Month: September 2006

Aargh, I’ve just discovered another reason to be paranoid. (Finding reasons to be paranoid being one of my major life skills.)

I’ve just discovered that, in certain circles, failure to greet a new commenter with a quick “Hello and welcome” is regarded as a breach of blogging etiquette. Now, I’ve often observed other people welcoming newcomers, and I think it’s a dead nice thing to do and all that – but I’ve always taken it as a matter of personal style/preference, rather than as The Correct Thing To Do.

It could well be generational, and informed by the perspective of a relative old-timer, stuck in his original paradigm. When I started blogging nearly five years ago, the rules of engagement were somewhat different – and I don’t recall anyone doling out the Meet & Greets as a matter of course. (Peter, maybe?) Indeed, you could make a sound case for arguing that blogging was a good deal more aloof in those days, and a good deal more community-minded these days – but that’s a think-piece for another time.

In any case, I have certainly never expected my comments to be automatically replied to. Rather, instead of feeling snubbed when a comment is ignored, I tend to feel a mild ripple of pleasure when someone chooses to acknowledge it – because I have said something which has been deemed worthy of further discourse.

I do frequently reply to comments, and always by name. However, the fact that I have replied to some and not others should never be seen as favourtism, or cliquiness. It’s merely because some comments inspire further thoughts on my part, and some comments don’t. And it has certainly never occured to me that new readers might end up feeling excluded.

What about you? What’s your policy?

Update #1: Based on various people’s comments, I’ve added some follow-up thoughts of my own, in which I surprise myself by taking quite a severe line.

Update #2: For what has to be the definitive statement on this whole malarkey, you are strongly urged to read this excellent post from Status Anxiety.

K and I have just enjoyed an exceptionally tasty dinner. Since the recipe was of K’s own devising, and since we’ve got a bit of time to kill before Capote starts on Sky Box Office, I thought I’d blog the details for you. It’s cheap, it’s nutritious, it’s quick, it’s easy, it’s delicious, what’s not to like, well exactly.

Penne pollo con zucchini.
Serves two.

Ingredients:

• 100g penne pasta.
• 1 large courgette, cut into match-sticks, approximately 0.5 cm wide.
• 2 chicken breasts, cubed, approximately 2.5 cm wide. (I reckon they’re a bit smaller than that, but chef says not.)
• 2 cloves of garlic, chopped.
• A pinch of dried chilli flakes.
• A lump of Parmesan cheese.
• Olive oil, salt, pepper.

Boil the penne until al dente, drain it, and leave it to one side.

While the penne is boiling, fry the chicken in olive oil over a high heat, to get the surface golden brown. This should take about 5 minutes, maybe slightly less.

Throw in the sliced courgettes and stir, in order to brown and soften them slightly. Allow about 2-3 minutes for this.

Reduce the heat. Add the garlic and the chilli flakes, season with salt and pepper, and cook for a further 2 minutes.

Add the drained penne to the pan. Mix it in, until the pieces are coated in oil and have integrated with the chicken and courgettes.

Serve, from pan to plate. Add freshly grated Parmesan over the top, and an extra twist of black pepper.

Go on, try it. You can’t go wrong.

I’ve been feeling listless, melancholy and generally out of sorts today. These photos – none of which I’ve looked at in several years – cheered me up a bit, in a wistful sort of way. In particular, I had forgotten just how young I looked for my age, for a brief spell in my late 20s and early 30s. Still, that painting had to come down from the attic some time.

London Pride, Jubilee Gardens, 1990. The chap on the far left is Grocerina, who first introduced me to K. The chap next to him was his partner for ten years – they got together two weeks after K and I became a couple, and the four of us held a joint 10th anniversary party in 1995. He moved to New Zealand with his new partner in the late 1990s. The chap standing next to me wrote the UK’s biggest selling single of 2000.

Oh God, white denim. And beaded “ethnic” baseball caps. (That one came from Camden Market, and I was very attached.) O tempora, o mores.

A picnic excursion to Calke Abbey. We flew kites, and someone played wildly inappropriate grunge music on a ghetto blaster. The lady next to me was our lodger for a couple of years, during which time she met her future husband. The two of them acted as witnesses for our civil partnership registration in April.

