TELEVISION

All right, so there's this news program here called, uh, something. I forget. I'll remember later.

At any rate, it's really funny. What they do is they have two panels of funny people, and the host shows them some kind of photo or news footage, and they have to guess what top news item of the week is being shown, and they discuss it a bit. It's hilarious.

Well, so this last week, the host was arrested for, uh, snorting coke off a a prostitute's something or other. People here being British and all, I have ascertained that it was snorted off of something of hers, but nobody will come out and tell me what. So I can't tell you either. Maybe that's how this whole thing starts--maybe nobody knows what it was because even the prostitute couldn't say.

Maybe the host wasn't arrested. I'm not sure. Somehow it made the tabloids, whatever the case is. Evidently she didn't make him pay for the sex, and she went on about how it lasted for hours and hours and how he's the best lover she's ever had.

So the ensuing events *would not happen* in the United States.

Why not?

Because the host didn't quit his job, the network didn't take him off the air. Last night the entire country tuned into his television program to see what he, and the funny regular and guest panel members, would do.

It was *hilarious*. They took the piss out of him the whole evening. He'd show them a photo of something, and they'd say, "Oh, that's a photo of Blair responding to allegations that the Labor Party took money from tabloids--you know all about tabloids, don't you?" or whatever. It was so funny. They're all clearly good friends, and it was done in very good humor as well as being absolutely ruthless in that friendly good-humored kind of way. I don't know how else to explain that.

One of the guys had actually had the front page of the tabloid silkscreened onto a t-shirt, and this is what he wore onto the program. He was wearing a sweat jacket over it, and waited until just the perfect opportunity, and then he unzipped it. It was priceless.

Incidentally, Black Adder was on television right after that.

There is this strange phenomenon when it comes to television, that I don't understand, but it's infallible. Whenever there's a program that you like and have seen but have never watched religiously, but watch when by random chance you turn on the TV and it's on--it's always the same episode.

I'm serious about this. I like the Simpsons. I do. But the only two television programs I have ever watched on a quasi-religious basis, for a period of time, have been the X-Files (no longer) and Buffy. But every time I am flipping on the television and the Simpsons is on, it's one of the same handful of episodes.

Ditto for Black Adder. I love Black Adder, but have only seen it maybe fifteen times, and of these fifteen times, probably 12 of them were the same two or three episodes.

It's bizarre.

Anyway, I have nothing exciting to say. I won't hear back from the BBC until Wednesday or Thursday of next week, and similarly most things in my life are just in a holding pattern at the moment.

But I am really, really happy.

HUGH GRANT WORKS FOR THE BBC

Did you know this? I didn't. But I had an interview today for the position of Webmaster, and I swear that one of the people interviewing me was Hugh Grant. He's the head of web operations or something. It was very disconcerting.

I'm not sure if I will get the job or not. The interview went fantastically well, but honestly, there may be people out there with a better matching set of skills, and who don't need a work permit. If I don't get the job, that will be the reason, because in every other aspect, it was a great interview. The interviewers obviously liked me, and I was completely relaxed.

A lot of the lack of nervous originated from the fact that I don't think the job pays well--it's a prestige job, and they know that. So honestly, if I don't get it, I'll just get a job that pays better. Since I won't be upset either way, it works out quite well.

I'll find out in a week. And you'll find out the moment I do. You'll hear the screams from there.

ALL ABOUT ME

You know, the funny thing is that two people in the last week have described me as "hard" in the sense of hard-nosed or unyielding. This is sort of odd, although it's true.

I am actually a very forgiving and flexible person, and I try every option first, but then once somebody reaches my limit, and I flip over into "giving up" or whatever, there's just nothing that can be done. I mean, I've already given you every chance, every option, and you blew it.

I think this confuses people, because they get used to me being forgiving and nice about stuff, and they think it will just continue forever.

But it's like my last stalker (not counting Mr. Wanky-wanky, who I don't think had technically reached stalker territory yet). You know, I was nice to him, and tried to help him out, but once he crossed that line, it was, "Don't contact me again or I'll get a restraining order," and that was it. It was meant sincerely. If I ever hear from him again in any way, he'll get a visit from the police. Period. No questions asked, no excuses made, nothing.

