it may have breached stock market laws in the US.
In a filing to the US market watchdog, Google said it had neglected to register almost 30 million shares and options issued to staff.
It is now offering to buy them back - albeit at prices way below the $108-$135 at which its flotation is set.
It is unclear whether the warning could affect the timing of the $3.3bn flotation, due to end within days. "

Ooompf. I bet heads are rolling at that law firm. Anyone know who they are using?

Black: Like my soul

Sometimes, as I peruse my wardrobe for overtly sexual outfits to wear to the office, I think to myself, "Maccers, you are just waiting to be a widow." This is a sentiment which screams at me every time I get those statements from the bandits known as Citibank.

Ok, you can congratulate me now

I'm back on the 6 month appointment rotation with my dentist. I think they must have credit checked me and found out that I am broke.

Natasha Paremski, the Maria Sharapova of piano (although unfortunately looking more like a young Steffi Graff than the gorgeous Ms. Sharapova) was at PACE University as part of the River to River Festival’s Summer Stars. She’s only 17 and started playing at the age of 2, if you can believe that and after having spotted her mother in the audience swanning around like Lady Macbeth, I can.

The thing about these free concerts is that the audience is always fucking awful. Old, rude and sporting hair and wigs that have needed washing since the 80’s. PACE also handles the crowd badly allowing them to come and go as their bladders please and rustle for sandwiches and mints in a variety of crackling plastic and paper bags. I hate them. The need to constantly practice the glottal stop through your nose is apparently a side effect of being an octogenarian.


Maybe it’s because I am English or maybe it’s because my cell phone once went off during a particularly erotic and otherwise silent part of a dance performance but I am too mortified to ever move or make any sort of noise at a concert. I have a feeling that I will end up dying silently of a heart attack or some kind of brain hemorrhage at a recital, since I will no doubt be on my own. Always on my own.

There‘s also the same constant plugging of WNYC from the host George Preston. It’s like listening to NPR’s pledge week. I counted 4 mentions of WNYC in the introduction. Shut up already George, please. I have one more to go to next week.

Anyway, Ms. Paremski is certainly deserving of all the praise that has been heaped upon her recently. Her Chopin wasn’t as good as Georges Cziffra’s, after all he was Hungarian and I am biased, but she has a remarkable speed and lightness of touch. She should stick to the Chopin, since the John Cagliano piece she played was bloody awful, not that it was necessarily her fault but then with some of these banging discordant pieces who can ever tell? He may have won the Oscar for the score to the Red Violin but "Etude Fantasy" was awful and for the longest time required Ms. Paremski to keep her right hand clawed to her right leg since the majority of the piece was played with her left. This left you with a feeling of only getting half of your money's worth, as it were, and that Ms Paremski was in some way disabled and unable to play with her right hand. The Chaconne in D minor by Bach/Busoni was the best received of everything she played and perhaps not in some way due her apparent oblivion to the 2 cell phones which some decrepit old bastards didn't turn off. Fogies. Sometimes I really fucking hate them.

English Accents and Dialects

"Alison speaks about her family's life on Holy Island and the difficulties associated with making a living from farming on the island. She reminisces about her childhood and contrasts the increased feeling of security for children in such an isolated location with the potential danger of living so close to nature. "

The British library online has put together a collection of recordings of northern British accents. The dialect in my home town is a mixture of Alison and Miss Dibnah.

I think my favourite is Arthur English though. He reminds me of one of my great uncles.

Chess great seeks Japan asylum

"Now holed up in a detention cell at Tokyo's international airport, the circumstances of the one-time world champion have never looked bleaker, our correspondent says. "

I bet he's not allowed shoes or a belt. Let's hope they're not sexually assaulting him as well. Being holed up in Narita's detention cells was not my idea of fun either. Funnily enough, I was also on my way to the Philipines. But just a little faster than I originally thought