Back in those days, the Derbyshire Peak District was a place to wander about in for a couple of hours on a Sunday afternoon. Any longer than that, and I started getting city withdrawal symptoms, longing for the womb-like embrace of the buildings and the cheering glare of the street lights. In this picture, I defy all known medical science by giving birth, feet first.

Our New Kids On The Block tribute act never really got off the ground…

Stumbling towards the North Norfolk coast, somewhere in the vicinity of Burnham Overy Staithe, in whose windmill we were sojourning.

Such innocent pleasures. The hardcore all-night clubbing phase had yet to kick in…

Photos of people dancing are great, aren’t they? Inside the aforementioned windmill, nearing the apex of one of the most gleefully debauched weekends that any of us had ever enjoyed. (We booked the same windmill a year later and tried to repeat the experience, but it wasn’t quite the same.)

Adored and explored. A-hum. Every dog has its day.

A friend brought me back this Keith Haring T-shirt from New York; I think it was printed especially for that year’s Pride parade. Naturally, I treated it with the reverence normally reserved for holy relics.

London Pride, 1991. Photo taken by Chig, who scribbled a caption on the back: “I always flare my nostrils when I’m having a w@nk…”

Chig’s caption: “Yes, you in the shades, there is a camera pointing in your direction!”

Next to it in the photo album, there’s a “candid” long-lens photo of a shirtless hunk, who is revealed to be deliberately sucking his stomach in. Oh, how we giggled. The cruelty of youth, etc. I’d scan it and upload it, but the photo doesn’t have ME in it, so what would be the point.

I was about to say: Chig looks even younger than I do. But then, he was. And still is, for that matter.

I do miss the home-made charm of those older Pride festivals. Not a sponsor’s logo in sight.

Yes, I know what you’re thinking. But there’s a perfectly innocent explanation!

Chig had been cast as a gay dad-to-be with a penchant for rubber wear, in a Birmingham “community drama project” or some such frippery. The wardrobe department had duly sanctioned the purchase of a singlet and shorts from the local Clone Zone, and Chig had come over to Nottingham to “get into the role”, method-style, down at our local club. (That would have been Nero’s on Saint James Street, then.)

Naturally, an early evening photo-shoot ensued – and naturally, I couldn’t resist squeezing myself into the gear, and having a mini-prance round the living room…

…and pretending to be K’s trashy trade, in another shocking mis-representation of our power dynamic. Oh yes.

My “Mogwai” dance was legendary, and here’s a rare sighting.

Compare and contrast with the distinguished “man of letters” figure that I cut today…

(These tips appeared in print yesterday.)

1. Don’t be scared by the technology. Anyone can get a basic blog up and running in less than ten minutes, with no technical knowledge. What’s more, it’s free. Try www.blogger.com – it’s a great starting place for novices.

2. Always be aware you’re writing for an audience, even if it’s only for family and friends. Put yourself in their shoes, and imagine them reading what you have written. If you’re only writing for yourself, then keep it to yourself.

3. When writing about other people, always assume that they will one day discover what you have written. This isn’t just a faint possibility – it’s a distinct probability. You’d be surprised.

4. If you want to be rude about someone, stick to celebrities and politicians. That’s what they’re there for.

5. If you’re blogging about work, then be extra-careful. Even if you’re blogging anonymously, what you say might be seen as damaging to your employers’ reputation. If in doubt, leave it out.

6. Although a small number of blogs attract thousands of readers a day, most blogs have much, much smaller readerships. So don’t blog for the fame and the glory, and don’t start worrying about who’s bigger and better than you. Remember: nobody loves a bitter blogger.

7. Tell us something we didn’t know before. If you’ve got specialist knowledge of something, then share it – you’ll soon attract like-minded souls.

8. Failing that, tell us about yourself: funny stories, sad stories, even what you had for lunch, if you can make it entertaining. We’re nosy, and we like to know what makes people tick.

9. Start building a list of your favourite blogs. Read them regularly, leave them comments, and link to them. You never know: they might link back. (But if they don’t, then it’s bad form to pester them about it.)

10. Your blog can be anything you want it to be. So don’t be afraid to break a few rules.

…then may I bid you a warm welcome. As I’m out of town until Monday, I haven’t yet seen the piece myself, but I believe it’s to be found in the magazine section. (Note to non-Nottingham readers: I doubt very much whether it will be appearing on the online version of the newspaper.)

