AWAY WE GO
I've slept just two hours out of the past 24. My bags are packed, my supermarket shopping for my return booked, and my bed beckons.

I doubt I'll have time to update this while I'm away. But by the time I return, I hope to have added Colombia to my list of conquered nations. That would just leave Ecuador, Bolivia and Chile.

Hasta luego.

INTERVENTION
My best-friend is going out with a non-Jewish bloke, and I don't know what to do.

I've tried talking to her, but it only ever ends up upsetting her and alienating her. I've tried keeping quiet - my silence saying more than I ever could with my mouth open. Now I'm wondering if it might be worth staging some sort of intervention.

You know the thing: get a bunch of her friends and family together, as if planning a surprise party. Then, when she least expects it, hit her with the truth in a bid to make her see the error of her ways.

It would be like in Party of Five when Bailey's alcoholism threatens to tear the closely-knit Salingers apart. They all gather around the dimple-cheeked Scott Wolf and confront him. He responds with some choice lines:

Bailey to Neve Campbell's character: "At least I'm still in school. I'm not the one dropping out here. What are you gonna do, huh? Take a year off so you can get pregnant again?"

But in the end, they wean him off the booze and everyone lives happily ever after. Ahhh.

Before my concern for a friend is misinterpreted, I should point out that she doesn't want to be in the position she's in either. I'm not trying to impose my will on her. It's not my place to do so. But deep down - and even on the surface - she knows she can't be with this person, but somehow is unable - or unwilling - to do anything about it.

Foolishly, I shared my thoughts with her earlier this morning. She was feeling down because work is shafting her and because of her fucked-up love-life. At first, I made her feel better. But when I mentioned the intervention thing - as a joke - she didn't see the funny side. She said I'd made her feel worse. Do I feel bad? A little. But I think friends aren't there just to be yes-men - sometimes they have to tell it like it is, even if that means upsetting someone you care about.

ALWAYS WITH A BRIDESMAID
She sent me the one and only picture she had on her PC. It was her, in a silky cream number, with a plunging neckline, and an unflattering waist, standing outside the synagogue on the day her friend got married.

Set against her flat-chested, pretty friend to her right she looked a little on the plump side. But then set against the third of the troika, she looked positively skinny. Besides, she had a pretty face. Her correspondence was cheeky. And her voice was soothing. She's even reading the same book as me right now (so now I'm racing to ensure I remain three chapters ahead).

I'm seeing her on Saturday night, and I'm quite looking forward to it. She reminds me of a South-African ex of mine, a curvaceous bottle-blond who shared a flat with a friend she no longer speaks to.

The first time we went out she picked me up in her car from outside the restaurant where I'd been dining with my parents. We went back to mine. I told her I was leaving the country about a week later. She said that meant we had to things faster. So we did. Even now I smile when I recall how her soft, rounded buttocks would quiver between each thrust as I slammed into her from behind. She was fun but, like most of my exes, now loved up and on the brink of marriage in a far-away land.

Not that quaking arses are on the agenda for Saturday night. I expect the evening will entail copious quantities of alcohol (for her) and fine food (for me). She says she plays table tennis and reckons she's good. Sadly the sports centre won't be open by the time the Sabbath ends. And anyway, last time I took a girl to on a table-tennis playing date, I never saw her again, even though I let her win a couple of games (competitive I may be, but I'm still a gentleman).

MY BEST FRIEND'S SHREDDING
Like a crystal vase that's had one to many knocks, people, when they're down, can feel rather fragile.

This week I've done my all to help my friend T out: I picked up her little sister at the airport; and I took her into town and paid for a trip on an inflatable speedboat on the Thames.

Today, T prepared another one of her trademark feasts, complete with home-made sashimi, deep-fried shnitzel and a pineapple sweeter than honey.

As well as two of my friends and T's little sister, there were two other male guests there. They were fresh-faced, decent and entertaining.

Later this evening, I called to see what T was up to. She was staying at home, as expected. Which was fine. Yet I couldn't help but sensing in the tone of her voice that something was a amiss. Had I said something at lunch that I shouldn't? Did the two cherubs at lunch ask T if she and I were an item, thereby reinforcing her fears that I act as though there's something going on between us when in reality there isn't (my profession of undying love last December notwithstanding)?

