Bertie Bassett's Barmy Army! Bertie Bassett's Barmy Army! Bertie Bassett's Barmy Army!

In the interests of maintaining the delegates' focus on the matters in hand, through sensory deprivation, there were no windows. The lighting was erratically spaced and curiously specific: here a glare like that of nuclear fission from which people emerged permanently sightless, there a murky gloom in which nothing could be deciphered. Also, some dire framed reproductions of countryside scenes, fuzzy and with the colours printed out of register, lit as if they were works of art.

There was also a poor attempt at a chandelier, whose plastic crystals gently tinkled whenever a certain piece of apparatus in the gym upstairs was used. The pattern of exercise was generally one of slow but steady application escalating to a climactic frenzy. Even in the context of a hotel, this wasn't nearly as amusing as it should have been.

In addition to the usual false leather blotter, wide-bore ballpoint pen that clicks and unclicks with an unpleasantly loose rattly action, paper with widely spaced lines and the hotel chain logo squatting ugly at the top, blank nameplate toblerone, and a map of the building showing escape routes, each place at the table had been provided with a pack of Refreshers.

To my immediate neighbours I remarked: 'Refreshers. I didn't realise they were still doing them.' There was a pause and then from left and right a rush of Refresher reminiscences, to which I quickly contributed.

Later we introduced ourselves, later still we exchanged business cards. It wasn't much, but in difficult circumstances it was all we had.

Esperanza

Once in my early teens, seeking to relieve the tedium, I let off a fire extinguisher. It was a warm day and the exercise was intended to provide both entertainment and a welcome cooling shower for my companions. In this measure it was successful, but I'd only intended a brisk squirt and once the lever was depressed it irrevocably stayed that way. The stream was unending and all attempts to halt it proved fruitless. The situation was becoming desperate, as this took place in furnished quarters. I was left with no option but to point the thing out of the window until fully discharged, thereby betraying my misuse of emergency appliances to a wider audience than intended.

It would indicate me as callous, lacking in empathy, quite without the basic human wherewithal to engage sensitively with the emotions of another, if I were to admit that, whenever confronted with a person crying I experience an acute jolt of memory back to the day of the unstemmably flowing fire extinguisher. So I won't. In particular, on such occasions I do not recall the sense of rising panic, nor does the repeating tickertape thought: "ohmygodhowdoimakethisstopohmygodhowdoimakethisstop" return to mind. At all.

And I certainly don't hang anyone out of the window as a last resort, in case you were wondering.

It's clear that no-one ever told Esperanza to pull herself together. No stiff upper lip for her. There's a Mediterranean saint for you - an English equivalent, faced with the suffering of Aar Lord would probably set her face at lemon sucking and possibly emit a disapproving tut. I expect if Esperanza ever did dry up someone would have been quick to restart the waterworks:

"Oh hello Esppie dear, how cheerful you're looking today, glad to see you're not letting thoughts of Christ's suffering get you down so much now... you know, the crucifixion, darling... with the crown of thorns, the nails and that." And she'd be off again, snot everywhere, shares in Kleenex, etc.

Should be at a party to celebrate the Announcement Of The Recession but cried off citing indigestion

Among the stacks of books I had not previously got around to reading, 'Anna Karenina'. Had always meant to, though all I knew of it hitherto is that the lady of the title does not buy a return ticket. Saw Il'ya Repin's portrait of Tolstoy at that RA exhib not long ago, which gave me fresh impetus - the fellow was standing in the out of doors, barefoot and in his nightshirt. How could I not?

I took advice on the translation. Limits to what can be done to convey style - only deadpan travels relatively unharmed. Best you can hope for is that the prose made their own is unobjectionable. I was ordered to seek out the rendering by Constance Garnett. A perfectly Victorian name, speaking of sublimated urges, which is what you want in a translator.

In fact her work was the only one in my language to be found. There's an Oxford Classic edition faced with that hoity toity sort in the Ivan Kramskoy painting, and several others but I bought an import on the strength of the lovely supple floppiness of the cover. Didn't look at the introduction - I usually read these last, like film reviews they make more sense afterwards. Only when several pages into the thing did I sense something missing among the words.

Went back to the forenote, and after emphatically saying they have not flipped with the text they admit to having altered some 'Britishisms'. What are Britishisms? Perhaps in Miss Garnett's unaltered draft someone is erroneously depicted lurking about the samovar with a jug of Jersey cream? The sleighs and carts misrepresented driving on the wrong side of the carriageway?

So far, no appreciable damage. The cleaner at the publishing house will have been finding the odd excised 'and' here and expurgated 'to' there for several weeks after the adaptation process, but I seem to mentally slip them back in anyway.

Even without trousers there are some satisfying lines. Just as much as the one about families, etc, I like the ones that just sit nicely, even if not doing a great deal beyond the necessary. At the opening of the chapter in which the youngest Tcherbatskaya starts pashing on Mlle Varenka:

It was a wet day; it had been raining all the morning, and the invalids, with their parasols, had flocked into the arcades.

I can read that repeatedly without it ever seeming banal to me.

This is why I don't

It had been a while since my phone was last charged. From a number I didn't recognise, a message obviously not for me:

"i miss u"

So I composed a message back. It took ages, even with making a concession to the medium of using the word 'text' as a verb (it felt wrong but I thought it might be more easily understood).

"Sorry, you texted the wrong number."

In reply, seconds later.

"fuck u"

There's only so much you can do. I consider the correspondence closed.

Things I've recently thought of on waking

Appearance of a cloudless sky where, beyond the crest of a hill, there is sea beneath.


In an empty playground as a child, near the top of the steps of the slide, no-one to rush you: thinking that you can, but if you can't that's okay too.


Weakness and aching of limbs after a long time spent in bed: with illness or a person, the feeling is the same.