However, the nice lady who interviewed me did let me see a draft copy, so that I could check it for accuracy – and I have to say that I was thrilled, thrilled I tell you, to find myself described as “slight”. No-one has ever called me this before. After the extended battle I have been waging with my abdominal jut, this alone provides all the self-validation I could possibly need.

Being interviewed, in a quiet upstairs corner at Stones delicatessen on Weekday Cross, was a thoroughly pleasant experience, which left me in a vastly improved state of mind. (I had been in a fairly filthy mood all week.) I guess there’s nothing more guaranteed to lift the spirits than being given the chance to talk about myself at length, to someone who is duty bound to record every word. Better than therapy! And cheaper, too!

As for the photo session the following week, I am quaking in my dressing gown at how this will have turned out. I didn’t make a great start by greeting the photographer outside my front door, then realising I had left the house keys back in the office, and having to prevail upon him for a lift. The office is only ten minutes away by foot, but thanks to the lunchtime traffic and the labyrinthine absurdities of Nottingham’s one-way system, it took almost as long by car. We went all rahnd the ahzes, if I might be permitted to slip into the local vernacular.

The purpose of the photo-shoot was to capture me actually in the process of blogging – much as happened when the BBC interviewed me in 2005. However, the study is a bit of an unphotogenic tip these days, and so it was swiftly decided that we would stage the shoot downstairs with a laptop. As the photographer commented, Man At Table With Computer isn’t the most arresting of images, and so I was directed into ever more unlikely postures around the living room: perching on furniture, staring moodily out of the window… and eventually (and I bet this is the shot they end up using in the magazine) stretched out on my front on the sofa, head raised, with the laptop resting on the arm, and my legs coquettishly raised and crossed behind me.

“I feel like I’m posing for FHM!”, I quipped, nervously.

“That’s it, keep it there, nice big cheesy grin”, he urged, professionally.

Meanwhile, I pretended to type a blog entry with my one free hand, my head cocked upwards so that I couldn’t see the keyboard.

“jggjksnn ghgh jkjiyh ggg jjj”, I blogged, helplessly.

“That’s great, one more, perfect.” Yeah, fake it baby.

I was also asked to supply some supplementary material for the side panels: a short extract from one of my blog postings, and some blogging Do’s and Dont’s for the curious novice. For the extract, I suggested four pieces: the Period Living photo-shoot, the “swanky do” at a local hotel, my appearance on BBC Radio Nottingham, and a brief but telling conversation that I had with K whilst hiking to a country pub. However, the nice lady from the Evening Post decided to make her own selection: a piece where I talk about purchasing a pedometer. (Further evidence of my prolonged struggle with the abdominal jut, you see.)

If you are new here, then my favourite postings are all archived on the side panel to the right, under the heading “we wrote”. Do feel free to have a good rummage. I also recommend the piece entitled “Arbeit macht frei“, which is nestling right down at the bottom of this page. I made a bit more of an effort with this one, and I think it’s the best blog post I’ve written all year. (Most of the time, I just brain-splurge straight to the keyboard. Such is the nature of our fledgling medium.)

As for the blogging Do’s and Dont’s: I’ll publish them here tomorrow, when the newspaper is no longer on the stands. In the meantime, please make yourselves comfortable – and if you feel moved to do so, then please leave a comment. (You can do this pseudonymously, if you so wish: none of the little boxes on the comments form are mandatory.)

Now, read on. And in case you were wondering whether I ever live up to the title of this blog, then the posting below should provide all the evidence you need.

Look, I’ve been to BLOODY HOSPITAL, you know? In SHEER BLOODY AGONY, in case it had slipped your attention. And DO I GET ANY SYMPATHY? DO I? DO I?

Because I’d say that THREE MEASLY COMMENTS, all of which were placed merely to TEASE AND MOCK ME, is NOT WHAT ONE MIGHT HAVE REASONABLY EXPECTED UNDER THE CIRCUMSTANCES. Petite Bloody Anglaise would have had 200 “ooh, poor poor you” comments by lunchtime. Girl With A One Track Mind would have had armies of journos besieging the hospital staff for the full lowdown on any interesting birth marks. But Mike bloody Troubled bloody Diva gets THREE BLOODY COMMENTS, even though he might be WRITHING IN EXCRUCIATING PAIN RIGHT THIS SECOND, NOT THAT ANY OF YOU LOT WOULD BLOODY CARE.

