:: The Kindness Of Strangers ::

I received an unsolicited text message today:

hi honey hope your [sic] well, are you going to the gym tonight? i can pick you up on route [sic]. we need to be toned godess's [sic] for miami! let Me know chick x x

Now this was a little odd. Going to the gym? Off to Miami? I think not. But has my pendantry scaled such heights that I feel obliged to correct each error in a simple communication? Well... I suppose it gives me a chance to quote from Tennessee Williams' Streetcar Named Desire (I prefer the original play, of course!) - what an offer: hours of regimented torture with gurning hardbodies (a Bateman-ism, I fear), followed by a trip to the States! Seeing my grandmother at the weekend, I was tartly reminded of the precious pettiness of a (nearly) bygone age. She quoted, verbatim, John Betjeman's How To Get On In Society, with its famous 32 allusions to Non-U sensibilities. Luckily, we no longer live in an age when possession of fish-knives is a faux pas extraordinaire, but I was struck by the possibility of my own linguistic exactitude being perceived as "precious". Well, if that be so, then let it be (but I'm still right).

So, enough about me. As you can probably tell, I wasn't really the sort to sue my school for giving me excessive homework. And we didn't have SpongeBob SquarePants to make us gay, either. The SpongeBob debate has also thrown up some unlikely similarities between the handholding porous one and the Dear Leader.

I nearly forgot, the Oscar nominations are out today, as are those for more meaningful film awards - it's always good to see orange-haired hubris going down in flames...

And finally... b3ta has been thwarted by nature, as a two-headed lamb is born in China. And the Czechs have found a use for decommissioned soviet tv-sets. Just for Taxloss, I'm also linking to "Popular information about bats from a Creationist's perspective". The BBC-style caveat applies: Devukha is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.

:: Curses! ::

No Friday round-up from me. The ravages of last minute work queries and an impending Roberto Zucco rehearsal mean that my customary pre-weekend pile of toss has been cruelly curtailed.

"Disappointed" readers will have to put up with feeble linkage regarding the myriad uses of WD-40 and the sorry fate of a chicken whose name is no longer particularly apposite.

So, on the day that it was announced an Elvis impersonator will perform the King's 1000th No1 on TOTP, I bid you farewell...

:: And I'll Cry If I Want To ::

Well, it seems even Patrick Moore is celebrating my birthday. Final preparations are underway for tonight's toned down knees-up:

I got up at 7 to make houmous before leaving for work. Understandably (given the amounts of garlic used), my flatmates were unwilling to taste my immaculate confection at that ungodly hour, so I'll just have to hope the guests like it.

Now I'm just dashing off to get a couple of essentials (um, yoghurt!) to make tzatziki before the timid throngs teem at my door. No doubt we'll be sat around like a load of grumpy gits, muttering sad jokes as our hands steadfastly grip the gin glasses. Or not...

My mother was kind enough to supplement my real birthday present with a book: The Timewaster Letters. It looks to be a jolly read, even if the idea of sending inane irate letters to public organisations is hardly original.

And final piece of delicious news: Dick & Dom, darlings of the Saturday Morning media circuit, have angered a Tory MP. Whoop-dee-do...

:: Oh No It Isn't ::

Against my better judgment, I'm heading off to the Panto this evening. Not for enjoyment you understand, but to support one of my flatmates, whose lycra-clad expositions of enforced jollity will doubtless make me cringe.

In a bid to recover the high cultural ground, I hope to be making use of my new V&A membership (thanks, Mum!) in the near future. Meanwhile, in the provinces, a spiky statue has appeared in Manchester and a shit statue is set to "enhance" a Cambridgeshire village. No wonder the populace continues to assert that modern art is rubbish. Thank God they're now using classical music to fend off the chav element.

