If someone could tell me just where I have it tattooed, that is apparently visible solely to ex-boyfriends (hmm.  Perhaps I'm asking the wrong group here?) that I am apparently gagging to hear all about their current girlfriends and how well their love lives are going, I would be terribly grateful...

Because, at the moment, I feel like I've got it tattooed in inch high letters across my forehead.  And, that instead of my number appearing when I call someone after a missed call, the sentence "I am willing, indeed, keen to hear about yout love life, in all the gory detail" appears to present itself on their phone instead.

Or, perhaps, I just have that sort of face.

Anyhow, an evening, listening to very noisy music, in a pub with no atmosphere, with an ex sitting next to me telling me about his Turkish girlfriend (whom I think is also the girlfriend he had before me before me), was not my idea of a super-fun time.  So I went home

I've also been diddled out of about 3/4" of gin and tonic - the glass collectors got a bit keen while I was in the loo.  But, Andy's about to release his feet from his shoes, so I get to have a de-shoulder knot.

xxx

Look look look look look look look look look look look!

Two socks and a flute.

The stripes don't quite match, but they match near enough.

And the flute was taken out for the first time in about four months.

Take cover Camden, it'll be the mandolin next.

And now, to knit an iPod cosy.

xxx

Left my purse at work.  Am muppet.  Also have wonderful colleague who can drop it off at my flat on his way home. 

Rather wish was back in office, due to incredibly warm flat.

Here, finally, the blue cardigan all knitted up, sewn up, and looking lovely.

xxx

Neville is a master of strange evenings.  I'm not quite sure how he does it, or even what he is.  Apart from on the beguiling side.  He would make a wonderful boyfriend if a. I fancied him and b. he weren't old enough to be my father...

So, I hurtle out of the flat, leaving my bedroom looking like a whirlwind has just torn through, and leaving messages here, there, and everywhere on various phones.  Note to self.  Leaving messages works better if you don't try and leave them at the same time as trying to get changed.  Focus is required.   (look, on the one day I left my phone at home, I had four text messages and a voicemail.  I never get phoned at work, and rarely get texted.  And all these messages left me feeling terribly guilty).  Arrive at the Groucho club early, and footle round Soho for a bit.  Consider buying a book, the name of which completely escapes me at this point.  Something to do with glamourous bombshells.  Find two of Neville's friends, and realise with some approbation that I'm almost young enough to be their daughter, and I'm certainly young enough to be the child of the other couple.  Oh well.  They were all lovely; and I didn't lose that much from being the only person there who can't remember what it's like to go to a cinema where people are smoking.  In we bounce.  Neville bounces in soon after, and is immediately talking to everyone.  For some strange reason, his shirt zips up horizontally as well as buttoning vertically.  He introduces me to the chap who co-wrote Karma Chameleon with Boy George, name of whom I didn't catch and totally forget.  This chap has a limp handshake (but mine's not much better, and I'm still in a state of slight panic).

The food was ultra yummy.  Yumminess unsurpassed, and only one item on the menu was wheaty.  So, I had carpaccio of beef, and monkfish on a herby risotto with asparagus (oooh.  Green pee tomorrow!) and divine, but divine oh-god-it-was-so-good-and-sticky honeycomb ice cream with hot chocolate sauce.  "Are you safe with this?  Madam, you will need security officers, to fend off those who wish to steal it from you!"  We also had the most incredibly fun maitre d'.  He was fantastic.  Funny, and knowledgeable, and enthusiastic, and all such good things.

Reiterated several times to Neville during the evening that I had never been to the Groucho Club.  I do not move in that sort of circle.  More's the pity.  I like these private dining clubs - Blacks, if you remember that far back, was also excellent.  And, the advantage of tonight was that I did not have twenty-four hours or so in which to get completely and utterly wound up about it all.  Although, being informed that I should wear something sexy was not the most helpful answer to 'what shall I wear?'

Then onto the club, in Walker's Court, which is that bit in Soho that has a faux bridge of Sighs and is full of hookers and confused looking American tourists wearing plaid shorts and white socks.  It was Raymondo's @ Too2Much, and we were sat right in front of the stage.  Lord knows how Neville seems to know absolutely everyone (his phone book is simply bulging), but there we were.  Right at the front.  Touching the stage.  Several rows in front of (please avert your eyes if you are going to be offended by blatent name dropping but, honestly, I have to take these opportunities when I get them) Sting and Trudie Styler.

It was truly excellent.  There were two guys dressed in red bondage gear singing silly songs.  Nina Conti and her Monkey (saw them at Glastonbury, still funny on the third viewing).  Johann Lippowitz (good God, it was like nothing I have ever seen before), this incredibly tiny woman who hula-hooped six hoops simultaneously and, could make one go up and one go down and have two going in the middle at the same time (and she did a strip tease - you can see the hula hoop bit on the website, but not the strip tease.  It's perfectly safe.), and some incredible viral films, including that Bush-and-Blair one, "Read My Lips" and a really funny one about German fork lift truck drivers...  Then there was a strange man with a guitar, and an interesting Klezmer band.  We left at that point.  It was nearly midnight.  I want a hula hoop now.  Neville thinks that the Esps ought to dance there (it's a paying gig, so why not?!)