Yes, the Diazepam has well and truly worn off.

I expect better from you in the future.

Remember my groin strain moan of a couple of weeks ago? Well, there was a slight relapse at the weekend – and a severe relapse this lunchtime, which left me stranded in the middle of town and quite unable to walk. Indeed, it was painful enough merely standing and waiting for K to pick me up and take me to Accident & Emergency. Where I spent an uncomfortable and tedious afternoon, before being dosed up with some seriously groovy painkillers and sent on my way.

This is all most tiresome. I think I’ll be working from home tomorrow.

Gah, me and my pledges. I’m feeling knackered and flat today, after staying up too late last night, and the night before, for no good reason other than not wanting to go to bed.

Actually, that’s not quite correct. I was on gig-reviewing duty last night, and so had to suffer an hour and a quarter of an amiable but dreary performance by Amp Fiddler, down at The Social. This started promisingly enough, but quickly sank into blandly noodling retro-funk tedium. Too limited in musical and emotional range, too reverential to its roots, and just too damned cosy by half. Dude needs to take some risks.

Nevertheless, this gave my plenty of material for my review, which I rattled off fairly quickly when I got home. (I used to spend up to an hour and a half, agonising over every word. These days, I can think them through on the walk home, bash them out in 20 minutes, edit them in another 10, and they’ll be much better pieces for it.) Trouble is, even once the review is done and dusted, I’m still left saddled with a surge of residual energy, despite the inconvenient lateness of the hour.

So I’ll generally pour myself a “well earnt” beer – always the third of the night, as I only ever allow myself two at the gig – and settle down to some “relaxing” web-surfing. And then, before I know it, it’s stupid o’clock, and I’m shame-facedly sliding into bed and trying not to wake K in the process.

In which case, let’s fulfil the “one post per day” pledge by means of a quick Open Mike session. This should also help to get the brain juices flowing before I head out later, for my office-buddy JP‘s “farewell” drink. (He’s back off to Hangzhou for a few weeks.)

Please leave me a question in the comments, and I’ll do my best to answer it. One question per person, and I’m only going to answer the first five. OK Go!

1. Will asks: Which is the best/your favourite ABBA album track that was never a single?

It might surprise you to know that I only own one Abba album that’s not a compilation: 1974’s Waterloo, which I bought at the time. I came quite close to buying their next, self-titled album, and have clear memories of fingering it wonderingly in the record department of Boots the Chemist in the Doncaster Arndale Centre – but teenage rock cool eventually got the better of me, and so we parted company for a few years. By the time we were fully reconciled, their recording career was over.

Anyhow, there can only be one answer, so thanks for the easy lob: it’s “The Visitors” from 1981, which I first heard on a Hi-NRG compilation album in 1984, and haven’t stopped enjoying since. Brooding, epic, explosive and deliriously, deliciously paranoid.

2. Joe.My.God. asks (although he’s having to shout to make himself heard above Abba’s “The Visitors”, which is playing right now, very loud): If not K, then who?

An even easier lob! Bless you!

I’ve thought about this a lot over the years. Of all the people I’ve ever met (and, for that matter, “met”), could one of them ever have graduated to the status of Life Partner, if I had never met K?

It’s an intriguing thought – not least because I have been prone to the occasional crush along the way. Sometimes, it has been quite a strong crush. But every time, without fail, the crush has faded within a few months at most. And, despite their occasional intensity, no crush has ever encroached upon the feelings I have for K.

That’s partly because my feelings for K exist in a different dimension, and partly because crushes are, by their very nature, transitory and illusional. To experience a crush is to be temporarily captivated by your idealisation of someone. Or rather, by the ideals which you project upon them. The longer you know them, and the better you get to know them, the less able you are to sustain the idealisation.

I couldn’t imagine ever sustaining a successful long-term relationship in a parallel universe with any of my crushees. That’s partly because, trust me, I am very high maintenance, and most people wouldn’t put up with it. But that’s also because – and I’ve said this before, and I meant it then, and I mean it now – K is, in my objective judgement, the most wonderful man I have ever met. Indeed, I work on the implicit and only partially delusional assumption that everyone who meets him is silently kicking themselves for not getting in there first.

