When I got in this evening feeling perky & turned on the computer,-I activated the various messenger services as usual- to catch up with whoever of my friends or family happened to be online. No one was online as such, so I left it on whilst making some dinner & listening to some wonderful music.
Later as I sat down to eat,-there was a resounding “bing!” sound that cruelly cut through the music.-It was the ‘msn’ ring that alerts you when someone new is online. I almost choked on my couscous when I discovered the name on the screen.-It was her, it was the ex-from hell. I had no reccolection of typing her address in there,-but I must have done when I was still attatched a few months back,-in any case-I’d completely forgotten. But there it was-that name again. Not only that,-the name began to type..(shower scene music from Phsyco) I won’t go into detail- but not surprisingly we did’nt exchange compliments.-Could’nt eat a thing after that. As I pointed out to her in so many words- she had dumped me,-so what the hell did she want now after all this time? Why bother me? & why now?-water under the bridge & all that. But no,-the evil bitch carries on with the out of the blue name-calling & general unpleasantness.-Not nice at all. Anyway,- I wanted to cut this short without losing face,-so in retaliation- I deployed my extensive range of disgusting & hurtful insults & deriving some pleasure in the process. Oh dear, I could have done without that episode. I’m not even going to waste time trying to find a justification for this outburst from someone who had almost become a stranger to me. I tried to understand how her mind works the first time-only to have this thrown back in my face. Life’s too short to type rude words on a keyboard.(deletes address..) – R.I.P. moo cow.

Meat, meat & more meat. “Hello sir, what will it be today?” ” um,-I’d like some meat please”- “Certainly sir, what kind of meat did you have in mind?” – ” The dead kind that tastes nice,-but as I’ve just watched Bambi I’m feeling kind of guilty”- ” Nonsense! It’s protein my friend.-It’s an essential part of a balanced diet “- ” Of course,-but there are plenty of other things that can provide protein,-& besides, my diet is’nt all that balanced- I’m not eating nearly enough vegetables at the moment.” – “Well, that’s your problem pal,-I’m in the meat business,-want some?” “I’m not sure now to be honest. Will you throw it away if I don’t buy it?-I mean us privileged few have way too much choice & it’s all nicely packaged & ready to cook,-no sign of the pain & suffering that went into the final product.” -”…what?” – ” It’s quite a paradox is’nt it? You can watch bambi in the comfort of your own home & shed a tear,-while at the same time chomping on a nice medium-rare steak” -”Bambi? Are you kidding?-That’s just a projection of human emotions onto animals.-That’s Disney for ya.-Bambi is about a child losing his mother.- I should know ,-I lost mine when I was a mere youngster,…snif” – “Oh, I’m sorry,- I did’nt mean to..” – ” That’s quite alright.-Now, do you want some meat or what?” – “…so when you were a kid you had noone to cook you nice steaks & sausages..” – “Look!- I have’nt got all day.-There are other customers behind you” “…chicken, lambchops,..” – “You’re really starting to piss me off my friend” – “…all good sources of protein as part of a balanced di..” – “What do you want arsehole?-You need to get more exercise pal,-your brain is congested! Now get out!” – “Exercise! That’s a good idea.-Now, I think you’ve hit on the perfect balanced diet for a healthy body!” -
“Will you get out of my shop!?!” – ” The perfect balanced diet for a healthy body would be,- running after and hunting down some anonymous (don’t want to know it’s name)-furry creature,-whilst having a carrot in your mouth!- Exercise,-protein,-vegetables!” (runs out of butchers shop persued by angry butcher).
It really is a luxury when you can actually think twice before filling your pie hole.

I’m being introduced to a genuinely new realisation.-Snot machines can type. Snot machine-that’s me today,-hi, nice to meet you,-I’m currently looking for a new nose on e-snot. If I was a masochist I’d put vinegar on it, I have’nt got any anyway, & the truth is- I have’nt left my place all day. Like every year I have the flu(god, this is so anal) But anyway that has’nt stopped me from conversing with people around the world,-thanks to the intersnots. Anyway, I was thinking,-thank god for intelligent switched on people. Intelligence -a mixture of curiosity, instinct, awareness & processed life experiences,-(& snot) which I think we are all in touch with, when we are not filling the void with short term shit. I remember thinking a few years ago during a particularly violent heatwave in Europe,-”here I am sleeping on the roof because it’s the only place I can find something approaching coolness”-why?-because the climate is going pear-shaped,-that’s why!- All because of pollution caused by-ignorance, greed & bloody mindedness- & pears! & snot. It’s getting either ridiculously hot (like my head) or surprisingly cold (like my head when it’s not hot-it’s freezing outside atm). Like so many russian dolls,-our bodies are minature versions of the earth & need to be looked after,that is-unless we want to look like shit in the mirror every morning. Does that make sense? I don’t know,-I’m not very well, bear with me.
But even if you are drowning in snot & not properly in touch with your feelings & thoughts ,- now & again someone or something can cut through the fog & there’s a creaking sound in your brain as the cogs start turning again. Anyway, today a friend sent me this link:
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article11681.htm
If you go on that page-you might think this guy is full of snot & only interested in selling his book.-But he did’nt strike me that way,-all I know is he can see ‘both sides’ of the fence & is willing to share information that is totally plausible-& at the same time he is refreshingly optimistic.

