What I found curious was what the doctor said at the height of my friend's hysteria. "You're Jewish aren't you?" she smiled, injecting more Lomotil, "Try to relax and think about God." I wasn't sure if this assumption was a result of our proximity to Golders Green at the time or my friend's aquiline features or both. As she was busy throwing up, I explained that she had no faith as such. The doctor was genuinely shocked. "Think about the people you love then," she continued. "God is just the people you love." As we swayed through the leafy back lanes of Hampstead in a blue-lit and sirened ambulance bound for the Royal Free A and E I stroked my friends head and thought about blood. For example, if someone doesn't know who their biological parents are, will they ever be satisfactorily Jewish, confirmedly gentile? Diagnosis: profound gastro e which stabilised under Maxolon and saline rehydration. Not anthrax then. |
![]() Apocalyptically-entitled bar snacks are a fine idea. There's a gap in the market for "Gaza Strip Bacon Bits", "We're All Fucked" nuts - even a maincourse "Four Horsemen" ploughmans. I've been working on an open sandwich which I think I'll call "Not A Single Star Will Be Left In The Night, Nor Will The Night Be Left, We Shall Die And With Us The Weight Of An Intolerable Universe" - halloumi, sunblush tomatoes, olives. Grilled. What d'ya think? Borges dontcha know..
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The kind of people. In a crisis situation, the kind of person you are tends to come to the fore and we are all veterans of crisis situations. Most of them have been witnessed and felt vicariously but, still, we're contemplating mass horror a darn sight more often and up-close than most of our ancestors ever had to. |
![]() 4th September 2001 Dear Diary. Decided to throw a house-warming party. For the first hour or so, I thought it was heading towards a total wash-out. Just myself and Chris Smith ex Culture Secretary, who couldn't touch anything pokier than a raisin and nutmeg Mullerice and kept talking about his wife's spine problems. Sheesh. "Successful art is tedious on the internet," I tried to wake him up. "A new way of seeing is required." "The implications are perfectly crass," he choked, "Anyway, I hear you're putting a band together." "The New Asylum Seekers," I mused. "A socially responsible collective. An Armenian, two Georgians and an Australian - from the rough part, apparently. Put the blighters to use is what I say. Russian mafia rustling up some mint. First video - get the chaps cruising up and down the Thames Valley casting tenners and supping Taittanger from the slip-ons of some well bred bootie festooned in diamond-encrusted Kruggerrands." Thank you the doorbell went and who should file in but Chelsea Clinton, Simian, Anna Raeburn (smashing), Fritz Lang, Moldy Peaches, some Taoist children casting petals before Sir Peter and Jamie Palumbo, Erin O'Connor, Max Hardcore, K9, Daniel O'Donnell with Nancy Spungen, Crispin Glover (twice), Lady Victoria Hervey, Judge Death, Hear'Say, Karen Kilimnik, Antonin Artaud stroking a lizard in a diamond choker, King Of Woolworths with Thora Birch, Maxon Crumb and a Japanese ska duo called Dollar (weird) who performed Anti-Folk versions of US garage tunes. Anna guessed all of Max's (own) movie titles at charades, and Daniel pursuaded Chris to push out the boat (or yacht, as K9 chirped) to try one of Nancy's homespun blinis. |