So, if not K, then quite probably no-one. My love life was disastrous before I met him, and I suspect it would have been equally disastrous without him.

(Incidentally, and lest you think otherwise: he gets crushes too, and we chat about them quite light-heartedly. Jealousy, you say? Darlings, we just don’t do jealousy.)

3. diamond geezer asks: You’re secretly enjoying this “having to post every day”, aren’t you? Even though you’re pretending not to.

Well, if anyone should know about the pleasures of daily posting, it would be diamond “hardest working blogger in the business” geezer. Yes, I am enjoying it – because I’ve successfully imposed an external discipline upon myself, which seems to be working. I work best under duress. Too much freedom makes me flabby. And when I get flabby, I get miserable, and progressively more unable to fight the flab.

Having said all that, I opened Blogger with a heavy heart this evening. Oh, must I? The feeling lasted at least halfway through the second paragraph.

4. z asks: You seem to have your dream job. Is it, or is there a sneaking ambition for something else, or something more?

Yes, z, you are quite right. IT consultancy is indeed my dream job, and the fact that I get to work in CICS/COBOL on an IBM mainframe is merely the icing upon the cake. What more perfect a match could there possibly be for my skills and talents? Why, I couldn’t imagine ever doing anything else. And the fact that members of my company’s management team regularly read this blog has no bearing upon my answer at all, no sir!

(The serious answer: it’s far from my dream job, but it’s comparatively stress-free, and it pays OK, and I can do it, and it doesn’t leave me so spiritually sapped that I can’t do anything else outside work, and none of the people I work with are w@nkers, far from it indeed, and there are no crappy office politics to deal with, and my current clients are the most professional outfit that I have ever worked for. But I can’t see myself still doing this in ten years’ time, for all sorts of reasons.)

5. patita asks: Looking forward to any new music this year? CDs or live performances.

The easiest of all lobs! For upcoming live performances, all you need to do is scroll down until you find the “we’re seeing” section in my sidebar. The list is automatically generated by upcoming.org, and I am most diligent at keeping it up to date.

(Yes, the inclusion of last year’s X-Factor finalists Journey South is a little weird, but I have a morbid curiosity and am hoping to fashion an interesting review from the experience. Getting someone else to accompany me might be a little tricky, though.)

Looking through the full schedule, I am particularly looking forward to the Hidden Cameras and the Scissor Sisters, both of whom I shall be reviewing. All of which handily provides the answer to the other half of the question, as I cannot wait to get my clammy paws around Ta-Dah and Awoo.

Here’s the idea. By clicking on the sixth link in my blogroll, then the sixth link in the blogroll that follows, and so on until I get bored, I shall be magically transported to some strange and exotic new lands, way outside the confines of my weekly round.

Well, it beats dreaming up original new content, at any rate. So here goes.

The sixth link in my blogroll is Blogadoon, which I have been reading since the back end of 2001. In fact, looking through the rest of my blogroll, there are only three other sites left from 2001: Hip To You, Overyourhead and World Of Chig. Perhaps not surprisingly, I have met all four bloggers in person, many times. That must be the secret for blogroll longevity.

Anyway, Blogadoon is a fine place to start. Between February and June of this year, Ian and I spent most of our Wednesday late evenings together, down at Get Em Off And Win A Hundred Quid Nite at the White Swan in Limehouse. Ian’s blog remains resolutely hand-coded, and retains the same site design that it has always had. There’s a good deal more photography than there used to be: I like the Brighton & Hove beach huts best of all.

But tarry we mustn’t! There’s an adventure to be had!

So, off we go to Ian’s link #6 – and why, if it isn’t dear old Minor 9th. This is one of the oldest names in the UK blogosphere (it was started in 2000), and yet its author has only just turned 23. Pausing only to admire a nice picture of carrots at Borough Market, I zoom off in search of Simon’s blogroll…

…only to discover that he doesn’t have one. (Separate “links” pages don’t count. Far too much like hard work.) So it’s back to Blogadoon, and down to Ian’s link #7.

And now we’re off into uncharted waters. Bob’s Yer Uncle also trades under the name Blogging Makes Me Drowsy, depending on where you look. The Bob in question is currently travelling round North America – but he must be a Londoner, as lo and behold, he too has recently visited Kit Off For The Lads Nite at the White Swan. And oh! And whoops! Bob also has Troubled Diva on his blogroll! Perhaps we have rubbed shoulders, without my even knowing it. Time to move swiftly on.

