'vassever'

I have just ridden home on the most fantastic of bicycles.

But before anything else, I need stamp a few apologies on the minutes; monumentous things happen everyday but I neglect to note them down. Did you know I watched two films last week, in one night? Bigga than Ben and The Black Balloon? Did you know that? No. That's because I didn't say anything. What about my hair? Exactly. I got it cut the day before yesterday (Friday). Have you heard of the detective club, the Sherlocks, the Bergeracs? No, I didn't think so. I might be able to jog your memory if I mention SAN DOMENICO. Well...? Of course not, because I didn't say anything about it. The gig at Collets gym? Anything? Anyone? Blah? dfopr? eg0i93v.? bbkocc-s?

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I'll do a "previously, on [whatever]" now to put you at ease. The films: me, Bek, Rose & Megman went to Blockbuster (a very rare thing these days, don't you think?) and could not decide on a film, so we picked two obscure ones that we'd never heard of, Bigga than Ben - which is about two Russian immigrants who come to London to make money, portraying the not-seen side of immigration (also based on these two guys' diaries) - was ok, bit low budget, but not bad at all; the other, The Black Balloon, was basically about a hectic family who move to a new place, the mother is pregnant, one of the two sons is autistic, it is set in the late 80s, and it is a 'cult' kind of film, quirky and "life-affirming" (DVD box's words, not mine) - the mum from Little Miss Sunshine is in it, so you could probably tell what kind of a film it would be. Worth a watch. Look it up.

Thursday. We didn't go to New Slang - so ignore the last blog post I did, which was pretty much all about New Slang. People are fatigued and cast deep into poverty. We have taken to eating grass. Instead people came round to my house - or my room, my triangularly challenged prism of a room - and we watched... a film! Nicely nicely. It was A Cock and Bull Story. I quite like it, but then again I have read Tristram Shandy ... partially. I don't know if that aided me in liking the film more. I am just dropping hints. It was just that. And we don't really eat grass; apparently it's very bad for you. Don't quote me on it, though, because it's just conjecture with no origins, not in my memory anyway.

'Aircut. 'Ri 'ay. Ja, Ich got mein hair cut on Freichday. Alex and I actually went together. Yes, boys can do that together as well as girls. People automatically think that, because you are a man, you either have to do everything on your own, or in big groups. Two is always homosexual. Three is self-explanatory as well. Every man is an island, just expected to be very stupid, impatient, and self-centred. We only seem self-centred because we are islands. We just walk around saying hello to people and talking dumbly about Cricket and the weather, and no man knows anything about any other man, because we are unable to make connections with each other - what kind of a person can if all they have to initiate conversation is a sackful of half-known trivialities and little words to repeat because we're all so bent on agreeing with each other: "exactly" - "exactly" - "yeah - oh, exactly". As soon as I sit down in a barber's or a hairdresser's chair I become a mute. My hands are scared stiff under the sheet that is too tight around my neck to scratch my face which has, trust my luck, suddenly become very itchy. I try to itch by moving my nose around. It never works. I look in the mirror and see that I look like a troll while I am pulling this particular face. I however walk away with a fab haircut for £15 (£13, but I gave £2 for the conversation). Job done. No longer mushroom head - an afro that did not grow up and out, but sideways and only sideways. If it had rained, I could have sheltered people next to my ears, under the great canopy of tangled hair. Next question.

SAN DOMENICO. A HUB OF SKEPTICAL CRYPTICALITIES & CONSPIRACY. + god knows what else.

[sandom=?] I don't think I can actually talk about it right now. It is too mysterious. Please go here, to see a list of search results which will explain my interest. [/sandom]

Gig @ Collets
I hate the 'at' sign being used like that. It is surely easier to press the A and then the T than to hold down shift and press the 'at' key. That kind of movement requires a complete shift of hands. If you're a smarmy touch-typist then vassever. Index fingers on the two keys with raised bumps. I've never started there, or tried to find a letter by using those stupid little bumps. You know what to do? Just quickly look down at the keyboard to have a look at what's going on. This makes sense. I feel like I'm groping around in the dark if I can't see - and in the literal sense of the word. There's nothing worse, is there? Puts me in mind of Groupecunt Lane, which popped up on Wikipedia on Friday when me and Alex were playing the start-on-a-random-article-and-use-five-clicks-to-get-to-a-chosen-article game. An exciting one at that.

The gig at Collets. It was Sophie's dad's band - policeman by day, lead singer & bass guitarist by night - and it wasn't bad at all. Very surreal to be drunk in what was essentially a bar in a health & fitness centre. Especially when we had to walk through the best part of a health & fitness centre to get to the bar. And to get out as well, of course, when we were even more drunk. The band was decent. Lovely little mix of music, reggae, rock 'n' roll, blues, Oasis (might as well be a genre, the reaction it always gets in clubs - circles and touching and singing) and, one of my favourites, Pump It Up by Elvis Costello! I spilt a glass of wine on the bar with my elbow. I don't know whose it was. No one cared. Let me say finally, I wasn't disappointed. Nice one. Felt an extreme urge to go swimming - all I could smell as we walked/jumped/ran/laughed our way out was chlorine. When that stuff is rifling up the nose, whistling and curling round the nosehairs, all you want to do is dive into a pool. Or reconstruct a swimming lesson with doggy-paddle and pissing yourself.

So that is all of that. Now I can't be bothered to talk about anything more recent. I had a curry round at Rebok's last night, a nice, tasty takeway. What did I have? I had a chicken ceylon - 'cylon' on last night's menu. Presumably originates from the old name of Sri Lanka, which was Ceylon. That's interesting isn't it. I have to admit, I do prefer the old names of countries. Persia (Iran), Siam (Thailand), Cathay (China)... and when did Burma become Myanmar? I probably sound like a terrible colonist. It sounds even worse when I say I rode home from Becky's today on what is known as the 'Indian bike' - it is a bike someone bought while travelling in India, but which cost more to ship from England to Australia (where they live now, I think) than the actual price of the bike. Becky's dad pumped the tyres up for me and I was away.

INDIAN BIKE. If you click that, you can see a nice picture of a bike which is very similar to the one which is reclining in my garage at the moment. It is the same make ('Atlas') and everything. Apparently Atlas is the leading make in India. Here are some things that 'my' bike has, which the picture doesn't: it has an interesting stand that is either side of the back wheel - you lift the bike up by the saddle so that there is enough room to kick it down with your foot. It takes the back wheel off the ground and balances on the stand - better than those shitty one-sided, one-pronged stands on regular bikes. It also has an interesting lock: pretty much an incomplete circle attached to the frame just behind the saddle; you push a lever and a metal prong slides out of one gap in the circle and completes it through the spokes of the back wheel. It comes with a key of course. And it's way too heavy to simply carry away - it weighs a good few KGs, I must say. It has a metal chain guard (is that a right word?) instead of bare chain to get tangled in.

However, it doesn't have a basket.