jack kavorkian is cool

BBC NEWS | Health | Call to revamp death definition
call me morbid, call me pale; favourite article on the beeb for a long time.

weekend was good, we watched borat and a mighty wind (both of which need dissecting) and went to the natural history museum.

Borat was ok. I realise now that it's not like his sketches, using an outlandish character to poke fun at people, it's more like a mr. bean film, that just happens to use real people every now and again. The fact that many sequences are staged means you can't treat it like an exposé of people, or even being about their reactions – it's about borat. In several interviews, the other person only gets to say one word – I can't imagine the efforts gone to, arranging such things for such simple jokes. it was more impressive than funny - stunning feats of bravery and embarresment.
a mighty wind is not spinal tap. it's quiet - while it is quite funny, it's barely a comedy, verging on just a fiction-mentry. it's almost entirely plausible. the best parts were the covers of mitch's solo l.p.s, and the horrendous manager of the new - ach, i forget the name. but it would have been better if that band had occupied more of the film because they were a much greater source of humour.

on monday night sarah came round and we had fun in the garden, listening to bitch's brew on ed's mobile...

tuesday night i went to chaos and the cosmos - first band were genuinely awful, and i won't go into it other than to say that half an hour of abusive feedback is just a waste of time, even you did arrange the whole night (the 'drummer' wandering around with his head through the floor-tom was quite entertaing though). second band orion arm were completely brilliant, and exactly what today's jazz-metal obsessed youth need. they deserve to be massive; they claim to be a two piece (guitar and drums/vox) but they had a sax palyer along too. the phil collins 3, who had drawn us (me and matt and his belle) to the event were brilliantly loose and tight and pleasing. archaotic good-time humour music. the theme of their fancy dress was 'cats'.

last night i had dinner at rachel's with rachel, seb, and ruth, and latterly joined by ian. rachel made cheese and lentil loaf with ratatouille, both of which were fab. ruth is recently single, and has bought a nurse costume to wear out on friday night. i said i have one she could borrow, although the idea of her not only wearing it to a 'new rave' and perhaps even sexing in it wasn't too appealling; but it was pointed out that mine is an actual nurses outfit as worn by a nurse, and she wanted a slightly more revealing, plastic, one. so that's probably for the best she got her own.

I want to be at luke-boo's house, playing network doom, eating chicago town mini-pizzas.



I want to be curled up in bed in a bright spring/winter morning, watching cd:uk with marion.



I want a full-on Hollywood panic attack, writhing on the ground outside my suburban detached house looking like bill neighy, in a dressing gown, while paramedics fit me with an oxygen tank and the camera moves away and upwards, surveying the emotional carnage which is all just a set, you can tell because it's all to clean.



They think I'm stupid here. I accidentally dropped one private folder into another, and couldn't move it back. I went and reported it to the IT guys, and watched poke around a bit to fix it, which I could have done instantly if only I had the permissions. My mouse didn't work – the buttons or anything – and the same man came and cleaned the dust off the track wheel (which wouldn't explain why the buttons hadn't been working, or why sometimes it had a fit), and it was fine.



I *am* stupid here. I can't think. I miss simple things, forget what all this paper is for. I'm terrified of the responsibility of delegating to this other temp finding things for someone else to do. when an error page came up on the internet, I was terrified that those techie guys had noticed my inherent flitting over to see stuff, a low attention span is a habit I've always had. things drift to the bottom of the pile until they're irrelevant, sometimes if you do ignore things for long enough, they go away, like survivors in dead rising.

the trouble with the tommy. (edited)

i had a genuinely nested dream yesterday. i actually woke up into another dream, and realised i had been dreaming, but not that i was still dreaming. and i think after that, i woke again into a dream of waking up in bed, or i might have actually woken up twice in quick succession, because after that i did actually wake up and things were a bit different. the blinds were up and i'm sure it looked funny outside.. like when you fall asleep on the sofa and you dream that the people around you are talking to you and then you wake up when you try to respond and find they're paying you no mind.

the other night i dreampt i was chang tzu. that was wierd.

i got a text from tommy, ex-brighton-house-mate, on sunday night gone 9, as i was making my last rounds before bed (re-discovering the joys of beautiful agony dot com again was fantastic, after descending into a period of... less subtle... entertainment). he 'needed a place to stay' monday night. i had already arranged for to see barney that evening, which i wasn't going to cancel as it's been over a year and he can't come to the PARTY, but what could i do but say yes? i wondered how he had got into the situation of being in london and waiting for his flat to be vacated, and therefore is couch-surfing, and thought, ah, how very tommy.