Bob’s sixth link takes us across the Atlantic good and proper. Zenchick – Musings From The Lotus Position is currently on hiatus, so my visit will be brief. Her sixth and seventh links have expired, but her eighth link whisks us off to…

The Pieces Of My Life, which greets its readers with a photo of a baby’s bottom. This woman calls her children Doodles and Sweetie. There are several transcribed conversations between Doodles and her Mommy. There is a birthday cake in the shape of a space rocket. And link #6 is to…

Daniella’s Misadventures – Bringing Big Easy Charm to the Tri-State area! Big Easy? Is that New Orleans? But where on earth is the Tri-State area? It’s at times like these that I realise how my overseas readers must struggle with my own regional parochialism. Daniella is also hiating, so let’s zoom off to…

Pepper of the Earth – The Home Office Record & Mostly Daily Gazette. New York based, good photos, nice writing – but very little new content since the middle of May, which seems a shame. I’m beginning to feel like I’m wandering through a blogging Marie Celeste: all the signs of recent activity are still there, and the food on the plates is still warm, but there are no actual human beings in sight.

Speaking of warm food on plates, here comes a familar name: Chocolate & Zucchini, which was long-listed under the Best Food Blog category in this year’s Bloggies.

(I know this because I was one of the judges in this category, despite barely being able to boil an egg. My speciality is pinging the buttons on the microwave, a skill at which I am second to none.)

Chocolate & Zucchini is a class act indeed: professionally laid out, with an air of calm authority, and OH MY GOD SHE ATE AT EL BULLI JEALOUS DOESN’T BEGIN TO COVER IT. (What other restaurant would be mad enough to seal portions of olive oil inside soft casings, to make them look like real olives?)

An Obsession With Food is up next. This sports a lengthy blogroll – and guess what, they’re all food blogs. I feel that I have stepped into a self-contained world within a world, and may never escape.

OK, let’s see how long this takes.

The Amateur Gourmet (Burrito French Toast, Pot Au Feau au Trois Viandes) -> Give Me Some Food (Pappa al Pomadoro, Bresaola Carpaccio with Gribiche Vinaigrette) -> Becks & Posh (Harissa, Almond and Chocolate Tart) -> My Epicurean Debauchery (Stuffed Trout with Edamame-Miso) ->The Girl Who Ate Everything (Fish & Chips, Lamb Curry, Shepherd’s Pie, no blogroll) -> Lovescool – For The Love Of Dessert (tea-flavoured sweets) -> Dessert Comes First -> (Nectarine-Plum Cobbler with Hazelnut Biscuits) -> The Traveler’s Lunchbox (“Seven Steps to Perfect Brioche”) -> OKAY, STOP. THIS ISN’T FUN ANY MORE.

Conclusion: blog-hop for long enough, and you too will end up stuck in the larder.

“So, [insert name of interviewee here]. Do you have any regrets at all?”

“Oh, no, no, no, ha ha! No regrets! If I had my time all over again, I wouldn’t change a thing!”

Sorry, but does everyone think like this, or it is just something which people say in interviews because it’s a nice easy cop-out of an answer, which they hope will make them look all wise and resolved and at peace with life?

Regrets? I’ve got hundreds of them. Poor judgments, bad decisions, missed opportunities, time wasted, potential undeveloped, acts of selfishness, acts of weakness, sins of omission… and, the most keenly felt of all, all those occasions where thoughtless words or deeds have caused hurt or offence to others. Sure, some of them have been Learning Experiences, which have Made Me The Person I Am Today – but, given a rewind button, I would erase most of them in an instant.

That’s normal, isn’t it?

…and now reading the Sunday Telegraph in the next room. So nobody make a sound, OK?

I have just discovered that my father had a bit part in The Titfield Thunderbolt: a classic Ealing comedy film from the early 1950s. The scene is towards the very end of the film, and my father plays Boy Running Down Hill. It’s an uncredited, non-speaking role, and almost entirely shot from behind – but nevertheless, it Still Counts. We’ve just been playing and re-playing the scene on DVD, and it’s fairly clearly him.

