Monday, May 17, 2004 Glass Mirror Went to see Shattered Glass ... an everyday tale of lying cheating journos. Before Jayson Blair at the NYT, there was Stephen Glass at The New Republic. He made a name for himself with articles on boozy Young Neo-Conservative conventions and hackers geting paid off by big tech corporations ... but was more in line for the Booker Prize than the Pulitzer. Then he gets found out by a holier than thou editor who naturally hated being duped. But the actor Peter Sarsgaard just keeps reminding me of someone ... Can't think who.
Monday, December 15, 2003 I shouldn't have giggled, but ... Everyone running around like mad in the office cos they found some Lord Lucan lookalike in hole in the ground outside Baghdad (why didnt they just seal him in?!?!?)
Our design boss is a very nice German girl with a bit of an accent. Editor had obviously ordered some spunky grafix outlining the crimes of Saddam Hussein, leaving the design desk obviously spoiled for choice from the plethora of torturing, gassing and mass-murder.
Strange to hear a German accent wafting over the office declaiming: "Vich var crimes is he talkking about."
Tasteless? Durrrrr, I'm a journalist, arent I.
Christmas Shopping Having a huge family clan, launched a policy that my siblings get nowt and only the 11 nephews and nieces get something stuffed in their stockings better than 10 smelly toes.
The standard we have to live down to is my uncle who used to produce gift-wrapped packets of M&S socks for us on Xmas morning and on one famous occasion a chess board for my brother ... no pieces just the board, so expectations aren't too high.
Usually tend to get small but bizarre things that strangely they seem to like. Coupla years ago I just hit Covent Garden East big time and got a pile of Chinese hats, sarongs, chopsticks and such like. Took days for my brother and his wife to get my nieces out of their "costumes".
Variation this year is books. Okay the really small sprogs (6 months to 4 yrs) got messy wet things that their parents will hate me for for 12 months, but the older ones (6 to 14 yrs) got books. And because we always buy things we would really like ourselves, I got them MY favourite books (from when I was their age ... have to compromise): so variously The Weirdstone of Brisingamen (love fantasy books based in real places), The Magician's Nephew (loads better than the super-pious Lion, Witch and the Ikea Hanging Rail) and for the oldest The Master and Margarita(just cos I like it).
Bit harder for the girls so got one His Dark Materials (but might have to nick it to read myself later) and in sexist mode got another one a cookbook called Recipes to Put you in a Good Mood. She's not particularly moody, it just looked a nice book. My sister-in-law will of course think it's revenge for when she bought me St Delia's Cooking for One when I was a student and I immediately renamed it Cooking for People With No Friends 10:02 PM
Tuesday, December 09, 2003 Why's a gay bar like a big family? ... cos it's loud, crowded and rather uncommunicative
11:07 PM
Friday, September 26, 2003 Up and Down A fucked up few weeks hit their low point on Tuesday: an exhausting, faffy, frustrating, scream-inducing day at work. Got home in a foul mood, exhausted, missing some one I wished was there to tell how shit it all was and basically cried myself to sleep.
But that explosion seemed to clear my sytem out ... Wednesday was a weird fun day that left me with a huge smile on my face.
Had a biz lunch at work so no jeans, t-shirt and chain ... had to wear a suit. So a day of "Job interview?" jokes, accusations of "selling out to management". Did I get any one saying "You really suit being dressed in a suit" ... did I hell!
The lunch was with a bunch of Japanese execs. Lots of bowing, painfully polite small talk, swapping business cards, all conversation going through interpreters even though they spoke (and we KNEW they spoke, and THEY knew we knew they spoke) better English than their interpreters. Utterly bizarre. But managed to get through it without bursting out laughing or telling my favourite after-dinner jokes. But I was biting my tongue so much, it hurt.
After a few more "class traitor" jokes (hell, I hadn't polished my DMs, for gawd's sake!!!) , headed for town. Barcode has had a really bad idea of selling cocktail shots for £1. Ran into a bunch of mates by chance, and we hit the drinks menu ... after a tequila, something (dunno what) with strawberry liqueur in it, and a Long Slow Comfortable Sofa against the Wall etc etc staggered home.
Had got a free lunch in a foreign language, had been chatting all night feeling so out of place suited-and-booted in Barcode, met mates I hadn't chatted to in ages and even managed to talk to someone I had been convinced for ages was a total arsehole and turned out not to be.
"One sees a picture, reads an anecdote, starts a casual fancy, and thinks to tell it to this person in preference to every other - the person is gone whom it would have particularly suited. It won't do for another." 3:02 AM
Monday, September 22, 2003 Dib Dib Dib Me and work mates have been working our proverbials off on a new project at work for the last three months. Only problem is as soon as we show we can get over one set of new hurdles, the powers that be reckon "Oh they managed that, we can try something else now!"and slap another new "good idea" on us.
For an arch-capitalist organisation we seem awfuly addicted to Trotsky's permanent revolution.
And in return ... pay rise? Yeah right! Time off? Do me a favour! In return for wrecking our nerves and social lives we officially have BROWNIE POINTS!!
So what exactly is the exchange rate for a brownie point? How many to the pound? Are they rising against the euro? If you get enough can you get some luncheon vouchers? Can you even tot them up like a schoolboy's gold stars? Personally I'm hoping for a wood craft badge, or something for rubbing two boy scouts together to start a fire or sumfink. Unfortunately, doubt we'd even get a complimentary Starbucks coffee with them. What we have effectively got is a pat on the back from our betters.
Brownie points? Puh-lease! I only even managed one day in the cubs, for gawd's sake ... though maybe the brownies might have suited me more ... Gin Gan Gooley Gooley Golley ... I'm writhing along on the chest of a slave and the cum is in my eye.
I'm gonna start calling my desk head my Sixer and the editor can be Akela and I shall be wearing a woggle to work in future.
10:08 PM
Thursday, September 18, 2003 Yo Ho Ho and a Bottle of Brick Just seen Pirates of the Caribbean, Johnny Depp doing a Rory Bremner of Keef Richards in a bandana. So happy to learn that today is International Talk Like a Pirate Day, so I shall be heading into the office swirling me sabre in me velvet pantaloons and checking out the exchange rate for doubloons before running the boss through just cos I can.
Belleville Rendezvous Quiet night so went the pics. Missed Terminator XXVII, half an hout to wait to see Julie Walters in the nud, so paid my £8.50 to see A CARTOON? Go see. Bizarre, surreal, daft as fuck ... but never thought a bicycle, a stretch 2CV and a clubfooted grandma could be so funny. Merciless but affectionate.
Section 28 Royal assent to its abolition last night, consigned to oblivion by the wave of a queen's hand appropriately
11:36 PM