“Now settle down children, I’m going to tell you a story.-Once upon a time there was a fat woman sat on a chair. She was a teacher & wore her hair in a bun & would tell her class of cute children who looked bored out of their minds, to settle down before telling them a story about a fat woman sat on a chair who wore her hair in a bun & who would tell her class of cute children who looked bored out of their minds, to settle down before telling them a story about a fat woman sat on a chair who wore her hair in a bun & who would tell her class of cute children who looked bored out of their minds, to settle down before telling them a story,-The end!….Well, children, did you like that story?” a child: “um…I spy with my little eye something beginning with F.” teacher: “ooh! F? Now let me see now…no! I don’t know.What begins with F my child?”……”Fat woman sat on a chair who wears her hair in a bun & who tells her class of cute children who look bored out of their minds, to settle down before telling them a story about a fat woman sat…”

I was pursued all day by this horrible nightmare I had last night. It was one of those that wakes you up,-so you can remember it & it lingers in the back of your mind the day after.- I’ve always been terrified of ostriches & emus,-there’s something about them that just freaks me out. I mean let’s be honest,-god must have been smoking on a big one when he invented these critters. How can something so tall with such powerful legs, have such a tiny brain?(smaller than its eyes!)
It’s the way they stare at you & blink as if to say-”come here you,-so I can peck your eyes out!” & if you start to run away-the bastards will catch you up in no time,-back you into a corner & bear down on you until you can see your own petrified face in those big evil eyes. I once heard someone say they were cute!-Fuck off!-these things come straight from hell! Anyway,-I dreamt I was somewhere in Paris & these things were running around all over the place with the precise intention of pecking my eyes out. I think there were other people around,-but they were just ignoring them,- which contributed further to the anguish.
I remember saying to myself something like-”come on,-you can jog, you’re a good runner when you want to!” & then looking down smugly at my legs.-So much infact,-that I could’nt move anymore,-paralysed with smugness!-Wierd! It was at that moment that I felt something gnawing at my leg.-There were no more ostriches, but now there was a tortoise eating my leg! It was horrible! -I’ve never known what to think of tortoises,-they’ve always jerked my karma somewhat,- but not as much as ostriches. After this nightmare though,-they are well and truly on a par with ostriches on my list of stressfull animals.-Bizarre, bizarre, completely unecessary scary beasts.

My cousin sent me one of the least embarassing pictures from our Friday night bender. I’m preventing Arnaud from falling or vice versa, whilst Antoine explores Arnaud’s nasal cavity & that. Niiiiiice.

There’s this joke about a japanese couple coming home from a holiday & someone asks them how their holiday was & they reply-”we don’t know,-we have’nt developed the photos yet!”-Sums up my waking experience this morning,-in the sense that I don’t know if I had an enjoyable evening with my cousin Antoine-because I can’t really remember it,-the photos are absent from my head.
My cousin works at the ‘palais de tokyo’,-a modern art space in Paris & he invited me to a private staff party on the margins of the official opening of the latest exhibition. If he had invited me to the opening-I probably would have declined, because these things tend to be full of the worst types of trendy dick heads. This modest little gathering however-was much more to my liking. It was cool to see the behind the scenes of the place & meet some of the people from the wood work department. Antoine & I passed the main entrance where people were queueing with their invitations-and went down some stairs & through a side door. A dimly lit room with coloured lights, some strangers -some not, great sound system, dancing, drinking, someone actually getting into the fridge & closing the door, someone with a megaphone, dancing, more drinking, someone playing with the fire extinguisher. Being in this basement room whilst the official party was going on upstairs reminded me of when I was a kid in bed with the lights out listening to my parents & friends laughing over dinner downstairs..-a nice feeling. Sometimes it’s more enjoyable to watch a play from the wings rather than in payed seats if you know what I mean. That is all I can really remember of the evening, because I got ridiculously shit-faced. The bruises on my arms are an indication that I probably tried to breakdance at some point. Oh dear,-woke up in bed with one of my cousin’s colleagues in an enormous wet patch as he had decided to go to sleep with an open can of beer.-Had absolutely no recolection of how I got there. He was a nice guy anyway when he eventually woke up. After coffee & croissants I bid him farewell & made my way back home via ‘Montmartre’ with all its quaint hustle & bustle.-This was a nice way of coming back into the land of the living. Every time I get drunk,-I swear it’s the last time,-but in certain social situations with certain people I inevitably start ‘raising the elbow’ as the french say. I don’t know,-it’s not big or clever & although I’m writing this,-I’m not one to attach macho kudos to heavy drinking,-I think that’s bullshit,-set aside being bad for you. Anyway, there’s a few new names & addresses scribbled in my note pad,-if I can remember who these people are & contact them,-will they remember me? mmm..coffee.

