My friend called me up today, he’s been hyper ever since the Israelis started their mass murder, but today apparently they were bombing his village where he was born and he was sat in front of telly watching it. I didn’t know what I could do about it, and felt mildly angered because what could I say? I’m sickened, not by the Israelis anymore, because we all know they are barely civilised, but by the cowardly behaviour of everybody else who need to step in and give them a good hiding. These are typical schoolyard bullies that we expect our children to be able to handle at school, but we ourselves mumble and shuffle our feet and then turn a blind eye to.

Going to Red Chili today!! We’re finally getting rid of Adam; he’s moving down to London because there are no women left to molest here in Manchester. Aww, bless. So we have to send him off tonight. After which I’ll be seeing him tomorrow for badminton, so I’d better keep a rein on those crocodile tears tonight. I just applied to Bill Gates’ (ex)company. Downside is, if I’m accepted, the job’s based in Reading. Where IS that place? Seriously, being based in Manchester and not being willing to travel on account of all the material junk that has accumulated around me (drum kit, tv, cds, clothes, friends, etc.) has hampered my prospects no end. All the jobs in Manchester sem to be recruitment or secretarial. And I’m too good for that! Believe me, I am!

Superman Returns. I hadn’t even realised he’d left! We couldn’t catch it on the IMAX (huge, 3D) screen because there were no commercials in that showing and we all were playing it cool thinking there would be atleast 20 mins of trailers. There were some crystals, and a piano, and newspapers, and an earthquake, and then a big ball fell down, and then some crying I think and then he was injured and then he got ok. There wasn’t a single laugh in the whole film!!
More importantly, I didn’t make my Chicken Arabiatta cause we got home at 10 p.m. and I was too shattered from sitting in a cinema hall to do any cooking. Plus I had really loaded up on dry roasted peanuts during the show. So we each had authentic noodles from Chinatown that come in a bowl the size of the Meteor Crater, Arizona. Slurpilicious!! Sean Connery and Wesley Snipes were on t’telly making like Japanese, so we watched that.

Yes, I didn’t forget!! Going to watch Superman today with a merry band of revellers, then I’m hoping to cook a real hot Chicken Arrabiatta for din-din. Yes dears, my life revolves around my culinary experiences. There’s a protest march against the Israeli bombardment and occupation of Lebanon (again) on Saturday, 1p.m. outside B.B.C. I think I might go along for the heck of it, and take some piccies.
Oh which reminds me, Manchester Museum is going to hold a Wildlife Britain photo contest, so any good photographers out there (I don’t know any!) can take part. Entries should be submitted by 29/9/06. The museum is offering a workshop working with photographer Ben Hall as a prize. But I’m really disappointed with Manchester Museum’s website, it’s really crap for such a nice and important place.

I noticed yesterday there was an old movie (1957) on telly. It was called ‘The boy on a dolphin’ and was named after a statue of, you guessed, a boy on a dolphin. I thought I might see some nice diving scenes because there was Sophia Loren in it, so I watched a bit of the start. Sophia is a Greek sponge-diver girl on the island of Hydra, and her boyfriend (Jorge Mistral) is Albanian. So they speak with funny accents like “Why you tell me do this, do that?” which absolutely cracked me up. It was like they were taking the Mike and it was unbelievable because political correctness hadn’t been invented yet.

Ok, I went running for Sport Relief on Saturday; that was a laugh. Manchester looks great in festive mode. Sunday was a day for badminton, an intense workout now that I’ve taught everyone to play properly 🙂 Lately I’ve just been having a lot of great home-cooked meals, for example a lovely beef/potatoes/peas mixture with pancakes yesterday. No football today with Simon’s lads; I somehow knew that they weren’t the kind of people who could keep up a regime of sport every week. Bit disappointed, because it was good fun. Haven’t seen anyone in a while, except a brief glimps of Jill, Jessy and Ioannis after badminton on Sunday.

I have been unable to keep you guys posted with tales of my high-flying lifestyle because I ain’t got one.

Yesterday was Silly Movie Day at Jessy’s pad. Ioannis had rented ‘Austin Powers – The spy who shagged me’ while I brought (the much superior) ‘Team America’. It was a novel documentary about terrorism, global domination and foul language, all told through the media of puppetry and music. Having watched it earlier, I didn’t realise how much of my enjoyment of the film stemmed from the ridiculously brilliant songs. And where, even in a billion dollar Hollywood blockbuster, will you get such brilliant scenes of a shark attacking Hans Blix or black panthers marauding some F.A.G actors (Danny Glover and Sean Penn, I think). Fantabulousa!!
I’ve picked up ‘Zorba The Greek’ to join my classics section, so far the first chapter is pretty much what I expected, except one character (Zorba himself, actually) speaks like a typical Greek with all sorts of fits and bursts of Exclamations!! and Proclamations!!

France is through, thanks to Zizu’s penalty. Commentators’ analysis= “Keeper got a hand to it though”. “Well, he may as well have dived the other way”. Watched it With Sha and Ioanni over beers and my famous Chicken Caesar salad.
I watched the Italy/Germany game with Sha, Ali, and an Italian stranger called Lucio in the Walkabout bar. There were Germans on one table, Italians on another and bonhomie all around. I was impressed by Italy; although I went in wanting Germany to go through, Italy impressed me from the start and I ended up rooting for them. I hope the Final is a good one. And thank heavens the cheating slimy Portuguese are out.

Yes that’s a term of endearment. Or used to be. But not anymore. Not since I saw the film ‘Dumplings’ at The Cornerhouse with Sha yesterday. The film also managed to put me off dumplings or, for that matter, any suspicious-looking Chinese food. Wait, I never used to eat suspicious-looking Chinese food anyway. For good reason, as this film shows us.
Mrs. Li (Miriam Yeung) used to be a T.V. star (television, not transvestite) but now she’s getting older, and is worried about keeping her millionaire husband’s shifting attention. She hears about Aunt Mei (Bai Ling) and her miraculous dumplings that reverse the process of aging, so turns up to buy and eat some. Mei is her own best advertisement, as she says so herself, because despite being 20 years old in 1940 she still looks 30 max. And fit.
Unfortunately (mostly for the audience) the dumplings have a secret ingredient that’s abso-fuckin-lutley revolting. Go watch it if you have the bollocks of a gorilla. I only saw half the movie because of the chilling scenes, so I want my money back.
It’s a strong statement about the lengths people (women) will go to in order to stay young, and societal pressures, and blah-dee-blah, but that’s not why you’ll remember it. You’ll remember it for the secret ingredient that abso-fuckin-lutley disgusts you. Promise.

I’ve mentioned Gogol Bordello before. Their music just leaves a smile on your face. Absolute crazy-daft lyrics. Like “Drop the charges. In the old times, it was not a crime” referring to God-only-knows what. I bought their album ‘Gypsy Punks’ recently, and I was smiling as soon as I left home with my Walkman. I seriously recommend you to go check them out a their website: Gogol Bordello. And you’re guarnateed a smile.

Some more lines

Sally was a fifteen year old girl from Nebraska
Gypsies were passing through her little town
They dropped something on the road, she picked it up…
And cultural revolution right away begun!
Yes right away begun!!

Now dub it tovarisch, like tovarisch would!