Friday, July 2 2004, 15:41

Starting the year as I mean to go on...

This week has been a veritable smörgåsbord of emotions, and I wouldn't be me if I didn't go on to detail them all in exquisite and detailed prose...

Bryan's continued presence has been fantastic - a further melding of my Sydney and London lives; Bryan hasn't changed at all (apart from his long awaited new-found status of non-smoker); he remains a perennial joking smiler and testament to what a liver can take! His adopted mantra, "it's all good", is persistent encouragement to look on the bright side, and it's kind of infectious. Either that, or a gentle reminder to stop whinging ;) We spent another pleasant weekend shopping, eating, partying, and chilling out. Our night out was at Heaven, Bryan's old stomping ground, and it will always serve as a personal reminder of the potency of beer goggles; clearly I should be chaperoned at all times... Thanks to those who tried to save me from myself, but really, please stop laughing and try harder next time.

I thought the week had started badly with the striking Tube staff, forcing me to walk from Angel to Bank and vice versa, because some people aren't satisfied with £30k a year for driving trains and the like. But my mood took a nosedive with the sad news that my grandmother passed away last Friday. I can only guess how Dad must feel to have lost both parents within 15 months, and of course I am uncharacteristicallly silent when I try to find words of comfort. I will always remember Nan as a vital, smiling old lady, always effusive and voluble. From an early age I can remember her offering us Mars bars and Marathons (sic), probably to Mum's horror...

I can't be at the funeral today, but I know my family will be remembering the high points of Nan's life - occasions that brought us all together. It's easy to think death is a long way off when you're only 26 (there, I said it), but when I do, it gives me a real sense of perspective. I might not live to Nan's age, so I should really be making the most of my life, realising the ambitions I have, cherishing the friends and family who are here, and keeping in touch with those who aren't nearby. That isn't meant to be my excuse for being a party animal though... A friend once said, "life's like a bicycle - ride it until the wheels fall off!" Such an approach might make for a very short and enjoyable ride (no sniggers please), but I certainly don't have any real ambition to live fast and die young.

It all got a bit philosophical there...
All those thoughts of age and life are particularly topical this week, because today's also my birthday and, as I mentioned above, I'm 26 today. Not a particularly auspicious year, and I'm not aware of any new legal rights that I receive today... My pal, Tony, took me out for dinner last night at Asia de Cuba in St Martin's Lane - a truly lavish and decadent place, where the cocktails are exquisite, the portions gratuitous, the flavours explosive, and the ambience suitablly chilled. Together we saw in the start of my new year with a surfeit of good food and good drink, and a leviathan of a dessert! But sadly, my humble tum isn't used to such sumptuous fare, and it was with heartfelt (if delerious) regret that I shared that beelzebub of banana splits with one of the restaurant's chic toilet pans. My ride on the porcelain bus was followed shortly afterwards by a ride in a minicab homewards, stopping only to bless the pavement in my own inimitable style with a generous portion of the duck entree with sticky Thai rice, and a splash of the cheeky little Riesling. Unperturbed by my shocking ingratitude, Tony escorted me to my flat before hopping off home himself. I still haven't heard from him, so I trust he's still sleeping off our excesses... What a gent!

And I'm doing it all again tonight! Just me and 25 of my closest pals in a Piccadilly bar... It all seemed a little intimidating this morning, but my KFC lunch has revitalised me in ways no other fast food can hope to achieve. Long live the Colonel!

Tuesday, July 20 2004, 16:25

Can anyone think of anything interesting about being 26?

I'm nearly 26 years and three weeks old, and I haven't even written anything about my birthday celebrations.

I pretty much make the most of my birthday as an opportunity to get friends together in one place and have a good time, and that's what we did in Piccadilly that Friday, but I was still home at a sensible hour - the weight of my years must be catching up with me! The following day was a mixed bag: on the downside, saying goodbye to Bryan again as he prepared to leave the Evil Hemisphere (as Scott calls it) to head back to the warmth of a Sydney winter. On the upside, having a fab afternoon wandering around Finsbury Park at Big Gay Out. It's pretty much just Mardi Gras with a shiny new coat of gloss on it, but it was good clean(ish) fun . The weather held out, and the skin on my shoulders managed to stave off the inexorable retreat to their usual pallid shade for just a bit longer as we wandered through the Mr Gay UK contestants and a couple of thousand out of it boys and girls, before heading home to chill out for a few hours.

The following week Manuel and Craig, two more itinerant friends from Sydney, arrived. I think they came to show us how to party, because they've barely let up since they got here, despite protestations of needing to take it easy and save money... They're paying the price now though, having succumbed to some of the many germs that make their home on this damp Atlantic rock. And damp is what it is at the moment. I had my hopes up for a summer like the one I heard so much about last year, but it seems to be perversely evading us.

I can't believe I'm reduced to talking about the weather again... Sorry.

Monday, July 26 2004, 14:34

The film everyone's talking about

Ok, not everyone. But lots.
I went to see Fahrenheit 9/11 the other week, just to see what all the fuss was about. It was really good.

If you don't know what it's about, here it is briefly: Michael Moore tries to point out how cosy the Bushes and the bin Ladens are, and then he infers that Bush et al. stood to gain from going to war with Iraq, and that Bush misled the US by using Sept 11 as a pretext for war with Iraq...
I think it was my history teacher who really nurtured the cynicism in me by making me doubt every piece of historical evidence I ever laid my hands on, and films were included.

Don't get me wrong, I wholly support Moore's objective of getting rid of George, but the film, I thought, was flaky in places. The first half of the film (about Bush and the bin Ladens), while very interesting, didn't sway me at all. The half concerning the war in Iraq was excellent. Not really sure about using that word for it: maybe "shocking", "moving", or "disturbing". Maybe you remember me shedding a tear while Leonardo slipped beneath the waves in Titanic, or barely containing my sobs for the last third of The English Patient, or even quietly weeping when Hazel bought it in Watership Down... So it's clear that I'm not emotionally equipped to deal with fictional death (even of animated rabbits), but when I know that what I'm seeing is real, it's all the more poignant.

Aside from the brutal scenes from Baghdad, and the horrifying footage of American forces treating war like some kind of video game, the candid scenes of Lila Lipscomb, whose son was killed in the war, were deeply moving for me. The auto-cynicism switched off, and I felt unreserved pity, sympathy, and sorrow for her, and I shared her anger and outrage. Whatever your political opinions, there's not much you can say to a mother's raw grief. Lila, a woman whose patriotism I find personally disturbing, doesn't question the need for war or soldiers putting their lives on the line - quite the reverse, she comes from a 'military' family - but she is rightly incensed when she perceives her son to have died in a war based on a lie.

Whatever anyone says about Moore's skills as a filmmaker, it was very clever of him to use such emotive footage to get his point across. It does actually distract you from some circumstantial arguments. Before I'd seen the film, I'd seen Republicans on TV decrying it, but when asked if he'd seen it, one of them said, "well, I've not actually seen it, but I've read a lot about it. Ha ha!" Before I'd seen the film, that made me laugh. Now it just makes me angry.