And a bath.

And ten hours sleep in less than seven.

Hmmm.

I'll work on the bath first, and take it from there, I think.

xxx

Why have I managed to equip myself with ex-boyfriends who feel the need to tell me about their sex lives?

When asking Benj if he'd had a lovely dinner on Friday night with Karen (for whom he was cooking fillet steak, hence dropping out of ceilidhing), being told that he'd slept with her afterwards - and his hinting that we're not merely talking about sharing a bed - was Too Much Information. 

Which is why I'm now telling the world.  The indignation of it.  He didn't even want to talk to me specifically - just find out how Eff gets home from work.

Words do not currently suffice.  Smileys do

xxx

Frivolous Entry

I've got a new dress.  Purple chiffon, and it will demote beautifully to a ceilidh dress in a couple of year's time.

Now.  All I need is a man to take me to the Summer Ball (them: Hollywood Glamour), and I'm sorted.

I tell you.  It's a wonderful dress.  And will look even better when I'm madeup and coiffed.

xxx

{Edit: By popular request.  Pictures.  Really rubbish ones that I took, and then decided not to post since I thought I might do better with someone else taking them, and, perhaps, not wearing the dress over jeans and a belt....}

I don't have a full length mirror in a convenient place for taking photos, at least, not without cutting off my knees.  Which is a little annoying, and, photos in mirrors just look weird.  Yes, I could have gotten very organised, and used the timer thingy, and set the camera up on the tripod, but I'm far too lazy.

You can't see the detail too well in these photos either - there is beading all up the triangular bits on the bodice, and different beading (just visible in the top photo) where the triangles join the rest of the bodice, and then (you can just see them) there are beads at the bottom of the skirt.  The scarf is also quite, quite wonderful, and beaded.

For some bizarre reason, the bag was tied with bright pink ribbon, and had squoofy hearts put into it.  Not quite what one expects on Camden High Street, even if one is shopping in a boutique (a boot-eek! as my Father used to put it.  I think you had to be there for it to make sense).

End of mega edit.  I suspect the pictures will look better on everyone else's machines, since this screen tends to darken}

What does it all mean?  Having just asked that twice in a comment on Child_Of_Tree's site (although my fingers are convinced that she's still OneDivineSpark), I then got to pondering what it does all mean.

Of course, it depends on what we mean by 'it'.  And, already, the essayist in me is pulling apart the question in order to avoid actually answering the whole thing. After all, these things are best dealt with in small, easy to digest, chunks, right?  Rather the way life is.  We don't take on life all at once, so why try to take on the big questions on all at once as well?

There we are.  Another set of questions.  You can tell why my tutors used to get annoyed.  If it wasn't for the new batch of questions that I used to produce, it was the parentheses (currently only two sets in this whole post.  But, we all know - at least we should by now, that I cannot manage to type a whole post, or write a whole letter, without parentheses.  I can just about manage to log a job at work without the use of parentheses, but that's it).

It. What is 'it'?  How are we defining 'it'? A great bit ITthat will cover absolutely everything in life, the one true answer, the ultimate, 42, answer to the ultimate, unknown, question?  Or are we looking at a whole batch of tiny little its that add up to make the big one, but each of them are different (if I were any good at that sort of thing, and also had the time - but I'm supposed to be seeing Emma for lunch, which could be interesting since I have £8  in cash and that's it to my name at the moment, until I remember what my Barclaycard pin is - I would produce a nice big IT which is made up of lots of little its, all of different fonts and of different sizes: and perhaps put it at the back of this post as a background, if I could work out how to do that sort of clever stuff, and I really cared, which, to be honest, I don't.  I'm not an artist.  Merely an artisan).  I'd say that each it is singular to the time and place that the observer happens to be in; perhaps, we could go further, and get a bit scientific, and say by the very act of observing and considering the individual it, we are affecting it in some way, shape or form.  An it can be more than one thing at a time, it can exist, ever changing until we actually observe it, and make it's inherent it-ness more concrete.  Very Quantum.

Maybe it's just the right size for whatever it is that we feel like contemplating today?  Settles in nicely, not-too-big, not-too-small, but just right - like the porridge that Goldilocks ate.  Not too hot, or too cold, or too hard or soft.  Because, let's face it, when considering these deep and meaningful questions, we can make it as hard or as easy as we like.  Start off by reading Sophie's World, finish off with A Brief History of Time or a History of Mankind. (I've just tried to explain this to my flatmate, but with fewer words.  She's decided to unload the washing machine, after looking as though her brain was about to turn inside out).  Or, give up on Sophie's World and retreat to Watership Down or Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day.

Perhaps it's all about trying?  Even if we can't establish what it all means, the mere act of questioning what it might be, and what it might mean is a good start.

At the moment, it all seems to be a diabolical conspiracy to prevent us from hanging out our washing on the sunny days of the weekend (the garden is, once again, taken over by Phillippino teenagers who are working on some sort of dance routine.  It happens every sunny Sunday - and Saturday is invariably less sunny).

xxx