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Thursday 25.7.02 | After yesterday's rather painful crash back to earth, I had Mike and Anna round for supper to console and comiserate. We had a fabulous evening, drunk a bit too much and planned a pissup for Mike's birthday, which is brooding on the horizon. The event of this morning was walking down Tottenham Court Road with £970 (not mine, I'm afraid) in cash in my bag, destined for the bank. Half of me was inwardly peering around at everyone and going 'COME ON, JUST TRY AND MUG ME!!' and the more rational, normal and less masochistic side simply shat itself. What a diverse mental life I lead. Friday 28.7.02 "...blind reverence for all things American ignores a fatal yet glaringly obvious fault—unbridled hypocrisy. For the four billion people not fortunate enough to live in economic nirvana behind America's protective nuclear shield, it is a self-proclaimed messiah using its unlimited power to destroy and then recreate the world in its image. America is willing to go to war to prevent an Islamic bomb while actively supporting the development of Jewish weapons of mass destruction. America spends 50-times more to build up its already invincible military than to combat hunger and disease in the world's poorest nations. Preserving the immunity of a handful of Americans against war-crimes charges is more important than preventing a new genocide in the Balkans. While this is the case, America will be seen rightfully as a selfish hypocrite, regardless of the noble principles which it claims to espouse." Well quite. As Churchill said: “You can always rely on America to do the right thing—once it has exhausted the alternatives.” Monday 29.7.02 My God it's hot. This is meant to be bloody England - we don't have Summer here. What's going on? The answer is, in fact, muchos. Had a really busy weekend what with one thing and another: Friday: Another day off induced me to drag Chris to Regent's Park where he spent about half an hour trying to teach me to cartwheel and I tried to teach him to get his foot higher than his head without leaning against a tree. We both failed. We then somehow ended up going boating, which was a laugh once I'd got the hang of the whole rowing thing (isn't quite the same thing as a rowing machine, I blondly discovered) and got over a moment of panic where I came within an ace of dropping my right oar in the lake. We both ended up soaked, of course. Mainly because we spent the hour trying to splash each other with the paddles. Friday night was someone from Waterstone's leaving do. Honestly, I finished at 9, and walked into the bar, and everyone was staring, transfixed, at a screen. For a moment I thought it was 11/9 part two, but no. Big sodding Brother. Big sodding deal. On Saturday I resigned from Waterstone's. I was due to do it in about two weeks anyway, but I saw my mate leaving, and then looked down at my instructions about how far away from the edge of the shelf a faced-out book has to be (I kid you not) and decided that it was time for me to leave too. Come the 27th August I'm a free man at weekends :-):-):-):-) Actually, had a day off so wandered around in the wonderful sunshine with Mark. A wander turned into quite a large trek - down to Tower Bridge, over the river, through the city, essentially back along the Met Line (although, of course, on foot.) Was exhasuted after we parted and I got back, had something to eat, lay down for 20 minutes, got bored, and went out again. Ended up walking for another two hours (making it about six for the day - not at all bad) down to Bayswater and back. Got back at about 9.00, and Chris told me that one guest hadn't arrived, and had phoned to say he'd be late. He arrived at 4 on Sunday morning, so you might perhaps appreciate that I was a bit knackered when I got up four hours later to do breakfast duty and open the office. Joy. Lunch with mad nun whom I work with proved fun (although the sister I ate with nearly died at the table, was convinced any second she would just fall into her salad) and then a walk back to Gower Street in the heat with Chris proved dumb. Flopped after that until Fr. Peter arrived with all his stuff, so we unloaded the car and then pushed a half-ton wardrobe up the stairs, just to see if it would fit through to door. After almost knocking a wall down and scratching every part of new paintwork we could find, it ended up in his bedroom, albeit upside-down from all the twisting and turning we had to do with it. Honestly, the things I do. Tuesday 30.7.02 Whirlwind update (just written whirlwhine by mistake - appropriate, perhaps) as have to run back to mad nun and mad desk and mad office where the power-supply to my PC has just failed, but had been a bit of a manic 24 hours. Walked into my room yesterday afternoon to discover that my fridge, which has been on its last legs for months now, had decided to de-frost itself and was in the process of dripping ALL over my stereo-system. Lovely. So was in the process of mopping that particular disaster up (music system still works, thank God), running down to the chaplain's fridge to dump all of my rapidly-warming food when I dropped a put of yoghurt on my foot, and all over the floor. I subsequently came within an ace of flying prettily down the stairs on split yoghurt. All is, you'll be pleased to know, now calm, although I've still got to work out how to get my fridge to function again, because my hall is buggered if they're going to get me a new one.
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