My cockles do, however, heat slightly at the thought of Signore Cascioli, "a 72-year old atheist", hunched in a Bagnoregion coffee shop smoking clove cigarettes and grumbling with rebellious teens about the System. The Man. The pedagogic so-called "education" they get in their country, is, like, totally indoctrination. Yeah, the kids would agree, it's, like, ex cathedra fascism, dude. I imagine him breaking out a can of spray paint and scrawl CHRIST GO HOME -- BACK TO FICTION YOU UNSUBSTANTIATED BASTARD! on the wall of the stone bell tower and then legging it back to the fountain to lean innocently on his walker. Father Righi would come out and start yelling; Cascioli'd fake being deaf and then hawking derisively at the church doors as soon as Righi's back was turned. Stubborn old fart. What a crazy thing to sue over, though. A Renaissance mission without the fear of being hanged in the Town Square.

How many scholars for how many centuries have been struggling with the same question; and now it's up to a court to decide whether Christ was a real person? I can't decided if it would be a theologians worst nightmare, or their best kept wet dream. I'll ask Andrew what he thinks.

OFF THE ANGRY MARCHY AND INTO THE LIBRARY

I've been commissioned (of sorts, it's not 'paid' in conventional terms) to do some research for a knitting magazine on the history of African needle arts: embroidary, beading, textile arts, that sort of thing. It's a fascinating subject, but the editor has given me no guidelines. Just, "We'd like you to study a region. That region is Africa." Um.. Right. So, Africa. No specific part? It's a pretty big place, you know. Adds to the challenge I suppose. And, if I'm honest, it allows a HUGE amount of creative license. I immediately thought Kenyan or Nigerian arts, but Morocco has a huge tradition of design, Egypt too. The possibilities are significant.

What sort of phrase is that?! "The possibilities are significant". Man, the sooner my head removes itself from my portentous thesaurus-shitting arse, the better.

"The possibilities are significant". HAH!

****emmms

30.01.06..11:40 am

THREE OPEN LETTERS:

To the Drunk Russian on the Late Night 253,

Thank you for serenading your fellow passengers with your own particular mix of early 90s love ballads and Russian folk songs. Your operatics were unfairly rated by the couple sitting next to you. I, for one, thought your performance was quite adequate. I particularly enjoyed your rendition of "We Will Rock You" with the rap sequences sung in Russian. But even then, I'm not sure you really knew all the words, did you. I am also intrigued as to the talents of your cousin and sister whose vocal aptitudes you proclaimed wildly successful. Perhaps next time you could include them in your programme. Something like the Caesar Twins, but oral rather than acrobatic.

Yours kindly,

emmms

ps, You shouldn't have got as overcome as you did; weeping kind of underminded your apex of the masculine arts argument. I mean, I'm all for a man who's man enough to cry, but combined with your preference for singing in falsetto it didn't really help your cause.

To the Red Fox Who Scared the Living Crap Out of Me While I Passed the Gate to the Natural Trail that Goes Around the Resevoir Shortly After 1am,

Hey! You're the first one I've seen this year! Next time, though, could you make an effort not to scuttle quite so nervously just as I'm passing you? Seriously. Scared the living crap out of me.

Oh, and when will you be having puppies?

All the best,

emmms

To My Local Post Office,

Stop 'misplacing', 'redirecting' and otherwise 'neglecting to deliver' my post. It's being sent to me for a reason. That reason mostly falls under the category I Want It. Four times in five months is not acceptable. And don't think I'm just going to leave it at a public posting (HAH!) of my displeasure. You'll be getting a letter. Not that you'll deliver it. Because it's just one big joke to you guys, isn't it? One big postal conspiracy. You know what? I'm going to use the telephone. That's right. Wacky new age technology. HOW DO YOU LIKE THAT?!

Yours sincerely,

emmms

28.01.06..12:10 am

IT WAS SAD WHEN THE GREAT SHIP WENT DOWN

A bunch of slugs found their way into the walk-in fridge where all the kegs are kept at the Betsey. A weaving little trail of greyish slime marked their drunken trail. We kept an eye on them for about half an hour -- we wanted to rescue them, but the nearest park is ten minutes away and the bands had arrived and sound checks were to be made and when we snuck back in to see how the inebriated invertebrate were coping, they'd disappeared.

To be a drunk slug must be a peculiar thing: already disoriented, trapped in an unfamiliar environment, involuntarilly absorbing strange intoxicants. Still, when their squishing time came (and suspicion falls with the landlord who's not keen on booze-pilching from anyone, backbone or no), the hazy shadow of a brown Clarks loafer may have been a welcome relief from drowning in a dank hoppsy puddle.

Today (speaking in EST rather than GMT) marks my second year of inhabiting this space on diaryland. It will be forever remembered as The Day The Slugs Died.

