Tuesday, September 26, 2006

THINK WITH THE HEAD
It's all just getting a little too incestuous. Last night, I finally went out with E, yet another Israeli architect, based in London, that I'd met online.

In her pictures she has child-like cheekbones, but a kind, sweet-looking pout. She claimed to be 28. But when we met, she confessed that she was, in fact, 32.

"That's okay," I said. "If you'd been 40 I'd have walked out the door, but what's a couple of years between friends?"

She also revealed that she was mates with the other Israeli architect I'd had the misfortune of meeting one Sunday night. Her friend, K, had told E that the date had been awful; that I'd appeared disappointed from the moment we'd met (am I really that transparent?); but that I was good-looking and that E and me should meet.

In real-life, she had full, bursting lips and a dark, enigmatic stare. We got on well enough, but I wasn't all there. Brain disengaged from body, and willy took control (this, despite my determination to behave myself in the run-up to Yom Kippur).

From then on, flirts became more outrageous. She pinched my arse and even prodded my nob at one point - in the pub! I responded in kind. Then we kissed rather more outrageously than I felt comfortable with in a public house.

"Let's go," I said.

I walked her back to her student digs. She took me up to the balcony. I could see the surrounding city, neon-blue lights illuminating nearby buildings, and the humid night air cloaking everything around me in a damp haze.

We kissed passionately. She groped at me in my jeans. I moved my hand up her legs. She pulled away. She looked out over the balcony. "I didn't enjoy what you just did," she said. I apologised and brain clawed back some territory. She was feigning hurt to get more attention from me. And I don't play that game.

A few moments later, she was blowing hot again. We kissed some more, she put her hand down my pants and she almost felt nuts (to paraphrase the Bloodhound Gang). We said goodbye and I got the bus home.

Somewhere in between Holburn and Oxford Street, she called me. I couldn't hear her well. I told her we'd speak later in the week. "If you want, I don't know?" she said, showing an insecurity that tallied utterly with her earlier demonstration of hot-and-cold blowing.

I think I will call her again. But I know that she's not for me. To be fair, though, I knew that from almost the moment we met. If only my brain didn't shut down when my willy engaged.

Thursday, September 21, 2006

NOT THERE YET
I'm worried. Although I had an excellent interview at my prospective employers, the way things are going at my current home I could get sacked before I have a chance to quit.

Every time I go to work now, I dread the opening of my inbox, fearful of what awaits me inside. My heart literally sinks and my mood swings lower.

This time it stems from a panic just before deadline, precipitated by a costly new content management system which routinely fucks up. The fact that it does this at random, and therefore may not have affected my colleagues, is only likely to deepen my boss's loathing for me.

As and when my next reprimand comes, complete with the punishment he intends to mete out, I'll already have a considered response:

"I wouldn't do that for the following reason," I'd say.
"One - it's grossly unfair and part, I feel, of your campaign to discredit, demoralise and demotivate me, while at the same time hounding me out because of your managerial incompetence.
Two - I'll take it to the unions and take you to an industrial tribunal - I've been told I have a watertight case.
Three - I'm leaving anyway (please see my notice attached)."

But I need to be careful. Although I've almost landed the new job, they see me coming to them from a position of strength i.e. I have a job already. If I leave before signing for the new firm, then I might look desperate. Either way, I want to be out of there within a month. So let's just hope that new contract lands on my doormat sooner rather than later.

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Wednesday, September 20, 2006

KYLIE
Just a couple of months after Kylie Morris was sensationally poached from the BBC by Channel 4 (the Beeb refused to match the salary she was being offered), she's had yet another big break: the coup in Thailand.

The bottle-blonde Ozzy was on hand in Bangkok. Jon Snow, the widely-venerated, veteran presenter of Channel 4 News, was due to interview their hot, new correspondent. The satellite link was up. The story next on the running order. And then this happened:

"Now over to our Southeast Asia correspondent, Kylie Minogue."

Cue hilarity and much mirth in the privacy of my own living room. Did anyone else spot it?

Kylie (Morris, that is), didn't miss a beat. She answered all the questions thrown at her. The interview ended:

"Thank you Kylie (long pause), er, Morris in Bangok."

Don't worry about it, Jon. I know better than most how cock-ups can happen to anyone!

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Saturday, September 16, 2006

RIP VAN COHEN
Jet-lag, night-shifts and drink can be a potent mix. I only realised this after waking up at 1pm, almost 12 hours after I'd gone to bed. I can't remember the last time I've slept in so late. I needed it.

Last night was definitely worth it. A Friday night dinner with a surprisingly-low neb-quotient. After wandering around the dining hall aimlessly for 10 minutes, wondering if I would end up on a table with man-eating harpies and 45 year-old saddos who get excited by accountancy and still live at home, I found a friend.

S was with her usual sidekick, L. Better still, they were with two other fine young fillies, one of whom sat up so straight that she appeared taller than me even without standing atop her heels (I really need to work on my Alexander Technique).

S was stunning, tanned and freckle-faced with boyish wavy hair that jutted out at bizarre angles when she pushed her hair back over head. She wore a mole-toothed top, cut just low-enough to reveal the whites left behind by her bikini top.

I asked her if I could call her. She said yes, but there was no hint of whether she was just being polite or genuinely liked me. Until proven otherwise, I'll assume the former (old habits die hard).