Creak and thump of doors in a hotel, how quickly they become familiar.

Not that if have, but I did I'd be selling tickets

If I have a wood chipper and the Secretary of State for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform at my disposal, the only moral dilemma I am faced with is feet first or head first, no?

Chicken Curry With Chips! £4:00

Bought vodka because I liked the shape of the bottle (that Polish twisty one), but then gave it to my host later in the evening. Now they've moved the booze corner in Selfridge's it's even closer to the Orchard Street door and I hardly have to see any shopping taking place at all!

Yesterday, freezing, dandruff in the air. Today, eh?

The fire station, with its rescue practice tower, adjacent to the north side of the Barbican, has gone. Gone. Awww, bollocks!

At the cinema, 'The Reader'. Fiennes his usual wooden self (he makes Rickman look expressive), but fair do this time around as he was playing someone stilted by regret. Winslet does middle-aged fine, but someone should tell the make-up artists when to stop: in rendering an actress elderly, think day-for-night. David Kross, what a sweet lad, you can see why she's alle aufsteigen and taking him back to the depot.

At the Photographer's Gallery's new home, so many stairs, that'll put a stop to the traditional pushchair jams in the cafe. On the walls, teenagers handjiving. Morris dancers. I forget the rest.

In & out of Wandsworth, numbers on their names, funny how the missus always looks the bleedin same

The other week I was standing sentinel whilst the person of whom I was temporarily in loco parentis did the necessary between parked cars. Sound of collapse and hysterical laughter from behind me but ever the gentleman I didn't turn around. And got a plentifully hot ankle for my discretion. You would think, having lost balance and been overcome by hilarity, she'd at least have halted the flow. Then she told me she got more on her jeans than mine, so that's all right then.

Making the acquaintance of a woman of such rare grace, poise and sophistication, well, normally by now I'd be in love. She smokes like a Transdnistran factory chimney and treats the peppar in her Absolut as the only mixer needed. She agrees with me on the plight of the Groke. She knows every word of 'Cool for Cats' by Squeeze. When she speaks German it's with a Bavarian accent and that is heiß! Or heiße. I dunno.

But when it comes to the etceteras she only likes ladies. It's true, all the good ones are gay or taken. Or something.

I've been told it's my fault, wrong social circles and all that. In short I'm turning into the male equivalent of those girls in every third David Leavitt short story. But a bit older.

Nique la rentrée

Having run out of reading matter I turn to The Irritations Catalogue. It's a brochure of accessories, gifts and trinkets distributed to a mailing list of public and voluntary sector employees and their admirers. Here's a selection of products that caught my eye:

Beggars With Big Pleading Puppy Eyes Sitting on Blankets Beside Cash Machines Accompanied by Big-Eyed Pleading Puppies Calendar 2009. 12 scenes of aesthetically pleasing importuning, heart-warmingly juxtaposing canine and mendicant. Now with Accession 8 subjects at July and November!

Indeterminate Blankety Thing. It's a throw! It's a wrap! It's a constant source of annoyance to your colleagues as you deploy it ostentatiously in meetings when it's not even remotely chilly! Available in three exciting colours, Plum, Periwinkle and Old Semen.

Woollen Blackberry Cosy. Accessorise your persistent hand tumour with this portable communications device snuggler, hand-knitted by Peruvian orphans. Colours include Puce, Spruce, and Tubercular Phlegm (see swatch inside back cover).

'Leanne And Carl Go Halves On A Bastard' (1985) 122 minutes. Another re-release from agit-prop movie nostalgia house Days of Fatch. A wry, witty and subversive tale of love and procreation on the income support in Kirklees, West Yorkshire. Commentaries by director Trevor Spanner and Eighties societitian Beatrix Campbell. Fully restored synth soundtrack including Art of Noise, Stephen Tin Tin Duffy, Bronski Beat, and Nik Kershaw. Blu-ray format only.

Also noted: a Deluxe Inflatable Hugo Chavez (actual size - foot pump required, not included) and a boxed collection of erotic lithographs inspired by an imagined, completely hypothetical, but nevertheless steamy three-way coupling between Tony Travers, Tom Bloxham and The Outlaw Robin Wales (I know you're thinking three cannot possibly 'couple', but just see it and believe!).

Suppose I should think about getting ready for work soon.

They sliced him open like a mackerel, then stitched him back up, thankfully

Went away for a bit, but took myself with me, so had to give up and come back.

This year I resolve to do whatever I did last year. There, pressure's off now!
Can't see why they bothered changing the number of the damn' year. Hasn't done the blindest bit of good, as you can see.

But at least at this season there's Alan Bennett's diary in the LRB:
" 'She had a face like an upturned canoe,' said by the actor Charles Gray at breakfast in Dundee (though of whom I can't remember)."
4 February. More senior moments. I can't find my pullover and don't like the one I'm wearing because it has several moth holes. 'I had another pullover, ' I say to R. 'I was wearing it this morning.'
'You still are. You've put the other one on top of it.'

Bike over to Gloucester Crescent and leave the bike there while I walk round to M+S. People often smile at me, but this afternoon nearly everyone smiles. It's only when I come back to Parkway to have my hair cut that I realise that I'm still wearing my crash helmet."

Don't go long on celebrity, but I always look out for him when I'm in NW1 - never have spied the fellow.

I used to keep an eye out for Dirk Bogarde when in Belgravia, and irrationally I still do. Also quite hopelessly, Quentin Crisp when I was in Chelsea (yoursnotours). You might see a pattern emerging there and you might or might not be right - without intent I am forever clocking Peter Tatchell in the street, though it's been yonks since I saw him on his bicycle (zipping through the gap in the barriers that enables cycle-borne turns from the Strand onto Waterloo Bridge).