26.01.06..11:45 am

BAMBU, I HARDLY KNEW YOU

There are moment's in one's life when the outside world dips suddenly, time arrests in an aching trial. Every sound thuds hollow in your veins, every image etches into your memory, your very breath halts mid-inhalation; an intensity beyond normal comprehension it suffocates with a force that turns bliss into terror, terror into bliss.

In my short adult life, such instances of kairos have occurred but a handful of times: opening my letters of acceptance from Queens and then Goldsmiths; receiving my final transcripts; at the shattering crunch of metal, the tearing of a maple tree's roots when the vehicle I was driving leapt out of my control, down a ravine; the first taste of Matthew's mouth, the first realisation that we were to be lovers. Time, or perhaps duree, has an interesting way of freezing at moments of climax in which you become the only thing still moving; it slows long enough to observe the single ant on the pavement, the way a leaf has just twisted in the wind, the every crease of a knuckle. Last year, in the most ordinary of places, kairos fell upon my senses as I watched with pained helplessness as Darren Reilly's fist collided against Matthew's temple. Without hesitation the feeling of sheer horror, the muddled disbelief can flood my entire being in a twinkling just as it did at that moment. This morning I was met with that rushing sound, the whistle of the world jerking to a halt as I read: "He's been sentenced - 3 months in the slammer."

Since the hearing in December I've hardly thought about it. Once or twice, prompted by my family who Never Forget, I felt sorry it had happened; more because of the needlessness, the utter stupidity of the entire affair, than anything else. Today I can think of hardly a thing else. And when I do, the kettle stops boiling, the phone is silent, the distance is deafening. I imagine that when Darren Reilly (Brockley Petrol Station Menace) stood in the court and heard his sentence read, he felt very much the same way I did. The words echo, the tinny hush of silence, the feeling of implosion as the world starts up again. Because I don't really think he's an intrinsically horrible person, I imagine we share, too, a small grain of relief that it's over.

Because I am a PMSing mass of hormonal blitzedness, I am also torn by the brilliant softness of my delicious new yarn and desiring to eat an entire baguette with cream cheese and sage all to myself.

****emmms

25.01.06..2:54 pm

I've been working and working on two reviews, Harel Shachel & Anistar, and The Diableros, and neither are coming together. They're both fantastic albums that I've been dying to write on because I enjoy them so much -- the nigh on conversational chatter of Harel Shachel's saxophone, the impossibly catchy jangle-art-pop of The Diableros, but I'm afraid nothing's yielding and I'm just coming off like a star-struck idolising prat who needs her head seen to. WHY does this happen with the albums you really like? WHY when it's someone you really want to support and inform other people about? Needless to say I've become increasingly frustrated with myself to the point where I've had to put things over the covers so I don't need to look at them. Like Joey in Friends when he has to put Little Women in the freezer because Beth is about to die.

I feel like I've just wasted three days on starring at the computer, trying to bash something worth reading out of the keyboard but only finding monkey shite.

****emmms

22.01.06..11:09 pm

IF I HAD A DOPPELGANGER I'D BE SET FOR LIFE

On Friday I lost my keys. I'd gone straight from late-afternoon money exchange to evening money exchange, which meant they could be anywhere. Most likely on a bus somewhere heading to Victoria. Naturally it wasn't until I'd arrived at the Electronically Protected entry door that I discovered they were missing. Why would I be allowed to discover I'd be standing outside in the rain for twenty minutes prior to approaching the door? Because the Unviverse likes things done in a certain way. And that way is the way of a kick up the arse until you can't sit for a week.

Fortunately, one of the perpetually stoned courtyard loiterers remembered me while I wailed into my mobile to Matthew that I was locked out and no one was home and I was going to die, and saw to it that I may die in the warmth and comfort of the open, second floor walkway than the courtyard. If not because he'd rather not have to step over my drenched corspe, than certainly because he was smoking the BIGGEST JOINT I've ever seen and smoking ENORMOUS JOINTS makes people kindly towards semi-strangers. (See? They SHOULD legalise it.)

The fear of getting locked out again caused me to waste my entire weekend noodling on eBay's everchanging selection of double pointed knitting needles, hand-dyed yarns and trying to figure out German. What were sunny skies and cloudless afternoons compared to the HORROR of never seeing the inside of my dinky flat again?

Except that my keys, Electronic Protection key fob and all, were in my bag the whole time. I had neglected to search ALL the many pockets, choosing to focus my attentions upon merely the one's I actually use on a regular basis. Why should I be allowed to find my keys prior to holing myself up for the two sunny days London will see for the next six months? Because the Universe likes things done a certain way.And that way is the way of a kick up the arse until you can't sit for a week.

****emmms

20.01.06..9:43 am

KITTEN, WHERE WERE YOU?

Last night I went to John Peel's house to interview him, but it was getting late and he just wanted to go to bed, so he gave me all his diaries and letters to go over instead. I spent a hour trying to figure out how to leave without waking him.

His wife had pink dreads.

I awoke shortly after Jamie Oliver came down the stairs and showed me where the key to the back door was hidden.

****emmms