Thursday, September 14, 2006

EQUANIMITY
Three hours to go till my latest brush with the night comes to a close. My taskmaster appears to have taken it upon himself to give me extra lashings of nocturnal labour. I'd forgotten (how easy it is to do) how painfully dull these shifts really are. Having a bitch with the face of the bloke in the Beauty and the Beast TV series as my evening's boss doesn't help. So much for northern charm. She's about as agreeable as gastroenteritis.

Monday, September 11, 2006

MILITARY SEND-OFF
I'm standing in a queue at Colombia's international airport. I've gone through emmigration and had my bags screened. Now they want to search me thoroughly.

A soldier, his camouflage-coloured cap failing to hide the fact that he only finished school a year ago, beckons me over. I open my bag. He tells me to remove everything, one half at a time.

My crumpled shirts and Next underwear fail to excite him. He feels thoroughly around and underneath the case, searching for a false bottom (and drugs). I return my belongings and begin unpacking the other side.

"What's this?" he asks, fingering my leather-bound prayer-book.

"It's a prayer-book," I explain.

He opens the book and looks inside. "It's written backwards," he exclaims.

"That's how Hebrew's written."

He then points to my Tefillin. "What does this say?"

"Tefillin," I reply.

"They're made of leather and worn during morning prayers," I say, the Spanish word for phylactery escaping me and probably useless even if my memory hadn't failed.

"You can't open them," I add, in case El Capitan thought I'd stashed an ounce or two inside.

Next on the soldier's list was my Paul Smith washbag. He pulled out a Boots condom (one of several that I'd optimistically taken away with me but had failed to use). He held it between his fingers for several seconds longer than necessary, no doubt wondering what a strange religion these Hebrew-reading, leather-box wearing Jews have.
BIGOT'S BANQUET

I'm sitting in a dimly-lit, thatched chalet on a Caribbean island just off Colombia's northern coast. There are no shops here, or many tourists. Just a bar, a salt-water pool and beach with sand imported from neigbours in the archipelago.

It is the volcanification of boredom and it's only 9.20pm. Already, I've left the other four castaways in the dining hut; I just couldn't stand to be in their company any more.

The conversation had begun innocently enough. We were on the beach, the full moon's glow mingling with the neon floodlights to brighten the sea as it nibbled at the shore. Maria-Jose, just remarried and here on honeymoon, was bemoaning the loony liberalism of Spain's current PM, Jose Luis Zapatero.

Pro-immigration, anti-US; my G-d, he's even taking down statues of Franco! The main problem, she says, are the Moroccan (i.e. Muslim) immigrants. Apparently they government pays them 150 euros per child per month on condition that their brood is sent to school. They take up half of all subsidised school dinners, she added; and they use benefits destined for school textbooks for other fripperies.

How much of this is true I don't really know.

Later that evening, as I was swallowing my boiled rice with mashed potato, former jumbo-jet pilot Eduardo Espinoza was moving seamlessly from talking about Hugo Chavez and his plans to monopolise South America's oil production, to how some races are better at some things than others.

So, for example, blacks are good at sport and boxing (sic); whites can do anything; but Indians (like Chavez and Bolivia's Evo Morales) can't lead: it's not in their DNA, said Espinoza.

"Maybe it sounds ugly or racist," he said, "but it's true."

"It is ugly and it is racist," I told him.

"Not for me it isn't," piped in Maria Jose's shiny, new hubby Julio.

"Blacks are racist too," continued Espinoza. "If I tried to live in one of their areas they'd drive me out."

He declined to add that as a wealthy, white, Latino businessman he has no desire to live in a downtrodden, black ghetto. But he hadn't finished.

"Most crime - drugs and murders - are committed by black people," he said.

Not to be outdone, Julio chimed in with: "Gypsies are the most racist people in Spain."

I scratched my chin thoughtfully. Do I launch an unwinnable tirade against this trio of Hispanic bigots? Do I stay and say nothing? Or do I leave?

I'd already told them how I felt, I reasoned. If I leave, they'll know why.

"Buenas noches," I announced, as I abruptly left the table. I may be sitting in a dimly-lit room with a fan blasting warm air at my burnt and mosquito-bitten body, but at least I can sleep tonight.

Wednesday, September 06, 2006

PASSIONATE NO MORE
I´m lying on a gurney in a South American hospital and I feel like I´m about to die. A drip drops a mix of hydrating fluid and painkillers into my left forearm. And despite the weight of cotton blankets piled on top of my gown-clad body, I shiver and my teeth chatter uncontrollably. Yes, my nemesis has returned: gastroenteritis.

My only previous experience of this stomach-spasm-inducing, vomit-provoking curse came after three days of heavy combat in Bolivia, followed by a well-earned glass of my favourite drink in the world: passion fruit juice.

What could it have been this time. I´m on holiday, so no stress. Maybe it was all that food - the ribs, chicken wings, avocado, plantain pie, chocolate fondue, mousse - that I guzzled at the wedding late on Saturday night. But then my thoughts turn to Sunday morning´s breakfast: a cleansing plate of exotic fruit, accompanied by...Yep, you guessed it, a glass of passion fruit juice, an oxymoron if ever there was one.

First came the spasms. Then the shits. More shits. Retching (no puke). Shits. Hospital. More retching (lots of puke). Shits. Shits. And more shits. I was prescribed a cocktail of drugs that cost me upwards of $200, together with a child´s mix of sugar-salt hydrating solution (available in tangy pineapple, smooth coconut, delumptious cherry or crap apple). I was proscribed any food with a remnant of taste, fat or sweetness.

Three days on, I´m back on solids (ejecting them out of my body, that is) and preparing for two days in the Caribbean. Alas, no fish Though hopefully I´ll meet someone on the island...