One of the people who called me hard was Laurence. We were discussing people who cheat on their wives. I said, basically, that asking my ex for a divorce was the hardest thing I've ever done, and that if I had to go through all of *that* to do the right thing, then I have no sympathy or time for people who just sleep around. I'm sorry, if you've decided that your relationship is screwed enough that you want to see someone else, then bloody well do the honorable thing and talk to your partner about it. It can't possibly be as difficult for you as it was for me, but I did it, and I did it *before* one of us went out and cheated on the other.

So does that make me hard? I suppose so.

Anyway, there's this kind of funny story about that, or at least it's funny to me.

Right before I left San Francisco, I found out that my friend Megan is friends with my ex-boyfriend Stephen, which is a really bizarre coincidence, especially since I've known Megan for a while and only just found this out.

Stephen has been sort of rude to Megan, and he was downright nasty to me.

Stephen is currently dating and living with a woman named Angie, who is insanely jealous of two people in this world--me, and my friend Laura. She's jealous with me, because she knows that for a while he was dating the two of us at the same time (not cheating or anything, he was dating more than one person, was very open about it, and I don't think there's anything particularly wrong with that). She's jealous of Laura because she knows that Stephen is madly madly madly in love and lust with Laura and always will be. He's like this panting and pathetic puppy when it comes to her. Most of the reason he is that way is that Laura cops an attitude with him--she occasionally deigns to notice his existence, and Stephen is just enough of a twisted freak to wallow in that kind of treatment.

All right, so there's your background.

So anyway, Stephen is one of those people who finally crossed the line with me. He consistently was obnoxious to me and treated me like talking to me or spending time with me was doing me some kind of a favor. At some point, I got completely disgusted and that was it.

So the last time Laura was in town, she wanted to see Stephen. He said he'd pick her up at my office. When he got to my office, they buzzed me, and I sent Laura on out, but didn't come up to meet Stephen. I had no desire to see him, and so I didn't. I didn't make a big deal of it, I just couldn't be bothered to waste time going up and being polite to him, knowing full well that he'd treat me in his standard condescending attitude. Sorry, but I didn't have the time.

Knowing how he responded to Laura's treatment, you can imagine how much this bugged him. I didn't know at the time, and didn't care much. He's a worm.

Anyway, so Laura was talking to me, and she really really wants a vacation, and decided that she wants to spend it with Stephen, but she and I have both lost track of his email address and physical address. So I told her I would ask Megan to contact him and ask him to contact one of us with his address.

Megan wrote to him, and he told her she could give me his mailing address. She did, and I forwarded it to Laura.

This was a little snub on his part. It was a complete, "All right, I'll deign to let you contact me, but it will be by writing, so it will take a while."

I didn't think about this. Laura's actually the one who pointed it out to me. Basically, he's peeved about me not meeting him at the office, and now he thinks I'm trying to contact him, and this is his way of making me crawl back to him.

Laura also pointed out just what he's going to do when he realizes that I was only asking for the address for *her*--and that he is delaying his contact with the person who he salivates over the most. And furthermore, Angie is going to go to the mailbox and find a letter to Stephen from Laura waiting for her one day.

What is it they say about Karma? Whatever it is, I think she and I have something in common.

COLOSSAL CHEEK

Well, as I suspected, the company I've done contract work for--you know, the one who said they'd give me a $500 retainer up front and then pay me the rest of what they owed me on April first--you know, the ones who have yet to pay me a penny for what I've done--have sent me email asking me to do additional work on their website.

People.

Yesterday I ended up going to one of my favorite places in London so far, which is St. James Park. It might actually be called something else, but I think that's it. Anyway, it's gorgeous, and the day yesterday was one of those ones that couldn't decide if it wanted to be just warm enough or just slightly too cool, but I ended up hanging around in the park and reading for the majority of the day, and it was really lovely.

Mind you, as I was walking on the path I was blindsided by a stray soccer ball, and when I was lying down on the grass, reading, some kid who was throwing sticks (for no apparent reason) and who had really bad aim managed to hit me on the back of my calf with one, and it has left a really impressive bruise. Other than that, the day was quite lovely.