Even the management team at my dismal office have deemed it necessary to make some aesthetic enhancements to our working environment. Cue large numbers of expensive-looking triffids dotted though my open-plan floor and obscuring some of my less good-looking colleagues. I only hope the hapless plants don't meet the same fate as those in Taxloss' erstwhile office - they died of caffeine poisoning. Ah well, at least I get a view of Clerkenwell's rooftops as I chomp on my complimentary haribo gummi bears and seasonally over-priced raspberries. The likelihood of a decent treehouse appearing in my local park is, however, pitifully small.

Last night, I was "lucky" enough to spend my first evening watching TV since I returned from Paris. This presented an opportunity to witness some of the new Channel 4 idents as well as catch up on some of the most talked about TV tat of the new year. I was mildly diverted by CBB (for all of 10 minutes), but I had to switch channels after over-exposure to Jackie Stallone's face. I'm just hoping the next challenge one of the Z-listers will face will be a Random Amputation. I suppose Desperate Housewives was rather better than I had anticipated, but I'm not convinced it'll be must-see viewing for me yet. For some reason I found the opening titles intensely annoying.

So, what to do at the weekend? Saturday should be fun, what with a free Russian fest in Trafalgar Square, but then I've got rehearsals all day Sunday. I'm also hoping to shave (most of) my hair off again, thereby supporting the new North Korean campaign against hippies.

And my birthday has swung round again, so I'm having a little get together at home on Tuesday. I'd better get things ready, I suppose - a few drinks, some tasty nibbles... and I might even make some houmous! Add a little French music, and the night should be a relaxed tribute to my 27 years...

And finally, "Ridiculous Headline Of The Day" goes to CBS for "Prince Harry In Nazi Garb Flap".

:: Gloat Over ::

So now it's back to the grindstone, the cheerless London wind biting at my heels and only a blur of memories and a bloated stomach to remind me of a paradisal week en France. Soon to return to New York, Bezuhoff is conducting a farewell perfomance on Saturday and then the festivities really will be over. I didn't take any photos, having now turned into a complete camera-phobe, so my memories are mostly verbal. In no particular order, here's a list of key phrases from our time away:

  • le coq sportif - a symbol of French manliness and sporting prowess.
  • le caca-boudin - a reference to the many dog eggs adorning the pavements of the French capital.
  • cunt soup (potage aux cons) - Devukha-speak for large gaggles of tourists, shoppers and gawkers on the streets of any major metropolis. Also refers to the queue to go up the Eiffel Tower.
  • Je voudrais le menu tartare... - dietary advice for the strong of stomach. Having enjoyed Steak Tartare at the inimitable Brasserie Lipp, I subsequently went on to have tartares of salmon and tuna in other establishments.
  • Fancy a Frisk? - when breath requires freshening, what better than Belgium's finest?
  • S'astiquer le poireau - indispensible advice for those wishing to hone their French culinary techniques.
  • Un pebbledash de petits pois... sur les spectateurs en baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaas - from a memorable description of the Pope's visit to Paris featured in On The Hour. French super-DJ Jacques Oeuf got rather excited at Il Papa's projectile pronouncements.
  • January, February, I don't understand... and then I fuck your sister - a tender ballad from the pages of Modern Toss. Another example of the authors' artistry may be seen here.

So that's your lot. On the home front, Hyp's had a revamp, but more on that after the weekend.

:: Bonne Année etc... ::

So here I am, then. Sat in an internet café in the shadow of the Centre Pompidou, being serenaded, somewhat bizarrely, by the strains of London's Jazz FM. And do you know what? Despite my misgivings, I'm loving it in Paris, especially the 4th arrondissement, where our apartment is located - see here for a hilarious if slightly innaccurate description.

Paris is my (now long-ago) ex's favourite place in the world. Our arguments comparing here with London, centred round my perceptions of the place as stuffy and bourgeois, attitudes I've seen little evidence of this time around. I would certainly consider living here, too - if only for the food!

The New Year's celebrations here may have been a little below par (my fault, for being grumpy and bunged up with a cold), certainly compared with last year's New York blow-out, but this has been a fantastic break, not least because of the coming hectic schedule...