You know when you see someone or something so often,-be it on tv or books magazines etc.-that when you come face to face with it in real life,-you don’t quite know how to react? This is how I felt this evening in front of this painting by Renoir. I’d seen this image on everything from postcards to chocolate boxes. I’m not sure why this particular work of Renoir has been singled out so much. I can just about understand the facination with something like da Vinci’s ‘Mona Lisa’,-but this painting?-It was’nt saying much to me,-but nevertheless I stared at it for a long time because this was the very last time it would be exhibited in Paris or anywhere else-as after this exhibition it is going back permanantly to Washington in the Duncan Phillips collection. So I wanted to get my money’s worth, & if it meant being unfaithful to my mates Van Gogh & Francis Bacon on the other walls,-so be it. The image above does not do the painting justice,-for a start this painting is huge & the colours are very rich & um…colourful. No, this is a pleasant image with various characters enjoying a lazy summer lunch by the river. After about 2 minutes of taking in the sheer scale & ambience of it,-I was attracted in particular to the two people in the foreground.-The lady on the left has obviously been honouring the ‘grape-juice’ & is now whispering sweet nothings to her dog,-who is on the table for god’s sake!-Does not help the reputation of the french having approximate hygene,-they love their dogs anyway (there’s that much shit on the streets in Paris, that I find myself almost dancing to avoid it -’the parisian ch-cha’) Anyway I decided that I had been looking at this painting way too long when I imagined the man on the right was over-sexed and humping his chair. Whatever,-its always an enriching experience to wander round a gallery. ‘Le déjeuner des canotiers’ by Auguste Renoir.

Every now & again, I like to go up through the skylight window- onto the roof. It’s almost like another world- to which the people under my feet & down there at street level are oblivious. The evening is the best time,-when the rumble of the city dies gently down like some huge machine & dozens of seperate lives appear in lit up windows. You can hear the noises of cutlery, as people sit down to dinner & recount the events of the day,-before retiring in front of the tv & then to bed.
Sometimes I sense a presence behind a chimney pot up here with me & I’ll catch a fleeting shadow out of the corner of my eye. Maybe a pigeon or a bat,-or perhaps the ghost of someone past or a roof fairy, or both,- haunting the rooftops in secret silence whilst evening sounds bounce around down below..

Was thinking of my school days today whilst feeling hungry. I remembered that we used to be served this dessert at school. I did’nt know it had a name at the time,-but I know it now to be -’Manchester tart’.(I used to know a manchester tart,-she was a nice girl.-Har har har har har hardy har). Anyway, for nostalgia’s sake, I found the recipe & will try to make it. It will probably be nothing like how I remember it,-but recipes specific to Manchester are few & far between,-so this might be an occasion to fly the gastronomic flag here in Paris.(I used to try and cook french stuff when I was back in England.-’the grass is always greener..’ I suppose. It’s not always easy being a bastard!).

Manchester Tart

Serves 4

600ml (1 pint) Milk
110g (4oz) Shortcrust Pastry

3 tbsp Raspberry Jam

3 tbsp Custard Powder
2-3 tbsp Desiccated Coconut
2 tbsp Sugar

Pre-heat oven to 200°C; 400°F: Gas 6.
Roll out the dough and line a baking dish.
Blind bake (prick with fork and place a piece of greaseproof paper with some baking beans on pastry).
Bake for 15 minutes.
Allow to cool.
Spread the jam over the pastry base, sprinkle with coconut.
Boil the milk and whisk into the sugar and custard powder (follow manufacturers instructions).
Pour into the pastry case.
Sprinkle with coconut or a little sugar, to prevent a skin forming.
Allow to cool before serving & that.