There was this huge white bird that resembled a pelican, and he was walking around bothering people for a while. At one point he stood on a bench next to this very British-looking man in a suit who was reading, and I wished like anything that I had a camera.

These tourists (Indian, not American for a change, which either heartened or appalled me, you know, because it means that idiocy is not confined to the borders of the US) with this 18-month-old (or so) walked over to the bird, and then let their child run toward it with outstretched arms. I was terribly far away, so suppressed the urge to walk over, whack them over the head with sticks, and say, "That's a bloody wild animal, you great idiots!" because this bird was at least twice the size of this toddler, and DearLordWhatAreTheseIdiotsThinkingThisBirdIsGoingToEatTheirChild, but then I realized that I was being given the opportunity of a rare viewing of one of the wonders of nature--Natural Selection in progress.

I felt so fortunate. Really. I mean, you see these things on National Geographic and stuff, but how often do you actually get to see it in the flesh?

Unfortunately, the child was pulled back at the last minute, and so escaped almost certain death.

This morning, the boiler was fixed, so I finally got to take a *hot* bath. I've been bathing in freezing cold water for the last two days, and I don't know what the neighbors are thinking by now, since uncontrollable little cries of "Cold cold cold cold cold" escape my lips every few minutes, but at least I have been clean. The luxury--the absolute luxury--of warm water this morning was fantastic.

By the way, the upshot of not thinking for two days is that at the end of it, I was suddenly back to myself. I mean, I've spent most of my time here in a state of at least semi-panic. Two days of not allowing myself to think about anything completely cured me of everything, and I feel absolutely normal again, and it's got to be one of the most lovely things ever. I know it may sound a bit weird, but one of the reasons I've liked having Matthew around is that I think his non-thinking helps balance me out, and I kind of think that I make him think a bit more, and as a result, well, we sort of both become a bit better.

Well, I'm starving, and so I'm going to rush off and find something to eat. I know I have other things to write about, but I'll just have to save them for later.

Cheers.

NOT THINKING, DAY TWO

You know, I think I may actually think in my sleep. I woke up this morning feeling suspiciously like I had been thinking during the night. Clearly, I cannot be trusted.

It's a beautiful day outside, which normally would be a good thing, but may actually turn out to be yet another fact designed with the sole intent of making my life a little more difficult. You see, Peter had planned a big barbecue this weekend, but then he saw that the weather forecasts called for rain, so a few days ago he called everyone up and cancelled it. Obviously, he is doing nothing but complain this morning, and 50% of it is devoted to the weather and lack of barbecuage going on in the back yard.

However, on the bright side, the water heater decided to break this morning. I knew something was up because as I sat in my room pretending to be asleep, I heard him running around the apartment saying, "Sh*t...sh*t...sh*t," at the rate of approximately one "sh*t" every five minutes. Next time I should consider plotting this on a graph so that I can give you more accurate details.

Howe'er it was, this was the greeting which awaited me this morning. Mind you, this is not terribly unusual. I spoke with Sarah the other day--Sarah being the one who set me up with said roommate--and she mentioned that Peter is from some other planet. I said, "I wonder what the weather is like on Planet Peter," and she said, "Oooo, very dark, cloudy, and rainy all the time," which is pretty much an accurate statement. The man is a little bundle of gloom. So anyway, hearing a series of guttural sighs, expletives, and groans accompanied by little footsteps padding around the house is pretty normal.

At first I was worried, because I remembered that I cooked something last night and had washed the pan in the sink. I thought that maybe I had not left the stove to his liking, or perhaps had inadvertently clogged the drain (heaven knows how) or something similar. Fortunately, however, it did turn out to be the water heater, so there's no possible way that I can be blamed.

Keep in mind that this is the man who hides the vacuum cleaner in his room for fear I might touch it incorrectly, and you'll understand my initial trepidation.

I did point out that he can be glad that the barbecue was cancelled anyway, because if the water heater had broken on a day when he was going to have a zillion people over, he'd be very upset. I think he was almost disappointed that there was a silver lining to this particular cloud.