I can’t believe that I never knew this before, as it was one of my father’s earliest boasts to my mother (a movie star in her own right) when they were first courting. Perhaps he thought it was too poofy (this came before National Service put hairs on his chest), and that it might influence me too much towards a theatrical life?

Incidentally, yesterday’s rain stopped just in time for the fireworks display – which was just about spectacular enough, but not a patch on two years ago. Some very odd choices of music – there’s never any excuse for Westlife, and do we really need to be reminded of Darius’s “Colourblind” again so soon? – but the climactic display which accompanied U2’s “Vertigo” justified the ticket price alone.

She went up to bed about two paragraphs ago. (“Oh, there you are.”) I had BBC News open and ready, so no sweat. Now, dare I risk a fag in the garden?

I am forty-four years old, and still sneaking around the old girl like a furtive teenager. Ah well. We have made progress on many fronts over the years, but it’s good to retain a little generational distance.

She’s sitting in the next room, right now, reading the Daily Telegraph. So I must be stealthy, and quiet, and quick.

The rain has been tipping down heavily all day, and shows no signs of stopping. This does not bode well for the evening’s entertainment: the Festival of Fireworks at Shugborough Hall. To which we are taking a picnic supper, complete with chairs, tables, wine glasses, and those nice Wedgewood Queen’s Ware soup bowls. We may get a little soggy. But too late to back out now.

Oops, I heard movement. Catch you later.

Update: I’ve since realised that this diagram is logically flawed. Can you see why? I’ll try to explain in the comments.

Damn, that indexed person is good.

Specifically, let’s talk about this all-devouring shift towards uniform informality, which has jammed my fashion radar good and proper. Everything these days (*) just looks like different shades of informal, and I can no longer discern between the shades, and I know this shouldn’t matter – but nevertheless, it can’t help but distress me somewhat.

I used to be good at this sort of thing, you see. Show me something that was filmed between 1962 and The Year 2000 (**), and I can usually place it to within a year or so, just by clothes and hair. (There are points in the late 1970s and early 1980s where I can practically tell you the month.)

But now, it’s just seven hundred versions (***) of the same low-slung, pre-faded, tiger-striped, boot-cut jeans that have been around since the turn of the decade, matched with the same old shoes (that trainers-meet-bowling-shoes look seems here to stay forever) and the same printed T-shirts (I stopped reading the slogans when they crossed over into total meaninglessness). Business shirts are stuck at pink, casual shirts are stuck at check.

That much-vaunted 1980s revival (which, like the much-vaunted 1970s revival before it, seems to be stretching out forever) could do with stepping up a gear or two. I want smart back, people!

(*) Do beware of middle-aged men who start their sentences with “Everything these days”. We said we’d never, etc etc.

(**) Don’t you love the way that some people still say “The Year 2000”, as if it were still something of great import?

(***) Sorry, I forgot. Cardigans are, apparently, “back”. This is hardly an inspiring development.

I was taken to Marine Ices, at the top of Chalk Farm Road in Camden, by my aunt and uncle some time in the 1970s, at the end of a Day Out in London. My eternally sweet-toothed aunt had been brightly suggesting it all day, keen to initiate me into its delights.

However, this also required a major diversion on the way home, and my mild-mannered, taciturn uncle couldn’t quite mask his annoyance at having to do the extra driving. Not that he was actually rash enough to say anything – indeed, no-one else would even have noticed – but my aunt, a wonderful woman but neurotic to her core, homed straight in on it. Her hidden guilt at caring about the ice-cream in the first place quickly converted to accusatory snappiness. Words were exchanged, and a dizzying pantomime of beat-your-neighbour martyrdom ensued.

(“Well, I don’t mind either way.” “Well, I don’t mind either.” “Yes you do, you just said so.”)

My aunt got her way, but the lingering atmosphere was so thick with awkward resentment that it was impossible to enjoy the ice-creams, which were hurriedly purchased and sullenly consumed.

Keeping quiet in the back seat (my chief strategy for surviving my teenage years), I felt this almost as a desecration. This was a self-evidently special place – and yet, with her awkward knack for self-sabotage, my aunt had manoeuvred us away from being able to enjoy it.

Decades later, and thanks to some wonderful news, I can now convert this dim, shabby memory into a vivid and wholly delightful re-imagining. Congratulations to you both.