barney is lovely and good and stuff, and it's tragic that i've been living a ten minute tube journey from him for four months. we went to a nice enough pub, and tommy and i et, although the veggy options were limited and all involved quorn.

tuesday morning, when i had the dream, and my hair stank of other people's fags from the night before, even though we were in the no smoking area, he asked me 'is it okay if i stay tonight as well?'

well yes, i saw no problem with that. we stayed in with dan (who asked who he was, and if i minded telling him if people were staying over)that night; i made saag chana gobi masala and we watched syrano, which was very good, but for, me berjerac will always be john nettles.

this morning, i got out of the shower, and he was gone. to work, at least; his bag was still here.

the story will end eventually; he's going home tomorrow, back near grimsby. but in that case, what is he doing here in the first place? not that i'm sorry to see him. but it's a bit like tommy pinball.

and why is everyone moving to bethnal green?

edit: his bag had actually gone, but his shoes and odd little plastic bag remained. turns out he'd left his shoes because they didn't fit right and he was staying at future house mate libby's tonight.

london is...

a bald, shirtless man slamming a metal barrier into a shop front at three am.

someone joined in but the barrier fell on top of him so he went for a lie down on the pavement. then the bald man started kicking the door in.

the last couple of weeks have been very good, and most of this is looking forward to the music i will be making in the coming months, although most of it is merely planning and guitar work. the bobby mcgees e.p. is largely mentally planned, and i started remixing butterflies tonight (basically mashing it up with pyramid song). then there's 'klutzma', my e.p. of radical klezma, and of course, the previously mentioned girlfriend experience e.p., which is in pre-production. then there's the band; ian and i are slick now, just waiting for others to join in.

things seem only, or largely to happen at weekends; an evening isn't long enough to go anywhere and come back. unless it's to a gig, which are always unmissable, and i've just found a page on last.fm that tells you when bands you like are playing in your town without you having to do anything except listen to them. it's great.

lesson learned this week - how to call it a night and go home at the right time.

so last weekend, after sessioning with ed, ian and ruth tried to make me come out to 'oh my god i miss you', the indie uber scene club. we would have made it to, if it wasn't sold out. so instead ian and thalia took me back home, ian changed out of his magician's costume, and we went out to an student indie night (after school klub), and fortunately most of it wasn't nme shite. there was a great 80s hiphop section to the night when i went really sick. however, they did play 'bigmouth strikes again' twice. about two, the night wasn't getting any better and i was tired, and sick of getting pushed around on the edge of the dance floor - is this universal, or do some people just find that they always gravitiate to the middle of the floor? and what do they do when they're in there, how do they possibly enjoy themselves? - i crept off home. all this on a single snakey-b. a decidely excellent night.

this friday, i went out with ian and ruth again, out in bloody shoreditch. we stood outside a pub drinking, then went the offy and got cheaper drinks and stood outside the pub, then went inside and jiggled left and right a bit. about midnight they went into a club and i could tell i wasn't going to like it. rather than go in for a fiver, hang around and not enjoy it, and get increasingly aggravated for three hours, just so i could kip at theirs, i went home.

this was a bad idea. i could have just got the keys off them and slept at theirs, got up in the morning nice and bright, headed out to south london to look at the house i'd appointed. but no, i got on the first bus with 'holborn' on the front. unfortunately, it had already been through holborn, and when i got to stoke newington i realised 'stay on the bus and see what happens' is not a good strategy. at three i got home. the evening might as well have not happened.

but when all looked dubious on saturday, i got a text from robin (girl); it seems the new season of london migration is taking place. she has moved to ... bethnal green! and saw something about 'unskinny bop' which is possibly the greatest club night ever... they played the BLUE MINKIES. loads and loads of cute indie kids, and they're all (probably) gay, meaning no annoying sexual tension. and at half one, i called it a night; robin stayerd knowing they'd play her elastica song eventually. i went out and had the owrst falafel kebab ever. they had absolutely no idea. should have just stuck with my original decision for chips kebab, but no. this is how it happened; a pitta was grilled. salad? onion lettue and tomato, please. the man puts the biggest amount of raw onion i've ever seen into/on top of the pitta, then does the same with the tomato and lettuce. humus? yes please, loads, i say. this goes in the corner of the pitta. three rubbish falafel are then balanced on top. pointless. afther eating the falafel with my fingers, and tearing off as much of the pitta as i get from under the salad and dipping it in the corner of humus, the bus came and i through the thing in the bin. yes it's a waste, but think of it more like it was being put out it's misery.

then followed the bus journey when i saw the man who didn't like the shop.

tonight we made stoved jerusalem artechokes, lovely sauce but the artechokes them selves were like bad potatoes; like they were cooked on the inside and raw on the out. we also roasted some garlic which was rocking.