I'm psychic!

I've just realised I have psychic powers! I was watching some satellite channel called Destiny and they had a psychic doing tarot readings for callers. One man wanted information about 'the love of his life', a woman he went out with in the 90's. He met her briefly again recently, and ever since then he's been bombarding her with texts and e-mails, which she hasn't been answering. His question was: what was this woman's reaction on receiving these communications? Now, I never thought that I had supernatural powers before, but now I had an eerie feeling that I knew exactly how that woman had felt.

Uncanny.

virginfest

First we couldn’t get in. We got there before the gates opened and then we were trapped in a mob waiting to be funneled through the entrance. Meanwhile, we could hear the Stands going through their set, as though determined to demonstrate that we, the audience, were expendable. Hardcore fans cracked, leapt for the fence, and were brutally dealt with. Probably - I didn’t dare look.

Somehow we got in. What did I see? Sonic Youth, well on their way to sonic old age now but still delivering controlled chaos, wielding their guitars like chainsaws. If they’d split up back in the 80’s, and then dramatically reformed, they might even have attracted the audience they deserved. As it was, they never went away. So everyone forgot about them. Oh, and the Kaiser Chiefs were playing.

I missed Joss Stone flouncing offstage for some reason best known to her. What’s all the fuss about her anyway? A white teenager with the voice of some grizzled black soul singer - isn’t she just a freak? Her parents should have sold her to the circus. (In a sense, they did.)

Talking of freaks, the security on the Channel 4 stage seemed to have been chosen for their ugliness: truly, they were a show in themselves, easily outperforming, say, the Bravery. The Bravery are aptly named: you’d have to be brave to get up on stage when you’re that bad. ‘This is a song about kicking the world until it gives you what you want’, the singer said at one point. Or, to put it another way: this is a song about mangling the back catalogues of lots of 80’s New Wave bands until they give you what you want -a recording contract. But for how long?

London declared safe

There are helpful notices in the shop where I work about what to do if a terrorist rings up to say he's planted a bomb in the vicinity. All the questions to ask, and the order in which to ask them. I dread this happening. Not because of the fear of being blown up, but because of the social awkwardness of that telephone conversation. Questions that you might naturally ask first - like 'Who are you?' and 'Why are you doing this?' - are way down the list, beneath questions about the nature of the bomb and what time it's set for. How are you meant to play that? A man rings up and tells you he's planted a bomb in the shop and your first question is: 'Ooh, what kind?' You'd sound like some kind of geeky bomb enthusiast.

I went to London yesterday for the first time since 7/7. I didn't notice much in the way of terror. I wasn't even inclined, on the tube, to look around for persons liable to explode. After all, it was Saturday: Thursday's Al Qaeda day. I can't see why they don't make it a national holiday. Every week. That would put paid to their evil schemes.

believe it or not

The lead story in the Sun today: 'Victor Meldrew Found In Space'. Yes, join the dots of a certain constellation in a certain way and that's what you get. Victor Meldrew's face. 'We Don't Believe It!', crows the paper. Yeah, and I don't believe that's actually on your front page.

Not that the Mail's much better. It was only when I got to the TV listings today that I realised I'd been reading yesterday's edition by mistake. In some respects, it might have been from twenty years ago - there was even an article on bringing back hanging. For hate preachers, I think.

Why all the fuss about hate preachers? They're no scarier than WWE wrestlers. Grimacing in their publicity shots, brandishing their hooks and boasting about how Islam's going to whip our asses: their natural home is The Jerry Springer Show, not a mosque.

I've got a little more time to devote to this blog now that a significant proportion of the people I hang out with are holidaying in Spain. All I know about Spain currently is what I read in the tabloids: it's experiencing a heatwave, and poisonous jellyfish are terrorising the coastline. I picture a War of the Worlds-type scenario: screaming holidaymakers bursting into flame on the beaches, while 30-foot high jellyfish rise from the waters, lashing their deadly tentacles. I'm sure it isn't like that at all.

leper night

I went out with work. It was all arranged around ex-employee Richard (spiky blond hair, self-proclaimed 'wacky funster'). As is his wont, he never turned up, but it didn't seem to matter. Paul (ginger, at his most enthusiastic when yawning) talked about the animals he's discovered under his bedclothes over the years. Sam (female, at her most enthusiastic all the time) wound up writing on people, which is how I ended the night with the mysterious phrase 'leper party' scrawled on my arm in biro.

We didn't go to Sam's, Brentwood's finest (and only) nightclub. I was emotionally blackmailed into going there on Thursday night, by people who pointed out that I 'might never see them again' if their plane to Spain the next day happened to blow up (it didn't). Everybody in the place was at least 15 years younger than me, so it was of strictly anthropological interest (observation of courtship rituals, ceremonial dances, etc., etc.) They used to play 80's music on a Thursday. At least then I could hold court at the bar, keeping a young audience enthralled with my anecdotes about what Kajagoogoo were like the first time round. Now the snatches of Cyndi Lauper and Soft Cell are buried so deep in the mix it's like they're something to be ashamed of. Which they are, of course.

suicide is painful

Further Green Man talk: discussion last Saturday of terrorist atrocities and the like. At one point I said, in that glib way of pub conversations, that I doubted whether there were that many people in the country willing to blow themselves up for Al Qaeda. Later, a horrifying thought occurred to me: what if Al Qaeda infiltrated the Samaritans? Picture it: someone rings up wanting to end it all and the deep, sinister voice on the other end says: 'Great idea. How does next Thursday sound?'

I was going to put some of this into my latest project - a screenplay for a Hollywood blockbuster about a serial suicide bomber. Unfortunately, I seem to have hit a snag.

nature diary

I've been down the Green Man. The things we talk about! This came up, for example: the day the elderly couple down the road, who are obsessed with the wildlife in their garden, and have been known to make extravagant claims for it (giraffes on the patio, tarantulas in the shrubbery) discovered a frog (in heat) getting a blow job from an unwilling(?) fish in their pond. It was something of a scandal in the village. The pond had to be screened off. Questions were asked in the parish magazine.

The suburban garden is a profoundly mysterious place. Only the other day I saw another elderly villager, and asked how he was. He replied that he'd got 'the equivalent of whiplash injury' while 'picking rhubarb at midnight'. Tantalisingly, he refused to give away any more than that. Traumatised, probably.

I once inadvertently stepped on two frogs who were having sex. I'll never forget the sound it made.