I suspect the latter and have already run-through my next showdown with T in my head:
"I've got a bone to pick with you," she'll say.
"What is it this time?"
"You've got to stop acting like we're closer than we are when there are other people around. I've told you about this before."
"Well I tell you what," I'd say. "Why don't we just stop hanging out and that way there'll be no danger of anyone getting the wrong impression!"
"Don't be so melodramatic - and don't hate."
"I'm not being melodramatic. I'm tired of your bone-picking; of your moodiness and sensitivity to practically everything I say, and I'm tired of being mocked by you in front of others. So either accept me for who I am and what I say - fauxs pas and all - or call it quits."

Something like that, anyway.

Of course, it might just be that I've turned some meaningless, fatigue-inspired intonation in her voice into some kind of deeper resentment that in reality doesn't exist. But then again, I might not.

WARMED BY THE COLD
As the fridge-freezer engineer told me my 1950s, silver retro-Smeg was in rude health, my heart warmed. It may have cost me 80 smackers to get him to come over, but offset against the £900 the behemoth sitting in my open-plan living room cost, it's money well-spent.

I slept soundly after that. Soundly, that is, until a storm hit northwest London at 2.30pm with such ferocity that I feared my flat would flood.

So much rain descended from the heavens - it was like a vomiting drunk who, thinking that the puke issuing from his gut will remain at a consistently unpleasant pace, suddenly unleashes yet another torrent, far thicker and even more powerful than the one that precededd it. It just didn't stop.

By the time I woke up, though, two hours later, the sun was baking the faux-brown leather blinds that shield my bedroom. My washing from Tuesday still clings to the line on my terrace. But I just can't be arsed to bring it in. It'll hold.

HELL AGAIN
It's been several months since I've been forced to endure night shifts. If only this state of affairs could be made permanent. I'd give up all my days' off in lieu to not have to do these affronts to the working man. A new job would surely do the trick. Sadly, my would-be newfound patrons show little urgency when it comes to recruitment. A week after my successful showing in round three, I'm still ignorant of when or where round four will take place. Don't they know how desperate I am to find a new home for my brain, my body and my sanity? I'm hating them already!

BUNNY SIMMERER

"You'd better ask me out quickly if you're going to get a job here," came the innocuous-sounding threat.

She meant that because she couldn't go out with a colleague, I had better get a move on before it was too late. But it could also be read as a kind of quid pro quo: ask me out, or we won't hire you. The "he he", she added at the end of the sentence was supposed to underline that she only meant it as a joke. But I wasn't laughing.

With just one more round to go till I land, (please, G-d, let it happen) my new high-profile, high-powered and high-paying position, I'm still being pursued by the girl from HR. I don't feel flattered. Nor can I understand how a seemingly intelligent girl could seriously think that adding "he he" after an indecent proposition somehow reduces her chances of hurt and mine of discomfort.

So I paused. I thought. And then I replied. I said that if I got the job, I'd be starting in around a month, which meant it wouldn't be a particularly long-lasting relationship. "I wouldn't want to break your no-business-with-pleasure rule either," I added, just in case she didn't get the hint the first time.

It seemed to do the job. But what if she's like the metal exoskeleton in Terminator, and just keeps coming back for more? How much more will I need to pander to her given the power that she wields over me? Could it get messy once I'm through the door? Watch this space.

ENTHUSIASM UNCURBED

A muggy Sunday afternoon in sleepy northwest London. Gangs of huggable hoodies play among the scaffolding and the litter-strewn streets outside my home. The washing machine churns interminably, squeezing out the last drops of water from my cream, Jonnelle hand-towel. And my Powerbook beams out a cornucopia of Jewish singletons, all just a click away.

A not unattractive, blonde girl lands on my profile. She tries to strike up a conversation. I decline. And think nothing of it until later that evening.

In the outer-reaches of the Metropolitan Line, a friend mourns the loss of a loved-one. I get a ride to the ceremony to pay my respects. My friend's father speaks movingly. And after all is said and tears have been cried, a not unattractive blonde girl is introduced to me.

"This is the girl I was telling you about," my friend says. She's a mover and a shaker at the company I had a job interview with the next day.

She looks familiar, but then so does half of northwest London. But before long it dawns on me: my friend's friend, who has the power to hire or fire me, is in fact the same blondey whose advances I shunned earlier that evening.

What if she's a misanthropic bunny-boiler bent on revenge against loveless superficial rejectionists like me?

The interview itself goes well - very well, in fact. My phoenix has finally started to flap its wings. At the back of my mind I wonder if blondey has twigged that my online alias and my real life self are one and the same.

She does. But it's all okay. She tries to begin a conversation with me. This time I accept. She makes no mention of yesterday. And nor do I. She tells me, "jokingly", that it's a shame she doesn't mix business and pleasure. I "laugh". That could have been nasty.