He's been bugging me relatively constantly about whether or not I will be moving out on June 20. I have made it pretty clear all along that things will depend on how my job search goes. It has been less than two months, and frankly his constant questioning is starting to really irritate me. I finally figured out that this is probably why he has helped me to apply for a job with the BBC (where he works)--he just wants to have some kind of clear answer on whether or not I will stay there and continue to pay rent.

I'm not being unkind here, by implying that he has a selfish motive. He told me less than a week ago that he was worried about me being sick, because he was planning on going away for a week, and if I was sick he wouldn't feel comfortable leaving me to watch the house while he was gone.

He's a funny little thing.

Anyway, on a totally unrelated note, I think I may have to travel to Sandwich and eat a sandwich there. I don't know why, but it seems like something I should do.

I've been thinking quite a bit about sandwiches lately, because I have found ordering one from a deli here challenging. Basically, if you ask for "chicken salad," for example, they take "salad" to mean "with lettuce and tomatoes," and give you sliced chicken on bread with lettuce and tomatoes, and they ask you if you'd like mayonnaise as well. As near as I can figure, what we would call chicken salad, they call "chicken mayonnaise." I'm not positive; I'm just basing this on the fact that egg salad is called egg mayonnaise, and tuna salad is called tuna mayonnaise. Actually, you almost never see "tuna mayonnaise," because more commonly they combine the tuna with what appears to be canned corn, and they call it "tuna sweetcorn," which in addition to sandwiches they also occasionally put on baked (or "jacket," as they are called here) potatoes, and frankly I find the whole concept quite disturbing.

Er, I don't mean to say that they put sandwiches on baked potatoes. I mean that they put "tuna sweetcorn" on baked potatoes. Oh, never mind.

As far as the "salad" vs "mayonnaise" thing goes, I can kind of see their point. Lettuce and tomatoes do seem a bit more like "salad" than mayonnaise does (which leads one to wonder what they call potato salad, if such a thing even exists on this side of the pond), but on the other hand, well, in the States when we make a sandwich, lettuce and tomatoes is assumed unless specifically stated otherwise--I mean, what kind of crappy sandwich has no lettuce and tomatoes on it? Someone tried to pass one of those off to one of us, we'd revolt.

Of course, they generally include the cucumber as a Bonus Item in the salad, but since pickles seem relatively unheard-of as a sandwich topping, well, it's just the same thing sans vinegar, so I'm not quite sure how to feel about it.

I did find out about the toffee disclaimers on packets of Rolos, by the way. It's basically a guarantee that at least 40% of your Rolo is, in fact, toffee, and not preservatives or something else. Yes, I actually asked this question at a party last night. I'm telling you, people must love me. The belle of the ball and all that. Anyway, so that's the deal with Rolos.

I also found out something about the synagogue that I picked up trash at.

I had heard some people say that they thought that members of the nearby mosque had been responsible for the desecration, although the rabbi of the congregation said that he doubted it. At any rate, I thought that this was a horrible thing for someone to speculate, because most of the religious Muslims I know are really lovely people, you know, of the nice peace-loving variety. And I thought it was terrible for someone to try to incite some kind of religious thing between this little synagogue and some perfectly decent Muslim people.

Well, it turns out that the nearby mosque is a well-known extremist fundamentalist/anti-Jewish one. All of the rabid extremist guys that you read about go there. The shoe-bombing guy was a member there, and the guy who posts all of the hate literature around town (the one Ronson wrote about in "Them") is also a prominent member. So I guess it's actually not a crazy thing to suggest after all.

I've been thinking that maybe I should go back and do some more trash pickup soon; the back yard was pretty awful. I am not sure that in the present circumstances, though, they'd appreciate a complete stranger wandering around their property. I mean, after all, they have no way of knowing I'm not just an anti-Semite. I suppose if it came down to it, all I'd have to do is show them some ID, because the odds of an anti-Semite having an Hebrew first name are *probably* quite slim.

Well, I'm sick of the guy sitting next to me here in the Internet cafe hitting on me, so I'm going to sign off now and go enjoy the sun.