2004-08-13..4:17 p.m.

Do you ever walk passed people in the street and kind of wish you knew them because they just look like they know how to have the best fucking time? M (Boy Official, lest you need reminding) and I were walking home last night after my shift at the Betsey (he wasn�t working with me, he�s just sweet like that) and were met with a slowly growing tumult on Stroud Green: this bunch of kids with dreads and doo-rags getting down in Finsbury Park old skool, like in old footage of Harlem in the eighties. And out of nowhere this guy starts shouting �I Shit on you!� in a deadpan Kurtis Blow. One of them started beatboxing while a couple others threw moves about like the FP was Breakdance Grand Central, �I shit on you!� Another one joined in on the beat adding a kind of highpitched wail after every other hit, �I shit on you!�

Beatboxer #1: You what?

Kurtis: I shit on you!

Beatboxer #1 and 2: You what?

Kurtis: I shit on YOU!

Back-up Divas: You what?

Kurtis: You heard me girls!

B-U Ds: I say, you what?

Kurtis: I Shit on You!

We were one scratched record away from the Grandmaster. We were one block-party away from a tribute to Run D-MC, one neighbourhood bake-off from being Fat Boys�. It�s a good thing M kept a firm grip on me because you KNOW I was aching to get in there. Given half the chance I�d have cupped my fist to my mouth knocking back a beat so hard you�d have fallen over. Buttons would be flying as I tore off my cardie to crash down Fly Girl style. And they�d have been all �Wha?� And I�d have been like �Dude,� and they�d have totally got my point, and been all �AHHHHHHHHH YEAH!�. And then we�d shake hands like mofo�s in the knowknow getting down wi� the ho-ho-Ho�s. We�d get our block rockin� high-shittin� gear all honed up to take it state-side. Or they�d have been like �Aw. Little White Girl thinks she�s got rhythm.� and then kicked my sorry ass to the curb. Sigh.

All the same, knowing an inexplicable Hip to the Hop had hit North London caused untold joy to flurry up in me. Knowing its didactic cool was about to transcend social dichotomies by strengthening and motivating a grand union of youth culture with its trenchant social commentary excited my senses. Knowing the poetry of the street was set to once again galvanise itself as the purest means of urban rebellion and political artistry against the corporate platform of manufactured cookie cutter �entertainments� made me reach for my red flag.

Until I Googled �Shit On You� and came up with this. Poo. I do actually, for all my twee sensibilities and Field Mice/Belle and Sebastian/Magnetic Fields lust, rather like D-12, but let�s face it. How much cooler would it have been if this was just a random bunch of kids cutting the tarmac on a Thursday night, or some vague �I Shit On You� performance art project. I still have the hope, but it�s dwindling.

I can�t wait until it�s this time tomorrow and I�m lazing over the latest brunch ever. Because TOMORROW is Saturday! This has been the longest most painfully drawn out week EVER in the history of ever. Am I glad it�s Friday. M and I are celebrating with some pool and Thai, and maybe a few beers to kick it into high gear, though if we really wanted to kick it into high gear we�d totally ditch the pool cues and start a bar brawl with some tough guys in motorcycle jackets. Crack their heads together and make them cry for their mama�s. And then maybe crash a schmancy party where the ladies wear pearls and bored waiters slip invisibly, wandering phantoms bearing Champagne and cocktail onions.

Actually, I can�t get too ballbusting because I�ve got to conference with my editor about writing an article on the Magnetic Fields CROWNING GLORY, 69 Love Songs�. I�m over the moon about this opportunity and anxious to do it right, so I�ve got to be on the ball and unhungover. I�m also going to get this sheepdog imitation shortened a wee bit. A thick curtain of gingery locks half-obscuring the eyes may look stylishly coquettish on the outside, but on the inside I�m beginning to worry about my peripheral vision.

Two things I REALLY MUST DO this weekend:

1. Go to the After School Sunday Picnic (After School being a club, the Sunday picnic being, erm, a Sunday picnic)

2. Go to the library and seek out Reading List material so I can brush up on my modernism.

Two things I don�t NEED to do, but WANT to do:

1. Buy some tofu and get creative in the kitchen.

2. Buy a glue gun and get creative in the supermarket.

Have a fab one

****meep